One Of Us!: South Carolina

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Charleston SC Family Gathering - Aquarium Visit

Pat, Karen, Susan and I headed over to the Charleston Aquarium on Day 2 and decided to post this separately.

Whale Of A Bone...

Snakes All Around...

Nice Legs...

This next one is the infamous Albino Alligator and the exhibit just opened on March 20th, 2010. According to the press release, they estimate that this guy is only one of 50 in the world. He has been at the aquarium for about 6 months acclimatizing and they still have him cordoned off to one side of the tank until he is fully adapted to his new enviros.

Word has it that he came from a gator ranch in Florida and lacking pigment and all, was not likely to survive to adulthood at the ranch or in the wild.

Here is a shot I got from the Aquarium Website...

This is video of the Great Ocean Tank. Boasts the deepest tank in the world (The largest is in Atlanta)...

And now for something completely different....

Not sure why there is a Bald Eagle at the Aquarium but, what the hay...

And we finished off the tour with the Penguins on loan from the San Diego Zoo.

Charleston SC Family Gathering - First Night & Mom's B-Day

So, we had a gathering of the immediate Brown family to celebrate Mom's upcoming 80th birthday, Jenny''s 50th and Mary's 58th.

Here is a photo of me and the Obama's in DC on the trip down...

We checked into the DoubleTree Suites on Church Street, right downtown which served us very well.

The night we arrived, the city was on fire with revelers of the annual Cooper River Bridge Run. The streets were packed and the crowds were highly lubricated after running or watching the 10K.

I think they said that about 45K people were directly involved in the race (running or supporting) and maybe about 80K total when you counted in the partiers that came to watch.

We had great food at the The Library Restaurant the first night and I would recommend the Short Ribs.

Day 1

Team Brown headed out to Patriots Point across the Cooper River Bridge (longest cable-stayed bridge in the western hemisphere). Unfortunately, we spaced our camera and will have to rely on on the web links if people want to see pictures.

We had a great time touring Fort Sumter, which was involved with the first shots fired in the civil war. Pretty cool history review and glad we went.

Then we hit the the USS Yorktown Carrier for a tour and this was very cool. Dad was able to recount stories of being on the USS Boxer which was of a similar class carrier during the Korean War. I think dad had fun relaying the stories of daily life on the ship (he was on it for 2 years of duty) and we got a kick out of them for sure.

After the tours, we headed over to Sullivan Island where we were going to hit Poe's Tavern (Our friend Katy's recommendation). When we arrived, we determined it was too crowded for our group of ten and we ended up across the street at the Home Team BBQ. Hit the spot for a hungry crew as it was about 3pm already.

We had happy hour in Mom & Dad's room and at this point we unveiled Mom's Birthday Photo Book. The book was a sibling group effort with me as publisher via the Kodak Photo Book website. Kudos to Susan as well for her editorial input.

You can click on the Photo or Link to check it out here (there are additional photos past the 80 in the published version)....