Breaking Dawn Part 1, Chapter 2

Now where were we.....Oh, yeah, picking right back up from yesterday.....

We left the hotel room and we went straight to the horse and carriage ride.  We decided we wanted to do the "Red Barn" tour because it would take us to see all the historical houses in Charleston and we could go inside the barn to visit the horses.  

This is the barn where the tour began.

When you go inside the barn, there is a souvenir shop to the left and a large platform that you stand on in order to climb into the carriage.  I thought that was pretty damn cool.  Years and years ago when I went on a carriage tour of Charleston, you had to stand on a box stool in the middle of the street and climb your ass into that carriage.  Thankfully, we didn't need a forklift this time we just had to step off the platform and into the carriage.  

The back of the carriage....The "ass" of our ride :)




The "lotto" box.

The "lotto" box was at the beginning of the tour.  We had to stop and request a route from the box....I had never heard of this and if I have it correct, the way the guide explained it was that the box determined by a random draw (hence the reason I keep calling it the "lotto" box) which route we took.  It is mandated by the city and every carriage ride has to be determined by random draw.  I hope this makes sense...It was kind of confusing so I took this picture to try to help out my explanation.  LOL.

Just one of the many beautiful houses on Rainbow Row that we visited.



Our view of one of the side streets from the carriage.



I really love the cobblestone streets and the palm trees!!



I liked the steps on this one.

I was pretty impressed with our tour guide.  He had lived in Charleston his entire life and knew everything about it.  Some of these houses were built in the 1700's.  

Check out the massive porches on the left side of this house.  Holy shit!  Beautiful!!

What I want to know is, when you have multiple porches on your house to pick from...How the hell do you decide which one to sit on?  That is one problem that I would love to have!  :)




Check out the porches on this one!

That white part on the top of the picture is another porch!  Just big enough to stand on it looked like.  I wish I had gotten that part in the photo!  As you can see, I'm no photographer and we were in motion!

Wow, so pretty!

I have been telling Steve for awhile now that I want to move to Charleston.  He laughs every time.  So, when we got home from this trip I informed him that I found the house that I wanted him to buy me when we move there.  "How much" he said.  My response:  "It's only $17 million dollars, honey!"  ;0

I can't remember what this building is....I don't think it's residential but I thought the front of it was pretty cool.



This is the front of a church.  I love how the gate was left open.  It looks like someone just squeezed through there...

This was one of the horses on the outside of the barn after our tour.



These are the horses that pulled our carriage.  They were having a snack after our tour.

Our horses names were Rhyme and Reason.  LOL, clever.

The carriage tour was so fun and informative.  When we were finished, I felt like I really had learned something about Charleston.  We didn't to talk to each other much during our ride.  We were too busy listening to the tour guide and taking pictures.  I thought that was just perfect because we needed a fucking break from each other.  JK!  It was nice to just sit and enjoy ourselves. 

After the carriage tour, we had one more hour of free parking before we had to move the truck so we decided we should venture around the market area to see what cool shit we could find.  While we were on the tour, we noticed a Ghost/Oddity store on one of the side streets that I've never seen before so we decided that was right up our alley and we should check it out.  Of course we couldn't remember which side street it was on so after asking a local for help, we found it.  I'm so glad we did!

I should have taken more pictures in this store but I was trying to not be rude (haha...that's not normal).   The quote on the wall says, "Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of."  Ben Franklin     I'm always in a hurry so to me that was pretty heartwarming.  Those things on the wall are all clocks.  I like that stone gargoyle that is sitting on the edge of that shelf too.  I just couldn't figure out who would put a red ribbon on such a thing....

This store was cool as hell.  They had all kinds of "potions", zombie stuff, fairy stuff, and just lots of weird stuff sounds like a straight description of the kind of shit we're into.  I wanted to buy Neon and Supa EVERYTHING.   I WAS looking for Christmas presents on this trip.  I got Neon a severed foot that grows when you put it in water.  Haha!  I also got him a bracelet made of skulls and crossbones.  Those will make great stocking stuffers for my son that loves zombies.  I could have spent a bunch of money in there but I controlled myself.  LOL.

After that little adventure, we were starting to think about having a snack.  We saw a bakery on our tour so we figured we would walk over and check it out.  Possibly score some cinnamon rolls or some other evil treat.  When we made it over there we looked in the window and realized that it was really a restaurant.  Not what I would consider a "bakery".  False fucking advertisement!

I took a picture simply so I could bitch about it.  It says Bakery & Cafe.  Not Cafe & Bakery.  WTF?!  I just want some bomb ass cinnamon rolls!!!

Having a little time left to kill, we mosied on over to the Moon Pie General Store.  Good times!  They had every single flavor of Moon Pie ever known to man!!  I should have tried a mint one (my absolute favorite flavor of all time) but I wasn't in the Moon Pie kind of mood at that moment.  They had a bunch of snacky samples to try like praline pecans and cheese straws.  They also had this:

Does that sign say "FREE"!?  That's my favorite word!  I don't even need a coupon for it to be free?!  Hallelujah!

Each of us left with a free Moon Pie.  I had to dig in the bottom for a chocolate one...No mint ones in there.  Actually, I left with mine but I think Jade and Lolly ate theirs standing right in front of the basket.  LMAO!  Someone suggested we make off with the entire basket...Lolly, was that you?  HAHA!

I turned the corner and saw this:


MR. BACON!!!  Bendable and lot of fun wherever fun is needed!!!

Are you kidding me?  I fucking love bacon!  You could wrap almost  anything in bacon and it will magically taste like heaven!  I really should have bought this for myself but I decided that if it was accessible to me at my desk, I would probably feel the need to chew on it.  Damnit.  Even though I have a deep love and respect for Mr. Bacon, he had to stay there. 

I did buy the kids a box of Harry Potter jelly beans from the Moon Pie store.  They are not getting wrapped for Christmas because they will be from Santa (so they don't have a sharing issue, LOL).  They are gross flavors like grass, ear wax, vomit and dirt.  If you haven't tried them, please do.  Supa and I bought a box a long time ago and stood at the kitchen sink, each trying every single one and spitting them out in the sink.  They are the real deal and we had so much fun getting grossed out together.  Just what my kids need!  They are going to love them! 

SO, as I am buying the beans for the kids....

I turn to Jade and say, "What do you think "RAS" stands for?"  I'm thinking, that has nothing to do with Moon Pies.....

And Jade turns to me and says, "Ah, I think that means that the "T" and the "H" are missing.  As in "TRASH can".  Oh, shit.  What a fucking idiot I can be sometimes.  Yes, I am a brunette that just had an official blond moment because that was an honest question.  Wow, Apple, get it together.  LMFAO!  We got a super good laugh out of that one.

After our little market adventure, it was time to move the truck.  We didn't know what we felt like doing at first but we knew we sure needed a snack.

TO BE CONTINUED.......................................