Charleston

   At the risk of exciting envy from some of my readers, I am writing this at 5:25 local time. I am at the dining room table of a small, nicely furnished condo in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. If I look up from my work, I have a view from a balcony window that faces the Atlantic Ocean. If it weren't for the fact that the balcony door is broken, I would be sitting on the balcony. We are here courtesy of C's cousin, Jack, who is letting us stay here for part of the week. The only thing that would make this more perfect is a cup of hot herbal tea. Unfortunately, Jack's taste runs more towards coffee.
  We spent yesterday in Charleston. If you are ever in Charleston and looking for something to do, take a carriage ride. There are several carriage companies operating in the city. The carriages seat about 12-16 people and are pulled by one or two draft horses or mules.
  According to our guide, there are more carriage companies in Charleston than anywhere else. The industry is regulated by the city. Before we could start our tour, we had to check in at a small booth operated by the city. We had to wait in a line of carriages going out. Only a certain number of carriages are allowed out at one time. The wait wasn't long. Our guide, T, had to give her carriage number, license number, her name and the name of the horses she was driving. This is to make sure that the horses are not doing too many tours in one day and are allowed a proper rest period. The routes are determined by lottery. The city employee presses a button and is given a route. He showed the route number to T and fixed a card to the back of the carriage. Then we were off.
  Our guide too us around the city pointing out various sites. She showed us the balcony of a hotel where General Robert E. Lee watched a fire that burned down much of the city of Charleston in 1861. I think T told us that Charleston had five great fires. A great fire is anything that burns down more than 50 buildings. Many times the fires burned down hundred of buildings. Sometimes the only thing that stopped the fires from spreading further were the rivers that surround the town. She also pointed out the earthquake bolts that some older structures had. These bolts were used to straighten the walls after the earthquakes. Since they are not very effective it is no longer legal to use them.
  She showed us many examples of the Charleston "single house". It is a long narrow house that is one room wide and two rooms deep with a porch that faces either south or west to take advantage of the breezes and protect the house from the afternoon sun. As we drove alone the smell of Confederate jasmine was in the air. This is a vining plant that grows on many of the fences of houses that we passed. We also passed several large crepe myrtle trees. They are named for the bark which looks like crepe paper. We saw another vining plant who name I can't remember. All I know about it is that, unlike ivy, it grows on top of the brick on the houses and doesn't damage the brick.
  Many of the houses have gaslights that we were told burn all day every day. The guide said, "If you can afford to live here, you can afford to have the gaslight on 24-7" (The house prices are in the millions) Some of the houses had strange numbers like 23 1/2 or 16 and 1/4. This is because carriage house and cook houses were converted into single family homes. As the city did not want to renumber the street, they started using fractions.
  We had stopped at the side of the road to allow cars to pass and also to allow the guide to point out some things about the area we were in. One of the horses decided to she needed to attend to the needs of nature. The horses and mules wear a "diaper". ( A pouch attached to the rear end of the animal to catch excrement.) The diaper the horse was wearing was full and much of the contents spilled onto the street. T took a small ball with  a flag on it and tossed it on to the spot . Then she took her cell phone and called a number to report the spill. Because there are so many horses on the street, there is a company that comes and sprays an natural based deodorant on the spills to combat the smell. If you ever see a small ball with a flag on it on the street in Charleston, do not pick it up.
   The tour ended. We went back the the barn where the tours started. We all got off the carriage and thanked T. It was a lot of fun.
   I felt a little wistful. I wished that I was from Charleston. It is so much more interesting than Minnesota. There is no French quarter in Minnesota. (Unless you count you count Frogtown, but it isn't the same) There are no interesting types of architecture in Minnesota like there are in Charleston. Not too many figures of historical importance have ties to Minnesota. ( I can only think of one, Hubert Humphrey and I'm not sure too many people remember who he is.)
  We spent a little time after the tour exploring the historical part of the city using a book we bought a few years ago. There was a lot to see and time got away from us. We had to leave before rush hour so we could get back to Myrtle Beach before dark. It was a good day.