Day 2.51: Charleston, SC

We woke up at Daphne’s and had a quick breakfast at home before driving straight downtown a parking garage that was $2 an hour, which seemed like a pretty good rate. We had planned to go to the Confederate Museum but saw that it was basically one large room of artifacts, which didn’t seem terribly interesting to us. We chose instead to explore the Historic Charleston City Market and stopped again at both Byrd’s Famous Cookies and Savannah Bee Company for numerous samples.

We walked through the cool streets about a mile and a half to Gnome Café, a vegan restaurant far from the historic downtown. Locals definitely wouldn’t walk that far, and our trip did take us through some deserted streets, but we enjoyed exploring. The small café had a nice vibe to it, and the food was decent. Arielle wasn’t in love with her portabella mushroom BLT, mainly because the mushrooms weren’t even pretending to be bacon, but it was good as a mushroom-lettuce-tomato sandwich. Abe, on the other hand, really liked his cinnamon pancakes and found his side of mushroom bacon to be disappointingly mushroom-like. The potatoes were good even with the unfortunate presence of peppers already mixed in.

Arielle found us a less sketchy route to walk back towards Marion Square, where we wandered around the park a bit. Abe brought Arielle into a cookie place where he had bought her little tiny mini-bagels with cream cheese on his last visit, but they apparently don’t carry those anymore. We also went across the street to Goorin Bros. Hat Shop, where Abe had purchased a Shabbat hat for Arielle last time we were there. Our next stop was at White House Black Market, where Arielle had seen a dress earlier that had caught her eye. After she finished, we raced back to the car to get our respective items and for Arielle to change her clothes. Arielle went to a meeting at KKBE, the local Reform synagogue, and Abe went to meet Shari, a friend who we saw just a few weeks earlier in Florida at Shosh and Eric’s wedding, at a coffee shop called Kudu.

After our respective appointments had ended, we met up and went to go get biscuits at Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit, which Arielle was very excited about. They were closing just a few minutes later, so we ate them in our car in an illegal parking spot right outside the market. We got a blackberry, a buttermilk, and a cinnamon sugar, which were tasty but hardly the best biscuits we’ve ever had.

We drove past Rainbow Row, which we had heard was cool but was a bit underwhelming, and Arielle dropped Abe off at a local Harris Teeter so that he could do some work while she drove to Synagogue Emanu-el, right near Daphne’s house, for a meeting. Abe got some TV watching and blogging done, and Arielle returned so that we could drive to dinner. We ate at Five Loaves Café, which was a great experience. Abe got vegan chili and tricolor tortellini, which contained far more pasta than tortellini and ravioli dishes usually do. Arielle got the half FLC Caesar (with cold tortellini) and a broccoli cheddar potato soup. It was a lot of food, so much so that Arielle didn’t even want dessert.

We went back to Daphne’s and she convinced us to watch the first episode of The West Wing, which Abe had seen before. We loaded our car so we would have less to do the next morning, and went to bed.

Approximate number of miles covered: 17

Day 2.50: Savannah, GA to Charleston, SC

We got up in time to have breakfast at the hotel, which wasn’t terribly impressive. We drove into Savannah to get to Congregation Mickve Israel in time for the first tour at 10am. We parked on a meter right by this still-functioning synagogue, which is the third-oldest congregation in America. Our tour enabled us to see and learn about the history of this neo-Gothic synagogue, and how it started as Orthodox before a sermon delivered by the rabbi helped move it to becoming Reform. There was also a wall of letters from United States presidents, including Washington and Trump. The tour was informative, interesting, and worth the $8 cost per person.

We drove a few minutes to park and walk through Forsyth Park, which reaffirmed that Arielle was already in love with Savannah.

We decided to stop by the Conservative synagogue, Congregation Agudath Achim, which was open, and we got a brief tour of the building from an administrator and the executive director.

We may have driven around the neighborhood looking at what houses near the synagogue were like, and encountered some beautiful flowers. We weren’t sure where to go for the lunch, and the place that was recommended by the synagogue had apparently been closed for three years. We ended up driving about thirty minutes to the nearby Tybee Island, stopping first at two lunch places that weren’t what we were looking for before settling on a perfect choice right by the water: The Deck. Arielle got fish and chips and Abe got the market fish, both of which were delicious. Afterward, we walked onto the sand towards the beach and then sat on a bench swing for a while, taking it all in.

We eventually got up and left for Charleston, crossing immediately into South Carolina. It only took us about two hours to get there, and we went straight into town, parking at a meter along Market St. We opted to have dinner at a highly-rated place called Swig and Swine despite the fact that we knew that we would have neither of those two things (the signs and shirts were very entertaining). We had been told by the hostess that we could order a half-pound of the “meats by the pound,” but the waiter said that wasn’t true, so Abe got a pound of burnt ends with collard greens and corn pudding on the side. He liked the meat but didn’t touch either side after a brief sample. Arielle liked the fried pickles appetizer and the sweet tea, but did not like the mac and cheese. Our waiter never came back to check in on us, but a manager who was circling was very nice and took off all of the items we didn’t eat, making it a decent value.

We returned to Byrd’s Famous Cookies for many more samples and a few purchases, then drove a bit to park near the Pineapple Fountain, which we walked around even though it was already dark.

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the home of Daphne, a former USY colleague of Abe’s, who had hosted him last time he was in Charleston back in 2015 after his flight was cancelled on the way out from a USY convention. She had graciously offered to host us for this visit, and we had a nice time catching up before heading to sleep in her lovely home.

Approximate number of miles covered: 124

Day 2.50: Savannah, GA to Charleston, SC

We got up in time to have breakfast at the hotel, which wasn’t terribly impressive. We drove into Savannah to get to Congregation Mickve Israel in time for the first tour at 10am. We parked on a meter right by this still-functioning synagogue, which is the third-oldest congregation in America. Our tour enabled us to see and learn about the history of this neo-Gothic synagogue, and how it started as Orthodox before a sermon delivered by the rabbi helped move it to becoming Reform. There was also a wall of letters from United States presidents, including Washington and Trump. The tour was informative, interesting, and worth the $8 cost.

We drove a few minutes and parked so that we could walk through Forsyth Park, which was very nice.

By this point, Arielle had fallen in love with Savannah and we decided to stop by the Conservative synagogue, Congregation Agudath Achim. It was open and we got a brief tour of the building from an administrator and the executive director.

We may have driven around the neighborhood looking at what houses near the synagogue were like, and encountered some beautiful flowers. We weren’t sure where to go for the lunch, and the place that was recommended by the synagogue had apparently been closed for three years. We decided to drive about thirty minutes to the nearby Tybee Island, stopping first at two lunch places that weren’t what we were looking for before settling on a perfect choice right by the water: The Deck. Arielle got fish and chips and Abe got the market fish, both of which were delicious. We walked onto the sand towards the beach after and then sat on a bench swing for a while, taking it all in.

We eventually got up and left for Charleston, crossing immediately into South Carolina. It only took us about two hours to get there, and we went straight into town, parking at a meter along Market St. We opted to have dinner at a highly-rated place called Swig and Swine despite the fact that we knew that we would have neither of those two things (the signs and shirts were very entertaining). We had been told by the hostess that we could order a half-pound of the “meats by the pound,” but the waiter said that wasn’t true, so Abe got a pound of burnt ends with collard greens and corn pudding on the side. He liked the meat but didn’t touch either side after a brief sample. Arielle liked the fried pickles appetizer but did not like the mac and cheese. Arielle did enjoy the sweet tea she got. Our waiter never came back to check in on us, but a manager who was circling was very nice and took off all of the items we didn’t eat, making it a decent value.

We returned to Byrd’s Famous Cookies for many more samples and a few purchases, then drove a bit to park near the Pineapple Fountain, which we walked around even though it was already dark.

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the home of Daphne, who had hosted Abe last time he was in Charleston back in 2015 after his flight was cancelled on the way out from a USY convention. She had graciously offered to host us for this visit, and we had a nice time catching up before heading to sleep in her lovely home.

Approximate number of miles covered: 124