John's Birthday in Charleston, SC

Seeing as we couldn't get our act together in September, we moved our anniversary trip to John's birthday trip. Since it was just a short weekend voyage we did a lot of walking around and a lot of eating. Not much else. We now have a pretty good grasp of downtown Charleston. I may have been overly excited when we accidentally walked past Bubba Gump's. And I got my mom a Christmas present from a local artist. I was sad that we didn't go to any plantations, but it rained all day on Sunday so we were kind of limited in what we could do.

Saturday was really just exploring. We were way too hungry when we got up so I forgot there was a restaurant I wanted to go to. So we missed out on that one. We walked down to the water, saw a lot of old houses, and sat on the water front swings. It was really cold, despite it being the south. The wind off the water was awful. But thankfully the sun was shining for all of Saturday. We walked around market street but I never did find a Christmas ornament. Then we found a farmer's market/craft show and wandered around there. Complete with crazy bible lady. Then it was time to get beer! We went all local, woo! We  stopped by Amen Street (yes!) on accident for beers and raw oysters. And a nice pub for more bears. I did try the local sweet tea vodka....though it was in a mixed drink so I can't say for sure how great it was. The drink was ok. 
 
The two main restaurants were McCradys for dinner on Saturday and Husk for brunch on Sunday (the actual birthday), both by the same chef, and both wonderful. John's a pork fan and we had some kind of pig in everything. Menu at McCradys included amazing swordfish, John's beloved Berkshire pork, and a happy birthday apple something. And a really great Malbec. John's only complaint were the holier-than-thou high society pretentious folk. But that's what we get for going to a fancy restaurant in the south I guess. Oh and I got escorted to the restroom. Super fancy! John loved his pork and said he would eat the apple dessert for every meal. A happy birthday boy! When we got back to the hotel there were chocolate covered strawberries and champagne, which we had to take with us because we'd been drinking for hours.

At Husk we had the famous fried pig ear lettuce wraps (so good!) and friend green tomatoes with pimento cheese. And birthday sweet potato pie with bacon ice cream. We may have bought head chef Sean a new car, and we could barely walk after two huge meals, but it was really good food. And Husk focuses on local ingredients, so I was happy.

Again, it was raining on Sunday so we headed to the aquarium instead of a plantation or the beach. It was not as good as I remember, but still a fun afternoon. We found a giant turtle, who we at first thought was a rock. Hey, the sharks were really distracting. Also, pretty sure if there had been no glass we could have been eaten by a rattle snake. It was the most active I'd ever seen a snake in a tank.

Now we have to figure out what other random weekend adventures we can have.