The rain stopped! Blaine suspended work on the new Ark. But it was still a bit chilly and cloudy.
The day began with a stop at the Verizon store. I now have a new phone. With the same number. I have no idea how that works. Last night, Blaine talked to Verizon and they stopped service on my old phone. Incredibly, we were able to restore my pictures! I have no idea how that works either, but I’m ecstatic!
After all that was settled, we returned to downtown Charleston. It’s cloudy and we needed winter coats, but at least we were able to get out and walk around! We visited a different part of town today for a bit . . .
There were trees in the town square decorated by different people.
Kinda like the John S. Knight Center, only not nearly as elaborate.
There was a market around the park perimeter that we walked through.
There were some interesting things, like smoked honey and olive oil. Didn’t buy any, but I’ve never heard of that.
The palm trees had white lights in them. Hard to see in the daylight, I know, but if you look closely, you’ll see yellowish dots. : )
This is St. Matthew’s Luthern Church.
We stumbled upon it as we were walking.
There was a sign out front that said it was open for a couple of hours, so we went in.
Whadaya think of that lectern? ?
Do you supposed the pastor actually gets up there on Sunday morning?
And a pipe organ!
The attending docent told us the second floor was pretty much destroyed by a devastating fire in the 1960s. We also made our acquaintance with a street person in this building. He never stopped talking and we could see the docent was getting a bit vexed. As we walked out, the street guy followed us and introduced himself as “Skinny Pimp” and said it was his 60th birthday. We wished him a happy one and were relieved when we went separate ways. (Mostly relieved because his talking was incessant!)
On the way back to the Jeep, we passed this. Made us smile as that’s our son’s name. : )
We then headed over to Folly Beach (about a 30 minute drive). That’s pronounced ‘folly’ (with 2 ‘ls’ and a short ‘o’ sound, meaning something foolish), and not ‘foly’ (with one ‘l’ and a long ‘o’ sound, used of a person who makes noises for movies – foly artist). Actually, the name doesn’t even mean either of these things. It was named for its coastline which used to be densely packed with trees and undergrowth. The Old English name (can you say, ‘King James’?) for that kind of area was “Folly”.
Today was Folly Beach’s Christmas Parade. We didn’t know. We could hardly get around because all the streets were blocked and cars were parked literally everywhere. The only part of the parade we saw was when it was over and we happened upon a few things.
But we were able to park near the beach and not too far from the pier. It was cold and windy, but fun! And as happens many times, we were just about the only ones there. Not too surprising – – everyone else was at the parade! 😊 And we saw some birds that I never thought I’d see at an Atlantic Ocean pier! And not only that, but there were only one or two seagulls!
How many flying pigeons can you spot?
And by the way, Pigeons? At the beach??
And he meant it!
Isn’t he gorgeous?
But a red-tailed hawk at the beach??
Our main meal today was in Folly Beach at a place called Roadside Seafood. It was supposed to be one of the best seafood places in town. We were not particularly impressed. We knew it wouldn’t have great ambiance and that was OK. It was the food that was mediocre. There was so much salt in my crab cakes, I could barely eat them. However, at least the service was excellent.
Then we had a Christmas Show to attend – “Folly Jolly Christmas”. Our first clue as to the caliber of the show was the size of the building. Very tiny! Not being from the area, we had no idea. Plus the information I saw said it was at the Charleston Performing Arts Center – Bridging Charleston to Broadway. Now doesn’t that sound like it would be good??
The first thingI noticed was we were driving the wrong colored car. : )
The entrance to the theater
It was a small (70 seat) ‘dinner show’ type theatre of which 25 seats were filled. Yes, I discreetly counted. That was another clue.
The idea was good. The music piped in. The dancers/singers were the same people. There were 10 of them. Santa was there and made several appearances. They needed more practice. The two main dancers were almost always out of step with each other – and they weren’t supposed to be. Many of the costumes needed repairs.
We spent the same for these tickets as we did for Gaither. Waaaay less quality. But it was Christmas-y. And some of the songs were original and one in particular was cute – “Text Me Merry Christmas”. It brought laughs and smiles.
“Text Me Merry Christmas”
See the cell phone dancer?
One of the highlights of the evening was watching the 6-7-year-old girl across from us as she sang along. Very expressive! 😊
Oh. And I got in trouble. I took pictures and evidently I missed the announcement when they said you couldn’t. So if anyone asks, you never saw these!
At least they didn’t confiscate Blaine’s phone.
Hopefully the next show will be as spectacular as it’s been billed. “The Best Show in Charleston” “Don’t Miss It” It’s coming up on the 14th.