Easter in Charleston (my favorite!)

As usual Gabriel and I had totally different spring breaks which meant that we were apart for almost 3 weeks in March. He spent a week climbing in Joshua Tree National Park (where we went camping on our first date about 6 years ago), then he had a week long medical school rotation up on "the farm" and then I spent several days of my spring break in Baltimore and DC. For one overlapping weekend though we drove the 4 hours down to Charleston, SC which is just one of my most favorite places in the USofA. It is a very neat old city with a lot of fun contemporary shops and restaurants mixed in with 300 year old buildings. One of the best parts though is that we are privileged to have a relative of Gabe's to stay with when we go there who lives in an unbelievable 4 story house that was built in the late 1700's and is on King Street which is one of the most historic districts of the city. Many of the houses on the street can even boast having canon balls still lodged in the sides of their sides. We have our own little hideaway there as we get to stay in the "kitchen house" which is a little separate cottage that all houses had to have for the cooking of food which had to be done separate from the house because of the high risk of fire in a the very densely populated city. We feel like royalty when we stay there and we love to pass the time with cousin Maurice who knows just about everything there is to know about the history of the city and it's architecture.

Here are some images of Maurice's house and I will post again later with some other images of Charleston:


This is Maurice's house. As is typical with the Charlestonian home, the front door doesn't open into the inside of the house but instead onto a long porch and the garden. It is still a strange feeling to go through a large wooden front door just straight back outside. (The last of the three photos here is the view from having just stepped through the front door). Also, as always, all of the houses are only one room wide on each floor without even a hallway, you walk directly through each room to get to the next.