Traveling Again! A Quick Visit to Charleston

Nothing gets between Jonathan and some good ole Civil War fun!

Before we dart off to SF, John Paul lined up a private visit to the Hunley (the first successful submarine) for SuSu, Kirstin and Jonathan! John Paul knows Michael Merdikian the Senior Conservator on the project, and Michael gave us a lengthy private tour of the vessel in his lab where they have been doing research on it since it was raised from the Charleston Harbor in 1999.

The remains of the 8 confederate crewmembers were excavated and given a proper burial 140 years after they went down. The researchers continue to study the vessel and its contents to understand why it did not return after its successful mission. This was an incredible experience and I highly recommend checking out the tour -- even if you must join the riff-raff of the public tour on weekends! www.hunley.org



Stairs are no challenge at a time like this!

On the VIP tours (or shall I say friends-of-John-Paul tours), even the gracious armed guard gets in on the action to get JD up/down the stairs. (Note the new tennis balls on the bottom of the walker.)





Kirstin, John Paul and Jonathan atop the scaffolding looking down on the tank that holds the vessel.











Looking down on the Hunley from above.
(Its the rusted hunk-o-metal below).

It's really quite a site, but hard to capture here. It was small, hard to imagine 8 crewmembers in there!









SOME OTHER CHARLTESTON HIJINX

Who is that tiny woman in front of that giant tree?
Angel Oak, St. John's Island










IMPROMPTU BBQ AT GRAY'S POOL
Sorry I didn't manage to get pics of everyone, I was busy worrying about eating -- and ironically, not getting eaten myself by the bugs (they only seemed to bite ME, the newcomer.)