To take advantage of a three-day weekend and escape the cold (this was very early this year), my super amazing wife and I went on down to Charleston! Now, I lived in Charleston for two years for Nuclear Power School and Prototype, with a brief interlude up in Connecticut for Submarine Officer Basic Course (the Google AI search results describe SOBC as “intensive” and lemme tell ya intensive it is not). My super amazing wife wanted to go to Charleston to see a bit more of the South, and also to see the city where I had spent those formative years between the Naval Academy and reporting to the ship. I hadn’t been back to Charleston since I had driven out of there heading to Guam so I was excited to see what my old haunts had been up to.

And so after landing mid-morning and feeling comfort from the cold back home among the palm trees we went to go haunt said haunts. Although our focus for the weekend was going to be downtown and the coast, first thing we did was head the wrong direction up to North Chuck where we drove around my old neighborhood and then got lunch at the sandwich shop nearest to my heart, East Bay Deli. Back when I lived in Charleston I wouldn’t exactly save up to go to East Bay Deli, but I would only allow myself to eat there once a week, and on test days. I would savor that Rueben and rejoice in sweet tea. Luckily, EBD was exactly as I had left it; I sat in the same seat under the same posters to enjoy the same sandwich. Nostalgia and hunger satisfied, we then drove on downtown and spent the rest of the afternoon walking down and up it.

Charleston really is a charming city. When I was living there post-Annapolis, I thought of it mostly as a much bigger DTA (Downtown Annapolis). During our walk we started at the top end of downtown, and popped into what was then my favorite bookstore, Blue Bicycle Books. That was also as I had left it, unfortunately minus a bookstore cat I fondly remember. We also popped into my aspirational clothing store Ben Silver (mostly aspirational, my favorite pair of dress shoes is from there). I was very pleased when my super amazing wife dubbed it “beautiful.”

We continued to make our way toward the Battery, enjoying the architecture more and more as we went along. I really enjoy the Charleston single houses, with their outdoor door between the street and the porch. It just all seems so charming as you ignore the various historical markers explaining the beginning of the Confederacy. Finally reaching the Battery we admired the water as a small seaplane flew overhead. Absolutely no notes on Charleston’s location with a beautiful and protected harbor.

Having walked down King to get to the Battery, we started back up on East Bay Street, and thus I got to show my super amazing wife Rainbow Row. Back in nuke school I had gotten myself a painting of Rainbow Row from the sadly defunct art gallery in the Pink House, and then spent even more (surprisingly, to me at the time) to frame it. As such I rather like it but upon moving in together my super amazing wife’s aesthetic sense quickly decided the best place for it was prominently on display in the little-used guest bathroom located through a closet. We have not had a chance to redecorate since but my hope is that now that she has such a personal connection that maybe my Rainbow Row can wind up someplace less humid.

Anyways we continued to hit the highlights. We admired the Pineapple Fountain and how much it looked like a pineapple. Then we walked all the way through City Market on the lookout for a suitable sweetgrass basket. I have used one for years as a catchall and my super amazing wife wanted her very own. We weren’t too eager to buy one just then as the plan was to get one at the source on the sweetgrass basket highway, but during the weekend we never actually saw anyone in any of the stands despite driving through several times at different moments. I think it was always either the weather or everyone being at Church but we had to go ahead and get one finally in the Market on our last day.

At this point it wasn’t exactly getting late but it was getting later. The big plan was to go to Hyman’s to really round out my list of nostalgic locales (except for the place that never cut us off from bottomless mimosas one Tuesday morning after getting off the midwatch during Prototype). My fondest memory at Hyman’s is one of the servers getting wide-eyed and excited to explain the different traditional bases for shrimp & grits to my friend’s mom. This time around they only had shrimp & grits as an appetizer (reviewing the menu online maybe I just missed it under the entrees) but the crawfish I had as the main were good, though my super amazing wife stepped that up a notch with the shellfish delight. Plus too I ate soundly knowing I sat in the same spot noted Maggie Rogers fan Pharrell Williams had sat.

After a long day of verifying everything was just as I had remembered it, we drove off into the sunset (actually opposite the sunset) across the Ravenel bridge to check into our Mt. Pleasant hotel. We had to prepare to achieve a nearly decade-long dream of my super amazing wife’s the following day.