On Monday morning, we took our time waking up and getting breakfast. Noel let us know that we were meeting Doug and Meredith to spend the day together but they wouldn't be available until about 1:00. Since we had a little time before that, we drove about twenty minutes away to a playground that Doug told us about. It was called Park Circle Playground and it was an amazing new playground built for all ages. He guaranteed us that the whole family would enjoy it and he was definitely right on that! This place was absolutely incredible!! We easily spent over two hours there.
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As we finished up at the park, we got back into the car and drove over to Mt Pleasant to a place called Patriot Point where the USS Yorktown is stationed. We found a parking spot and then we made some sandwiches and ate lunch while we waited for our friends to arrive. Once they got there, they called us and we headed to the entrance to meet them.
We probably spent over three hours exploring this actual aircraft carrier and a couple of other exhibits that were located there as part of the tour. It was really neat and definitely one of our favorites for the week!
Here is the view as we were walking towards the carrier...
...and the famous Ravenel Bridge just off in the distance. I was trying to take a picture of the bird that was just sitting on the pillars but I guess that you can hardly see it as I was still too far away.
Tickets normally also include a tour of this battleship, but it was closed at the time of our visit due to reconstruction and restoration efforts.
Once we got inside, the kids took turns sitting in various aircraft and they also took Preston and Charlotte inside the astronaut capsule for one of the Apollo missions where they could hear footage of the launch and then being dropped back into the ocean on the return.
Melayna took her turn walking on the moon...
...and then we went below deck to start the tour of the inside quarters. Here is a small library that was located on the ship.
One of the washrooms. Toilets were located around the corner.
The sleeping quarters - which also included lockers and a couple of game tables.
They had several kitchens as there are usually so many men on the ship. And they have a kitchen for the regularly enlisted men, the non-commissioned officers, and then the officers dining area.
This is one of the kitchens....
There was a recipe posted that the crew actually used to make chocolate chip cookies, which is always a favorite of the sailors on board. On any given day, a cook may make over 10,000 cookies!!
After all of those cookies, a sailor may need to visit the dentist.
Or with a stomach ache, they may need to visit the doctor and the sickbay.
There was also a game room, a brig, a post office, and a barbershop, among many other amenities.
Noel used a little downtime to take a short nap in an officers stateroom...
And then we went to the Pilots Preparation room so that we could hear about our important mission.
Some very attentive students!!
After spending much of the day below deck, we were finally able to go to the upper deck and see some of the planes that were on the ship. That was definitely my favorite part of the tour!!
Melayna thought that I was taking a picture of her but I was actually taking a picture of Nolan as he was trying to stick his head inside of the plane!!
They still have a F-14 on display so Noel was remembering his "Top Gun" days!!
There was just so much to see and experience. 'Definitely a full day's adventure!! I am glad that we were able to spend some time aboard the USS Yorktown and celebrate the sacrifice of the service members and their families during WW1 and WW2 among many other missions that we don't even know about.
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As we were walking back towards the mainland, we saw that they also had a commemorative display set up for the soldiers of the Korean and Vietnam wars so we went to walk through those as well before everything was closed for the day.
Noel and Nolan went to sit down in the back of one of the choppers. I can only imagine how loud and uncomfortable that ride would be!!
As we were walking through the Vietnam memorial display, the kids started to get bored so Melayna and Nolan took them off to the side and played a couple of silly games to keep them busy. It was sometime shortly after this that Preston told his mom that Melayna was "his best friend always".
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The kids were getting restless and the adults were all getting hungry so we decided to follow each other to a local restaurant that was just a few minutes away and then we had the blessing of eating dinner together at the Okra Grill.
Oh my goodness!! We had to wait outside for a while until a table was ready for us, but once we sat down and ordered our food, it was definitely worth the wait. We ordered some beignets to keep us busy until our meals came -- not quite as good as New Orleans, but still yummy!! And I really, really enjoyed my Chicken and Waffles with southern grits. Did I mention that I also enjoyed the sweetest of sweet teas?!
Sometimes I feel silly taking pictures of my food, so I just took this one from the website.
They also had a drink called "Holy Water". It feels a little sacrilegious considering what all was in it, but it tasted really really good too!
Melayna stayed occupied all through dinner, which helped us have a great conversation with our friends while we ate.
With full hearts and full bellies, we decided that we should part ways as it was getting late and the kids needed to go home and get ready for bed.
We crossed back over the Ravenel bridge to head back to our house and then we spent the rest of the night watching the NCAA final four championship!!
What a fantastic end to another great day!!
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