A Day Trip to Charleston, SC

A couple weekends ago, the girlfriend and I took a day trip up to Charleston, SC (that's right, I said day trip) to see one of our favorite bands, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors open for NEEDTOBREATHE. The show was phenomenal and the trip was amazing. If you're ever in the Charleston area or planning a road trip on a budget, I highly suggest planning, but not over planning.

Georgia, South Carolina State Line

It's always a good idea to know what your plan is for food and sleeping, but aside from that I found out nothing really matters. To save some money we decided to car camp and we brought snacks, sandwich fixins, and breakfast. We knew we wanted to see the city, but didn't know how and we knew we wanted to eat at a "local" place, but we didn't know where.

Fort Sumter from the boat

Before we left I asked a few people for eating suggestions and got some ideas about things to do, but didn't make things happen until that day. We got to Charleston around 1:30pm, pulled into a Walmart parking lot and started browsing the interweb on our phones trying to find stuff to do. We ended up going on the Charleston Harbor Tour and had a great time. Tickets weren't overly expensive ($20 each I think) and we got to take a boat ride, see Charleston from the river and learn about the history. While the captain did a great job sharing and explaining the history, I feel like 90 minutes was only enough time to give us a snippit of all the history in Charleston.

The Tattooed Moose

After the tour was over we were pretty hungry (that's an understatement) and saw a pretty cool, local looking place on the way to the boat. We stopped at The Tattooed Moose literally because of the name and logo. We did some quick research on our phones and found that people seemed to like it so we gave it a shot. It's an awesome local bar/restaurant with a ton of beer selections and they carried Westbrook Brewing Co. IPA (I love IPA's), which is brewed locally in Mount Pleasant, SC. The Thick Cut BBQ Brisket was moist and tender and the side of Duck Fat Fries (don't judge) was the perfect combination. I think the most interesting thing that came with it was their sweet spicy green tomato pickles. I'm not a big fan of tomato's, but this thing was awesome with so many different flavors and spices wrapped into one delicious food item. You just need to go there and try it one day to understand what I'm talking about.

Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors

Finally it was time for the show. I was most excited to see Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. I've been a huge fan of his since 2007 when I first saw him at one of Young Life's summer camp's, Windy Gap. This is back when he didn't have any neighbors, he was a solo act, and his wife Ellie was still teaching kindergarten. I was happy to hear a lot of their new stuff off their Good Light album along with Drew's witty humor. For instance, he told everyone that he and Ellie brought their 6 month old daughter on this tour, she got to see 30 different states and Canada, too bad she won't remember any of it. They ended their set with Fire and Dynamite off their Chasing Someday album and left the stage with a well deserved standing ovation.

I'm not very familiar with NEEDTOBREATHE, so I wasn't able to follow along with many of their songs. However, they have such a stage presence that they can keep you interested even though you have no idea what song they're singing. When you got to one of their shows, they make sure you get your monies worth. Their set lasted just over 2 hours, no complaints here, but I was amazed that they could play such a long set. I feel like I've seen a lot of shows where the headliner plays for maybe 45 minutes to an hour and they're done. Needless to say, I was thrilled that they played for over 2 hours.

NEEDTOBREATHE

By the time the show let out, it was just after 11:00pm. We already had a long day, but decided to get a head start on the driving. We drove a couple hours until we came to a rest stop in Georgia where we pulled over and caught a few Z's before waking up to get back on the road at 7:30am the next morning. 

We had a great trip and I'd highly recommend spending some time in Charleston either on vacation or if you're on a long road trip and want to make a detour. With the history and the friendly Southern residents, you can't go wrong. Have fun and remember, plan, but don't over plan.