April 17, 2026
This morning we need to pack up and hit the road. Of course coffee comes first. Again, I have no idea where we are going. She put the directions in my phone and off we went. About 3 hours later we were at Patriot’s Point, Charleston, South Carolina. A good number of years ago, we had visited Patriot’s Point. Then, they had a Coast Guard Cutter and a submarine that you could go on. Those vessels are gone but they have the USS Laffey docked there. Unfortunately it was not open yet. It is a destroyer that served in World War II and Korea. It earned the nickname of The Ship That Would Not Die. The history is amazing. It was at Normandy during D Day. Then it went to the Pacific Theater during Okinawa. It was there that it earned it’s nickname. Laffey survived 22 kamikaze attacks, 4 bomb hits, and 6 kamikaze strikes. It was a neat looking ship that I got some photos of. The other ship on display is the USS Yorktown. A World War II aircraft carrier that was actually renamed. The original name was Bon Homme Richard. They renamed it the Yorktown to honor the original Yorktown that was sunk during the Battle of Midway. During WW II it earned 11 battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation. After the WW II it was updated to handle jet aircraft and served in Korea and was deployed to Vietnam. The last action was the recovery ship for Apollo 8 astronauts.
On board the Yorktown there is the Medal Of Honor Museum. Very awesome place. I almost lost my cool there as a school group of teenagers were not showing enough respect, in my opinion, to the museum. They weren’t obnoxious but their behavior was not what I would like see. Also, I was tired so ….. We left the ship and walked over to the Vietnam Experience. It replicates a Brown Water Navy base from the Vietnam era. I had a friend who served at a base like this. We watched a video in a nice air conditioned building and then walked around the base for a while.
This brought us to about 3:00 PM. Time to go to find our motel and get ready for the evening adventure. Again, I had no clue what it is. It took us about 5 minutes to get to our motel. It was fine for just an overnight. We had time to relax and shower and get dressed. When it was time to leave I needed directions. So back to Patriot’s Point. It was there I found out that we were booked for a dinner cruise around the Charleston Harbor. We had really enjoyed the Mississippi River dinner cruise. It could have been seating with one or two other couples. We would not know until we boarded the ship. As it turned out we had a window table to ourselves and was next to a gentleman that sang and played guitar.
We got underway at 6:30 PM for a 2 1/2 hour cruise. Our server was excellent. The food was very good. The music was also very good. We led the applause for the musician most of the time. After a leisurely meal it was time to go out on deck and take in the sea air and the sights at night. Most notably in Charleston Harbor is the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge (Cooper River Bridge) with the cables illuminated it looks like a harp. Then we saw a large triangle lit up in red, white, and blue. Was not sure of its origins but it was very cool. As we were pulling into the dock it was then that we realized that is was the USS Yorktown. Very nice night. Tomorrow we head home.
