Charleston Meet

The Hilton Head Island Motoring Festival & Concours d'Elegance will take place about two hours away from Charleston November 3 to 5, 2023. Yes, Charleston still has nice weather this time of year that is perfect for our Auburns, Cords and Dusenbergs.

Hotel Indigo Mount Pleasant, an IHG Hotel, at 250 Johnnie Dodds Blvd, Mt Pleasant, SC.

October rates of $179/night, plus tax

Hosts:

Natalie and Scott Bluestein 843-345-1041 Scott Cell 843-345-1608 Natalie Cell This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

DOIN’ THE CHARLESTON..WE ARE GOIN’ TO HAVE FUN!!

Consistently ranked among the best cities in the United States, Charleston, South Carolina is a vacation paradise, with warm weather, magnificent car drives through beautiful Lowcountry scenery, an incredible food scene made up of old-school favorites and inventive newcomers, a prime location steeped in history and surrounded by water and beautiful beaches, with plenty to see and do. There’s something for every type of club member here, and this will be an Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club Meet to remember. Charleston features a walkable downtown with charming architecture and hidden treasures everywhere you turn!

Start your day with a warm, homemade biscuit from nationally acclaimed Callie's Hot Little Biscuit on King Street, or in Mount Pleasant close to the hotel for the excellent Vicious Biscuit. Wonderful local restaurants are located along planned drives through the Lowcountry, and dinners will also be held at places full of great food and local Charleston history. We will also have a list of restaurants for you to try on your own, if you’d prefer.

While the historic city is perhaps better known for its significance during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, you can learn about World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum, where you'll find the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier, a destroyer, and a submarine, along with other educational exhibits. At Patriots Point, a short drive from the hotel, you can board a vessel for a Charleston Harbor tour on your way to visit Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began.

Shem Creek, located in Mount Pleasant, is home to several waterfront seafood restaurants and bars, and you can walk along its boardwalk to take in views of the water, marsh, and boats (and breathe in that fresh, salty air).

The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which connects Mount Pleasant and downtown Charleston, has a path for pedestrians. You can walk across its entirety (about 2 miles each way) — or just a section — for breathtaking views of the Harbor (if you're not afraid of heights)! It is a short walk from the hotel.

A visit to Charleston is incomplete without a stroll down the main drag, King Street. On Lower King, find antique shops packed with all sorts of vintage wares and the Gibbes Museum of Art a block away; Middle King features a mix of locally owned shops and high-end boutiques; and Upper King is home to some of the city's best nightlife and dining.

On upper King Street you will be close to the Charleston Museum, the oldest museum in the United States, that is well worth a visit.

At Joe Riley Waterfront Park, you'll see the iconic Pineapple Fountain, and walk down along the water before strolling over to Rainbow Row, made up of several candy-colored Georgian-style row homes. There are several old mansions open for tours in this area. Continue down East Bay until it becomes East Battery, another scenic street, with views of the Harbor and historic houses that ends at White Point Garden. White Point Garden marks the end of the Battery, the city's seawall and promenade. A beautiful park surrounded on three sides by water, it's also full of miscellaneous, historic munitions and statues, from Civil War-era cannons (still pointed at Fort Sumter) to a 1943 statue commemorating the 18th-century pirate Stede Bonnet, who was hanged in the Garden, and even pieces of the USS Maine, which exploded and thus triggered the start of the Spanish-American war.

It is also worth looking at the stately historic old homes located South of Broad Street in downtown Charleston. As you stroll through the neighborhood you can see a variety of different styles of architecture and beautiful gardens. Several of these historic mansions are available for tours. In 1775, Thomas Heyward Jr. was elected to the Continental Congress, and in 1776 he was one of four Charlestonians to sign the Declaration of Independence. Heyward served in the local militia to defend Charleston. Visitors can take a guided tour, learn about the history of the Heywards, and hear the story about that time President George Washington spent a few nights in the house. Other tours include the Calhoun Mansion, which is considered one of the most important pieces of Victorian architecture on the Eastern Seaboard, and the Nathaniel Russell House, Aiken-Rhett House, and the

Edmondston-Alston House.

If you’d rather eat your way through Charleston, take a culinary tour of the city! There are a few local dishes that visitors must try (and they're featured on menus of many restaurants). Try fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits, she-crab soup, and hush puppies (delicious balls of deep-fried dough, often served as a starter or a side with fresh seafood), all washed down with a glass of sweet tea.

We have two magnificent drives planned, to Kiawah Island, Middleton Place Plantation and Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site. You will have time in the afternoon to tour Charleston on your own. The drive to Kiawah Island takes you through a rural South Carolina Island along roads lined with live oaks on each side, which is considered to be one
of the best drives in the world.

We will we have a seafood lunch at a marina located outside Kiawah and stop along the way at interesting historical locations.

Dinner on Friday night will be at a restaurant overlooking the water with a gorgeous sunset.

The following day we will drive to Middleton Place Plantation, which has welcomed visitors for over two and a half centuries. It is the site of the first Botanical Gardens in the US, and you will enjoy a stroll through its vast garden rooms, visiting the heritage breed livestock in the Stableyards, learning skills utilized when it was a working plantation through live demonstrations by its resident blacksmith, potter and other textile workers. Daily outdoor tours reveal three centuries of stories of men and women, free and enslaved, who participated in the building and in maintaining the stewardship of this American icon, originally owned by a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

For those who want to arrive early, there is a pretty drive on Sullivan’s Island and the Isle of Palms, two beach towns with great restaurants and history. Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan’s Island, tells the story of Charleston's role in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and was in use from 1776 to 1947.

There is so much to do in Charleston you will have to come back for another Club event to see it all!