Patriots Point- Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

I hope you won't hold it against me if I tell you that we briefly thought about passing on Patriot's Point.  It just seemed overwhelming.  We thought that maybe we should save this visit for another day.

Well, as we passed the USS Yorktown on our way to Fort Sumter, we knew we had to scrap some of our plans and make Patriot's Point a priority for this trip!

We arrived at Patriot's Point after buying our $20 tickets.  We decided to first explore the USS Clamagore, which was built during World War II.

Believe it or not, we have actually been on a few submarines.  They are cool as heck, but man are they hard to get around in!  If you are claustrophobic, you will certainly want to avoid them!  Plus, the "doors" are really just holes in walls that you must lift your legs high to squeeze through.  It is exciting checking one out, but be ready to contort your way through!

After exploring the submarine, we walked over to the destroyer, USS Laffey.  The Laffey also started her life in the mid-40s.  Like the Clamagore, you can pretty much explore every part of the Laffey.  We did.

After that, we decided to step on to the aircraft carrier, the USS Yorktown.  This is the main attraction here.  Sure, a destroyer and a submarine are mega cool, but an aircraft carrier makes anything else look miniature.

As we stepped on the Yorktown, we were greeted by the carrier's mascot, Scrappy!  Scrappy is named after a real life mascot that the Yorktown had in the 40s.

From there, we had a quick lunch on board at a Sticky Fingers restaurant.  They do have a more authentic cafeteria, but it was not open on the day we visited.


After a quick BBQ lunch, we explored the aircraft carrier.  As it is so big, they recommend that you do 1 of 6 tours.  We ended up doing 3 of the tours, and made our way, eventually, from bottom to top.  This was an exciting workout!  Our favorite stops while touring the Yorktown included information on the Yorktown's involvement in Apollo 8, and walking along the landing area and seeing the planes displayed.

After spending a long day here, we ended our time at Patriot's Point at the Vietnam Experience Exhibit.  This is literally a small area that has been made to look like (and sound like) an area in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  It was effective.  We talked to a staff person there named Graves, who is a Vietnam War Veteran and he told us about his experiences.  I thought this was very nice, as I also talked to him about my dad, who was there too.  It always means a lot to me to talk to those guys.  It seemed that Graves was trying to talk to everyone who came through!  I love knowing that anyone who comes through there will have an opportunity to talk to someone who was there.  That really puts this part of Patriots Point over the top.  Elementary school kids that go there will get to see legendary watercraft used since World War II, AND they will be able to talk to a real Vietnam War veteran.