Charleston: We're Straw Free, Love.

We were in the car by 9:20 with everyone in their assigned seats — Dad driving, the boys in the back, Mommy in the passenger seat taking selfies. Someone has to. Long-term parking at PDX, then the 11:45 to Atlanta, where the seat map split us up: Mommy, Travis and Liem together, Dad a few rows ahead.

Atlanta gave us seventy-six minutes to get from one end of the alphabet to the other. Layovers are the hard part of a travel day for Travis, so Lucy came along for the walk — handed to Liem for a bit, then back where she belongs.

Delta Comfort+ for the whole family, and on the Atlanta–Charleston leg, a very small extra passenger in the row ahead of us. 🐶

Wheels down at 10:01pm, exactly on time, rental car collected, and by 11:11 we were standing on the corner of King and Market under a lit-up marquee that literally said WELCOME TO CHARLESTON. Our apartment was in the building right next door to the Riviera, up a flight of stairs that put us a little higher than the marquee itself. You could not have staged it better.

Nobody wanted to sit down yet, so all four of us walked to the Circle K for snacks and carried the haul back to the room. It was our first look at Charleston — late, quiet, warm, and lit up — and it was more fun than a snack run has any right to be.

The 8:15 wake-up rule held on its very first morning. Breakfast at Caviar & Bananas, where the boys discovered breakfast burritos the size of their forearms, and where all four of us were quietly thankful that there was, in fact, no caviar involved. Then back home to the Riviera to get the sign in daylight.

Then the drive up Ashley River Road to Magnolia Plantation & Gardens. We did the house tour first — the 1870s house, the family psalter under glass, the dining room set for a dinner that ended a century ago, the four-poster beds you can't sit on — and then stood on the porch and looked at the lawn for a while, because that's what the porch is for.

By the time we came out of the house we were hot, sweaty, and starting to understand what people mean about Charleston humidity. So: frozen lemonades. Walking the gardens with an ice-cold lemonade in hand turned out to be Mommy's single favorite part of the whole trip — refreshing, delicious, and exactly what the moment needed. The one catch: no straws. When Mommy asked the lady at the counter if we could have some, the entire answer was, "We're straw free, love." And that, dear reader, is how this page got its name.

Lemonades in hand, we did the gardens: the riverbank path along the Ashley, the alligator we'd been warned about and then actually saw, the duckweed ponds, the observation tower we climbed for the view, the boardwalk out over the swamp, a bamboo grove that looks like it belongs in another country, and finally the famous red bridge with the cypress trees.

Back downtown by 1:50 for the Charleston Museum — America's oldest museum, and it has a megalodon jaw you can stand inside. It also has a very fine collection of antique rifles, pistols, and swords, which is where Travis spent most of his visit: his phone came home with about forty-five photographs of muskets, pistols, swords and antique silver, and — across the entire week — maybe three of his family. We respect the commitment. Mommy, Liem and Dad eventually found a bench and rested while he finished the tour.

Late afternoon was the waterfront: a cobblestone lane on the way down, Waterfront Park, the Pineapple Fountain, and the pier, where we could see a certain aircraft carrier parked across the harbor. (Tomorrow.) Then gelato, carried to a bench and eaten in the shade, which was wonderful.

Dinner was pizza at Toasted Crust on Upper King. The waiter was serious to the point of being a little strange, but the pizza was good, the Cokes were cold, and Travis's face when it arrived tells you everything else you need to know.

Breakfast at Callie's Hot Little Biscuit in the City Market — which gave us an excuse to walk the whole length of the Market on the way, looking at everything and buying nothing. The biscuits were good. They were also very filling; nobody needed lunch for a while. From there we walked down to the U.S. Custom House on East Bay. We'd wondered what a customs house was for, and the answer is exactly what it sounds like: in the old shipping days this is where cargo came in, got inspected, and got taxed. Started 1853, finished 1879, still a working federal building, and this month wrapped in Freedom 250 banners. We took our pictures and headed for the car.

Patriots Point. The USS Yorktown (CV-10) is 872 feet of Essex-class carrier and we gave it the full three-plus hours it deserves. First the pier, with the Yorktown ahead and the destroyer USS Laffey tied up alongside, then down the ladders into the galley, where the ship's bakery posted its chocolate-chip cookie recipe: 112 pounds of chocolate chips, 165 pounds of flour, 500 eggs, for 10,000 cookies.

The hangar deck has a flight simulator, a Rosie the Riveter cutout that fits Mommy perfectly, and an F9F Cougar you can actually climb into. Dad, Liem and Travis rode the simulator; Mommy, who knows exactly what a simulator does to her stomach, wisely held the bags and became Rosie instead.

Up to the flight deck — we had the runway mostly to ourselves under a gray sky — and its parked jets: an F-14 Tomcat, an A-6 Intruder, an A-7 Corsair, and the island towering over all of it. Travis was in his element out here, going jet to jet. Then back inside and up again, climbing the tower to the bridge, where the captain's chair was available and everyone took a turn.

The signal flags are my favorite thing we saw all week. The hoist on the Yorktown's island reads Bravo over Zulu — Bravo Zulu, the Navy's way of saying well done — flying right next to N-W-K-J, the Yorktown's own call sign. So the ship is saying: This is Yorktown. Well done.

Back at the apartment by 4:30 for the kind of nap that only an aircraft carrier can earn you. The City Market and the Powder Magazine were on the afternoon plan; the Yorktown ate the afternoon instead, and nobody minded. Dinner was Taco Boy Downtown — $6 tacos, excellent ones, everyone happy, and somehow nobody photographed a single taco.

After tacos we walked. Down through South of Broad — the wrought-iron gates, the piazzas, the enormous houses and the gardens you can only see through the fence — to the Battery seawall right as the sun went down over the Ashley. The temperature had finally dropped and the whole city felt different: cool, quiet, lit gold. Then back up Murray Boulevard under the palms, past White Point Garden, and home to the Riviera, which had turned its lights on for us.

Coffee first — Clerks Coffee on Church Street, where our own horse and carriage was already waiting at 9:16, a good half hour early. So we ducked into the Market for a little shopping first. Then the Carolina Polo & Carriage tour from Pinckney Street at 9:30: an hour through the old city behind a horse named Chico, with a guide named Daniel who knew every house, every scandal, and which corners the city lets the carriages turn on (it's a lottery system — really). Daniel was quick and funny, and he also carried a full supply of corny pirate jokes. What did the pirate say on his eightieth birthday? Aye, matey. We liked Daniel a lot.

Next stop, Byrd's Famous Cookies at the Market. We went in, and we came out with cookies: lemon, key lime, peach, and the one that won the week — pumpkin with pecans and white chocolate. Then, surprisingly (it was 11:30 and we had just eaten cookies), brunch at Millers All Day on King Street — biscuits, gravy, bacon, grits, the whole Southern catechism. The food was so good, and we had a great time. A short walk down King after, and then the 25-minute drive out to Folly Beach.

We'd planned a walk on the beach. What happened was Dad and Liem changed in the restrooms, walked down onto the sand, and went into the Atlantic — and the water was warm, genuinely, bathwater warm — while Mommy and Travis supervised from the pier gazebo with a bag of towels. Great weather, great water, great day. On the way back through James Island we stopped at Chick-fil-A for Sunjoys, half lemonade and half tea, which is exactly what you want after an hour in salt water. Bravo Zulu.

Back to the apartment for what may have been a second nap, then dinner at Home Team BBQ downtown, which was absolutely delicious: brisket nachos for Dad, pulled pork and brisket sandwiches for everyone else, and a side of the mystery fried thing, which turned out to be chicharrón — fried pork skin — and disappeared accordingly. We'd liked the seawall so much on Tuesday that we went back and walked it again, this time down Colonial Lake to Murray Boulevard. This time the harbor put on a show: a pod of dolphins working the water just off the wall, surfacing again and again while we stood there pointing. A very cute dog named Fonze trotted up to see what all the pointing was about, and his owner filled him in on the dolphins. Then we sat on the wall and watched a single sailboat cross the sunset like it had been hired for the occasion.

Callie's had its one turn on Tuesday. Thursday morning we set out for crepes, found the crepe place closed, and did what any sensible family does: walked back to Millers All Day and ordered breakfast again. It was, again, so delicious. The Cistern Yard walk came off the list — Daniel and Chico had already taken us past the College of Charleston on Wednesday — so we headed straight for the Battery.

At 12:30 we toured the Edmondston-Alston House on East Battery — 1825, still in the Alston family, with the harbor view that General Beauregard watched the bombardment of Fort Sumter from. It was a nice tour. Then along the seawall, where hundreds of tiny black crabs were out for a walk of their own — not a nuisance, just something to step over — and back to Waterfront Park.

And then the sky opened. It started to pour, so we ducked into Carmella's to wait it out — iced coffees, ice cream, frozen drinks, and then, since we were there anyway and it was still raining, banana pudding and tiramisu. We got a little wet on the way in, and nobody minded — a Charleston downpour is warm, and it's a fine excuse for a second dessert.

Once it cleared we walked King Street for a while — Lower King antiques, Middle King shops — and then went home to change, because dinner was going to be the fancy one. We'd expected to end up at Poogan's Smokehouse for more barbecue; instead we landed at Poogan's Porch on Queen Street, a restaurant inside an old Charleston house, with Poogan's story on the wall (Poogan was a dog, and a good one, and a lot of famous people have eaten in his house). Dad had the market catch — mahi mahi, we think — two of us had the salmon, and Liem had the pork chop. Everybody's food was very good. It was the nicest meal of the week.

Then a three-minute walk to the Dock Street Theatre — on the site of America's first purpose-built playhouse, 1736 — for Charleston Stage's The Wizard of Oz. Orchestra, Row M, on the aisle. The theatre alone is worth the ticket; the show earned the rest of it.

Since our phones were (correctly) put away once the lights went down, here are three of Charleston Stage's own production photos so you can see what we saw. And let the record show: the star of the show was not the Witch, and not the Lion. It was Toto — a real dog, whose real name is Cosmo, which is a very good name for a dog, as our family already knew.

We checked out of our bed and breakfast and walked to Toast on Meeting Street for one more very good Charleston breakfast. Liem ordered the bread-pudding French toast with peaches, which was very good and photographed better than anything else on the table.

With a 2:32 flight there was time for exactly one more thing, and the shortlist was Magnolia Cemetery, Middleton Place, Fort Moultrie, or Charles Towne Landing. We went with Charles Towne Landing — the 1670 site of the first permanent English settlement in South Carolina, the original Charleston before Charleston moved across the river — and walked through its museum, which doesn't sugarcoat the colony's history.

Then the airport, with plenty of time to spare. We made our flight. We boarded our flight. We sat in our seats, the plane pushed back — and then we sat on the tarmac for about an hour, because the weather in Atlanta wasn't letting anyone in. Roughly two hours after boarding, the plane drove back to the gate, everybody got off, and DL2179 quietly disappeared from the departures board while four Brawns and a couple hundred other people tried to rearrange their lives. We ended up on a later flight to Atlanta, wheels up around seven.

Atlanta, of course, had already sent its last flight to Portland. We were walking out of the airport to find a hotel when we noticed one more Portland flight on the board — also delayed, also still there. We went to the gate, they got all four of us on, and we even sat together. Bonus: Danny Trejo — Machete from Spy Kids — was up in first class, so we can say we flew home with Machete. We landed in Portland at midnight, which our bodies insisted was 3am, got in the Rivian, drove home, greeted the pets, and were in bed by two. Tired doesn't cover it. But we slept in, in our own beds, in our own house.

Every trip is fun… but, as a certain girl from Kansas put it on Thursday night: there's no place like home.