Visiting Fort Sumter

After spending the previous day in Charleston (Part 1 and Part 2) we decided to spend our last day visiting Fort Sumter. We arrived at the museum, purchased our tickets, and boarded the first ferry of the day. The weather at the time was overcast but nice, although a storm was going to be coming in later in the day. 

The ferry ride from Charleston was about 30 minutes and we arrived at Fort Sumter to some increasingly overcast weather and VERY windy conditions! 

We had just disembarked the ferry and entered the museum at Fort Sumter when they announced they were looking for volunteers to help raise the flag over the fort. My dad and about a dozen other people wanted to volunteer so we headed outside to watch them raise the flag.

The weather had gotten so windy that it was a bit of a struggle to get the flag raised! If you look closely at the pictures, the flag that flies over Fort Sumter is the same style of flag that flew when the Civil War began. It features 33 stars, one for each state in the Union.

So after the raising of the flag everyone was free to explore the fort. My parents and I wandered around the perimeter of the fort. I was surprised at how small and isolated it was compared to, maybe, Fort Monroe. Definitely not somewhere I would want to be stuck!

Anyways, as we were making our way around the fort we saw a pod of dolphins swimming around! They were pretty neat to see! Just a note, but we saw dolphins then entire time we were in the area. If we were near water, they were there!

We then headed back inside the museum to explore. We weren't in there long before they announced that due to the weather conditions they needed to lower the flag. So back outside we went to take the flag down! There weren't as many volunteers this time since the weather was so cold and windy! 

After that we went back inside to look around the museum. The museum wasn't too big but it was interesting with a good assortment of history and memorabilia. There were even people there with pretty little kids and even they seemed to be enjoying themselves. So I would say it's a great place for people of all ages. They offer a seek-and-find type of activity for kids so when they arrive at the fort they have different things to look for and the kids that were there seemed to be having fun with it. And the NPS employees were all really informative and nice. 

We were maybe at the fort for maybe an hour when we already had to leave. It didn't feel like enough time to see everything so we felt a bit rushed. I don't know if it was because of the weather (they cancelled the later ferry ride of the day and the employees were leaving the fort as well.) but we didn't get to see everything inside of the museum. And I'm not the kind of person to read every single plaque or anything, but I even didn't have time to look at everything.

Anyways, despite that it was a good and interesting visit. Definitely would recommend if you are into history!

Have you ever visited a military fort?

The Words We Lost by Nicole Deese Book Review

The Words We Lost by Nicole Deese

From back cover:

As a senior acquisitions editor for Fog Harbor Books in San Francisco, Ingrid Erikson has rejected many a manuscript for lack of defined conflict and dramatic irony - two elements her current life possesses in spades. In the months following the death of her childhood best friend and international bestselling author Cecelia Campbell, Ingrid has not only lost her ability to escape into fiction due to a rare trauma response, but she's also desperate to find the closure she's convinced will come with Cecelia's missing final manuscript.

After Ingrid jeopardizes her career, she fears her future will remain irrevocably broken. But then Joel Campbell - the man who shattered her belief in happily-ever-afters - offers her a sealed envelope from his late cousin, Cecelia, asking Joel and to put their differences aside and retrieve a mysterious package in their coastal Washington hometown.

Honoring Cecelia's last request will challenge their convictions and test their loyalties, but through it all, will Ingrid and Joel be brave enough to uncover a twice-in-a-lifetime love?

I enjoyed this book although it was a little slow to start. Having read several other books by this author I knew I would be invested but it just took a little while for me to get into it and warm up to Ingrid. 

I'll start off with what I didn't like as I had a couple of things I didn't care for with this book. There were so many things going on it was a lot to keep up with. Throw in all the jumping around with the story flash-backs and it really messed up the flow and made it feel way longer than it needed to be. 

I also had a little bit of an issue with Ingrid's trauma response. I could have understood being unable to work due to grief, but the problem itself just didn't make sense to me (maybe it just wasn't described well enough?) it didn't feel necessary to the story and seemed like more one more detail bogging down the story.

And while Ingrid was the main protagonist, it seemed like more effort was put into bringing Cece to life. I felt more of her character and there was so much more depth to her that Ingrid was almost secondary. Which I think made it a bit harder for me to connect with her. 

This book is packed with emotion, most prominent being grief. Grief is such a complex, tricky topic I think I personally just didn't feel it from the story as much as I would have liked. I think it was because there were several different plot points that each had a grief angle, so it you really didn't get to feel the depth of Ingrid's grief and how it truely impacted her because there was so much going on.

With the negative out of the way I did enjoy this book. Having grown up in Washington state and having visited Port Townsend, I enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the area. Even if you had never visited the Northwest it's described so well you can easily imagine the setting. 

Cece had an almost child-like innocence about her that made her enjoyable to read about. She was just fun and lively and I think we can all think of someone like her in our lives. 

I typically like to read mystery/suspense type books so I appreciated the twist towards the end. While I did have some suspicions throughout the book (that ended up being correct) it didn't deter from the plot itself and I felt satisfied that it turned out how I was expecting and hoping.

So while this maybe wasn't my favorite book by this author, it was just one that I liked but maybe didn't love. Probably a 3.5/5 star read. Better than "just okay" but not quite memorable enough for a 4 star.

I received a complimentary e-copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. 

The Words We Lost releases on April 11, 2023.