Charleston Day 5

Today we woke up at 3 am east coast time, left the hotel at 4 am, got to the airport before almost anyone else. Checked in at 4:45 am, went through security (I was the first one in the whole airport to go through security), and waited for our flight. Flew out at 6 am to Atlanta, caught our connection to home, and arrived home at 10 am central time. At 10 am we had already been up for 8 hours. Mike picked us up, drove home, and I crashed out for while.
It was a great trip, can't wait to take kids there this summer.

Charleston Day 4

Today we went to church! it was a great service, with a nice short sermon. Very welcoming, very friendly, very clean. The kids will be great here! Also, they invited us to help out with VBS, so we will get to serve a little here as well. A couple of pictures:

We drove around for awhile, found the laundromat, grocery store, target, etc. I bought two new swimsuits, then we had ice cream. Drove through downtown for a little while as well.

Back to the hotel, down to the pool for abit. Returned the rental car, took the shuttle back to the hotel. Killing some time before crashing out for our early flight tomorrow morning.

Charleston Day 3

Today we slept in a little bit! We rolled out of the hotel around 9 am this morning and headed to Chik-Fil-A for breakfast. Two yummy sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits later and we were off. Today we drove up to our campsite for the weekend. We are hoping to camp at Huntington Beach State Park. The park is about a two hour drive north of Charleston. Our drive was uneventful, except there were a ton of motorcycles and police cars out and about. The only reason we could think of is that last week was Myrtle Beach Bike Week and maybe the people just stuck around for an extra week!

Anyway, we got the park and talked with the camping people. We can't make a reservation for the group, so we need to either book somewhere else or maybe get to campsite Friday night. I'll have to figure that out later!

We decided to spend an hour or two on the beach. It was lovely and sunny and perfect. We went in the water a little bit, but mainly just relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine. What a treat to be in the ocean in may! Here are some pictures from the beach.

It will be the perfect way to spend the weekend after a long hot week of work.

We drove down to check out the primative camping area. There was only one group there and it looked like there was tons of room. They said it holds up to 300 people. It looks an awful lot like Minnesota.

We got back into the car to drive out. Also, we saw alligators on the side of the road on the drive into and out of the park. Sweet! We thought we would head up to Myrtle Beach to check it out and got to the city limits before we saw the traffic completely stop. A quick left and some meandering later, we got back to our friend Hwy 17. We were getting hungry and decided to go to dinner at my favorite southern restaurant, CiCi's Pizza. So we drove the two hours back to Charleston and headed right for the pizza buffet. It was completely delicious. It totally lived up to the hype for mom.

Back to the hotel, relaxed for a little bit, quick workout, now ready to climb into bed and read for a little while. It is the weekend after all!

Charleston Day 2

We decided to do a boat tour of the harbor after I met with the Habitat folks. We were for the double deal and did the boat cruise and then the hourse drawn carriage. As we were waiting to buy tickets I took some picture of this sign. Just thought it was cool to see how far away we were from some places and how close we were to others!

I took a couple picture from the dock and from the boat of the Port of Charleston stuff for Mike. Look honey, intermodal containers!

Here is a picture from the boat of another cool boat that looks like a pirate ship. We heard alot about the different pirates that were around the Charleston area...Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate. Here is where we had dinner last night! It was cool to see it from the water. On the boat, trying to keep the hair under control!Some of the cool homes on the harbor.
I took a bunch of pictures of the pelicans. This was one of the better ones.
Here is Fort Sumter. Apparently a whole bunch of historical stuff happened here. I guess google it to read more.

Here is a carrier, the Yorktown. There a bunch of pictures or planes for you Mike.

Here is a fishing boat in the background and a pelican that just dove into the water in the foreground. My timing was just a bit off!

The day that we arrived in Charleston an old WWII biplane crashed into the harbor and two people were killed. We saw them hauling the wreckage on the plane away. My new favorite bridge.
Here is Poogan's Porch. It is a restuarant, supposed to be really, good, also very haunted!Here are two cool things. The first is earthquake bolts. The put in two poles, connect them in the middle, and slowly tighten them to keep old homes standing. The second is a fire things from the 1800's. You would buy fire insurance and they would mark your home. Then, if you had a fire, all the fire insurance people would come (aka firemen) but they would only fight the fire if there logo was on your house. Otherwise, tought luck!This is the second oldest house in Charleston.The old jail. Haunted tours are offered at night. Obviously, we will not be partaking in that!We had dinner at the Noisy Oyster in Charleston. We had fried green tomatos for an appetizer and then shared a shrimp po boy for dinner. It was really tasty! The picture is of the tomatos for my grandma. After dinner we were beat, so decided to walk back to the car and head to the hotel. Of course, we had to stop at the outlet mall and check out ann taylor and gap. Well that led into more shopping, so we spent another hour wandering around there. After a quick stop for milk at the Chik-fil-a we are back! Trying to upload the photos and then climbing into bed to read.

It was a busy but good day! Tomorrow we are off the beach.

Charleston - Day 1

So here we are in Charleston, South Carolina! It is great to finally be here, and we had a long day getting here. Up at 4:30 am, to the airport at 5:15, on a flight to Atlanta at 6 am, layover in Atlanta for a long freaking time. On a 1:30 flight to Savannah Georgia. Arrived in Savannah, rented a car, and off to drive around the city. We stopped(not really, we drove by) Paula Dean's restaurant. Didn't wait in line to go in, but still fun to see! Driving from Savannah to Charleston we had to stop at Sonic for a slushie. Yum-o!
Drove for 1.5 hours, arrived, check in to the Holiday Inn, then off to dinner at Fleet Landing. Here I am outside the restuarant right before we went in.
We split shrimp and grits and it was fantastic! We might have to have it again while we are here.
Now we are off to bed. I'm meeting the Habitat folks at 9 am tomorrow, so I want to get a good night sleep!

quote...

“All I’m saying is this,” the older man says. “You have to look at the empty spaces in your life, see the possibilities, and turn them into opportunities.”


I know it has been awhile, but i just read this in another blog and really liked it.