Mountains to the coast

I am going to try and add pictures to my blog. I hope this works. Here goes...we had a great trip to say the least. Let me pick up where we left off. I believe the last thing I shared was the fact that we stopped early so that I could get some sleep. Which I did manage without any problems at all. We awoke early the next day and enjoyed a fairly good breakfast at the motel. It wasn't fancy but it was free and that was right in line for our budget. It was a nice day, chilly but not too cold.

Our first stop was Folly Beach. Eventhough neither of us are "beach people" this beach came highly reccommended by a great number of people, so we thought we would give it a shot. It was absolutely beautiful and very peaceful. I think that one of my earliest memories is of the beach. I recall walking out into the water, holding my dad's hand and feeling scared because all I could see was water. Later in life it all seemed like a dream or something but I am sure it was real. Anyway, I don't get scared anymore. I love the grandness of the ocean, it puts life into perspective. We didn't stay too long because it was quite chilly and my ears were cold all the way to my inner ear it seemed. Our next destination was supposed to be some type of Pirate Museum that I had read about on the internet, however, I had no idea where to find it. Poor planning on my part actually, but as we were trying to fly by the seat of pants it was sure to be an adventure.

We decided to head toward some type of attraction in order to look for flyers on the various attractions in the Charleston area and found ourselves going over this most amazing bridge. It's the Arthur J. Ravenel Jr. Bridge. There are not too many bridges these days that you can actually drive over and walk over. Unfortunately, it was too cold to walk over it this time but the drive was beautiful. Jimmy began referring to it as "your bridge" every time we saw it.

I fell in love with this bridge. Back to our goals...we found an aircraft carrier exhibit and a stand with a wide variety of flyers. Unfortuantely, there were none of any type of Pirate museum, so we decided to go to the aquarium instead. At that time we had no idea where it was so we just started driving and tried to find it on one of the maps I had picked up. We went in the total wrong direction and had to back track a few miles only to get find that the aquarium was right across the river from the aircraft carrier. That was ok, we got to see parts of Charleston that we otherwise would never have seen, and actually don't really desire to see again. But we had made it.

We spent a couple of hours at the aquarium. Jimmy got to see sharks, which he loves. I enjoyed to anaconda the most. That was the biggest snake I have ever seen, not the longest but the biggest around. It was massive. The worst part of being at the aquarium was that it was "kids day". At least we didn't have to keep up with any of them. But it did make it crowded and hard to enjoy some aspects. The overall experience was fun and worth the time and money. Just being together was making everything worth every effort. Once we were finished with the aquarium we decided to try and find a place to stay for the night. Since we were planning on going to the Angel Oak the next day we headed that way first.

It was only 3:00 and we had plenty of time. As it turned out, there were not many motels out on John Island (where The Angel Oak is). Luckily though we found the tree without any problem, and as it was still open for the day decided to go ahead and spend a little bit of time there. (There is suppossed to be a picture of the tree here, but I don't know where it went). I have a great attraction for large old trees, I love to take pictures of them and be close to them, this was a dream come true for me. This tree is close to 1500 years old and is the biggest tree I have ever seen. God is really amazing. I could have spent the whole day there. But it was closing and we needed to get dinner and find somewhere to stay.

We had a restaurant guide and found an interesting option. A nice place called Queen Anne's Revenge (the pirate ship of Blackbeard), which was located on Daniel Island. After searching our maps again, we located it without any problem. We were there at about 5:30 which meant we were there in time for the early bird specials. We were able to get some really tasty shrimp at a reasonable price. The atmosphere was pleasant and the food delicious. We had decided early on that we were not going to eat at any fast food places this weekend and I'm glad we did. It was worth the extra money.

We headed back to Charleston after dinner and found a Red Roof Inn on the north side of Charleston. It was nice, not fancy and the internet was not free, but the room was clean. We were even able to do something we haven't been able to do without kids around for a very long time....sleep!!!!!! I was again not feeling well, kinda like getting hit by a truck or something, so I fell asleep before 9:00. I had a great nights sleep. We were able to sleep in today and didn't have to start too early. We enjoyed a nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel and headed home. It was a very nice weekend and a much needed vacation for us, actually this was like the honeymoon we never had. I just hope we don't have to wait another 20 years to do it again. I really want to thank everyone in my family who helped make this most amazing weekend one we will never forget.