Saturday, July 5, 2014

Happy Independence Day!

There are three ways that I can choose to write about my vacation:

1.) Write about it every 2-3 days, in, somewhat-short posts that describe those couple of days, and (hopefully) keeping the reader's interest throughout.

2.) Write every 5-7 days. A big long post with the lingering possibility of losing the reader's interest halfway through the post. (though you may be thinking, "If you're a good writer... then you wouldn't lose my interest...")

3.) Simply not write at all and be lame because then I wouldn't have any of these memories recorded.

Hmm..... #1 sounds good to me. Not just because I don't want to lose reader's interests. But for me. I like to write, and every morning I get to have a nice cup of coffee with some toast or yogurt, or even... pie, while looking out to an inspiring view. The temptation to write is so strong in the morning! (The scene I just described fits exactly what I'm doing right now, by the way.) So, here's yet another post about my trip (Which is already halfway over... time flies) in South Carolina. Enjoy.


You might've heard about the big tropical storm on the east coast which eventually turned into a Hurricane right at North Carolina's coast. I'm about 20 minutes away from Edisto Island, South Carolina, but I'm still on the backwater, so, being the worrier that I am, I was worried. (Except that Aunt Nancy claimed that if we had to evacuate, we'd evacuate to Disney World) We did have a tropical storm warning near our area, and high rip-tides warnings everywhere. Yet, by about 12:00, we had not gotten any rain, and the weather was fairly calm to begin with. So, basing off of the fact that there was only 30% chance of rain until about 4:00 pm  (when the percentage would rise up again), we decided to go to Whaley's for a bite to eat and then to Botany Bay, knowing that the waves there would be prime for boogie boarding.

As you cane see, the blue line starts about midway on the coast of South Carolina. I believe the blue line means tropical storm, or something like that. The red I believe means where the biggest impact will be. We are staying about 1/3 up from the South Carolina/Georgia border, so we basically missed the storm all together. 

Back to the boogie boarding. It. was. EPIC. The waves were twice as tall as my brother is.  Which means 2 ft tall. (JUST KIDDING, RYAN! I love you!) They did knock us around a little bit if we weren't paying attention. A couple of times Ryan would be floating in the water, just talking or, doing everything BUT paying attention to the upcoming waves, and as soon as he'd stand up, one would creep up behind him and take him by surprise. Needless to say, this was the best boogie boarding ever. I mean, I feel like I can move to Hawaii now and be a pro surfer or something. 

Although this Hurricane was great for Ryan and I, it did effect alot of people. I haven't heard any further details about it, but I am praying for the people in North Carolina, where the biggest impact is. There were many evacuations and canceled vacation plans, and I really hope that the hurricane didn't do too much damage. Keep these people in your thoughts and prayers please!

Yesterday, as you all know, was the 4th of July... America's Independence Day! Yay! To celebrate, we left the house early at about 8:45 am, and drove to Charleston. We met Dad and Tracy at the place where we'd eventually take a ferry boat (or whatever kind of boat it was... I don't exactly "know my boats")  to what is left of Fort Sumpter. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures with me at the moment because they are all on Ryan's phone, but I'll figure out a way to post some on here. Ryan is really into history so he was very interested in this tour. As for me, I thought the tour was really cool, too, but about a week ago I didn't even know what Fort Sumpter was. It sits on a man-made island (which 70,000 tons of granite was used in the building process) and the fort used to be three stories high. It was  shot at so much that all that's left now is the outer shell of the first level and some cannons. 

After we got back from the Fort Sumpter experience, Tracy and I went shopping in Charleston on King's Street while Dad, Ryan, and Aunt Nancy went into the USS Yorktown. 
That's one big ship. 

According to www.patriotspoint.org, the USS Yorktown is 888 feet long. 
Patriot's Point is a great place to go! (click on "Patriot's Point" for more info)

Shopping was so much fun. I really like downtown Charleston, from what I've seen so far. There are lots of old buildings, and town-house style homes, similar to downtown Georgetown!  Kings Street is a big tourist attraction in Charleston, I'm sure. It was bustling with pedi-cabs and people everywhere. I loved window shopping and the occasional going into stores to look around and cool off. What we really were headed for, though, was Jeni's Ice Creams at 501 Kings Street. I've seen their ice cream sandwiches in magazines, and I've just sort of heard about Jeni's a few different times, so I looked the place up online, and, what'd you know? They have a shop in Charleston! 

I chose to have a waffle cone with a scoop of the Dark Chocolate, and The Buckeye State flavors. Best. Ice cream. Decision. Of. My. Life. The Buckeye State was my favorite. It's a salty peanut butter ice cream with chunks of dark chocolate all throughout. I now have a new favorite ice cream.
Tracy got the same sort of flavor combo, except she got dark milk chocolate or something like that. Yum. 

From Jeni's we got a pedi cab back to our car, and within that 10 minutes of sitting on that pedi cab, we both managed to finish out ice creams. 

After we picked up Aunt Nancy, Ryan, and Dad from Patriot's Point, we went to dinner, had amazing southern food, and then made our way back to Patriot's Point for the firework show. 

The fire work show was fantastic. There were fireworks that I didn't even know existed. There were the sparkly pinks and purples, and the shimmering "rains" (my two favorite). Some of the fireworks were huge and seemed to fill up the whole sky. The finale was the best part. Firework after firework, the colors were constantly changing and new fireworks were bursting everywhere. I loved it!

Now I am sitting here, with my coffee, breakfast finished, and looking out at the pretty view from Toogoodoo Bluff. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, I'll be back to update soon!


I miss my Cooper! 



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