Thursday, May 19th

We used our free tickets to go to a plantation. Granted, this plantation was the one preferred by the Charleston Visitor’s Center (the same place that messed up our tour times the previous day), but when we requested a plantation walk we were (again) thinking about sprawling gardens with flowers in every color of the rainbow. We got a walk through someone’s forested back yard. So-and-so played here and the pastor/owner penned many of his sermons from here…. However, the place was severely lacking in flowers.

After the plantation walk, we went shopping at a Tanger Outlet. I liked the setup of the outlet area. We didn’t end up buying too much, which is different for our shopping day. I got a belt.

Friday, May 20th

Happy birthday to my wife! This was our day to just bum around the resort and bask in the warmth of SC along the beach…which led to both of us getting sunburnt. The sun drained us so we took a nap and woke up sore. I figured I would just be uncomfortable from my sunburn, but it was very uncomfortable sleeping the next few nights. We went to dinner at the Edisto Pavilion, an overpriced restaurant on the beach. Krissy’s pasta had shrimp, which she was sick of by that point in the vacation. I had a small steak, which fulfilled my craving.

Saturday, May 21st

I’m fine sitting around doing nothing. That’s part of vacation for me. Krissy, however, wanted to go do something. We figured Beaufort wasn’t too far away, just the next peninsula over, so we’d go check it out. It was kind of a spontaneous decision with no expectations, so it couldn’t disappoint us. The drive was a little longer than we expected, and the city is small, but there are quite a few things packed into it. Krissy had her first experience at a Chick-fil-A. We stopped at a chocolate shop that she had scouted out and bought a bunch more candy. They had a pack of chocolates shaped for nurses and the instruments they use. Apparently the pack was in the sun on the way home because two of the instruments melted in the car.

Sunday, May 22nd

We checked out relatively early and drove through SC, VA, WV, MD, and into PA before stopping for the night. We stayed at a Fairfield by Marriott and they seemed overexcited to have us there. I got two emails and a small card in the mail all thanking us for choosing them.

Monday, May 23rd

We finally arrived home after another long day of driving. We went through the rest of PA, NY, CT, MA, NH and into Maine. The house hadn’t burned down, and nobody had stolen the copper out of the house while we were gone. I consider that a win.

Saturday, May 14th

After 15 hours of driving through Maine, NH, Mass, Conn, NY, Penn, MD, WV, and VA, we stopped in Fredericksburg for the night. Highlights include fog in Pennsylvania so thick that I couldn’t see 10 yards in front of me. Also, it was torrentially down-pouring in Fredericksburg. All the hotels at our first stop were full due to weddings and graduations. We were told not to bother stopping at the next exit, either.

Sunday, May 15th

It was another long day of driving, but we made it to the resort. Along the way we stopped to eat at a very unimpressive Hardees. That night we ate at an Edisto Beach restaurant called McConkey’s Jungle Shack. The food was pretty good, and the ambiance of the screened in porch was great.

Monday, May 16th

I woke up before the SC sun. Apparently the sun gets up an hour later in SC than it does in Maine. Also, we went for an extremely long walk on Edisto Beach. We kept thinking a resort-owned rest/bathroom area was coming up just around the next bend in the beach. We took a lot of bends and never made it to the rest area. We wondered back through town instead of back via the beach and stumbled upon Whaley’s, a little hole-in-the-wall type restaurant and bar.

Tuesday, May 17th

We explored what I liked to call “the Strip” of the island. This included one long building with a pizzaria, a movie rental store (not open until 2PM), an administrative office, a candy store, and a nails/massage office. We had some pizza and bought a bunch of candy. The rest of the day was spent mostly relaxing and reading.

Wednesday, May 18th

We got up early for a trip to historic Charleston. We bought tickets to what we were told was a 90 min trip to Ft Sumter and then a 90 min historical Charleston bus tour. We double checked before getting on the first bus and found that the Ft Sumter tour was closer to 3 hours. We couldn’t do that and the bus tour because we had made an appointment to sit through a sales pitch later in the day in exchange for $92 worth of passes and gift cards. Unfortunately, we had put a (refundable) deposit down for the sales pitch or we would have skipped it. We only took the bus tour and were actually a little disappointed in Charleston. Sure, there are old, nice looking buildings with lots of history. However, real estate is at a premium so the houses are rather close together. We enjoyed hearing the historical facts and seeing the local architecture, but there were no wide boulevards or sprawling gardens like I was expecting.

To be continued…

We finally succumbed and bought into a timeshare type thing. We have enough points to vacation once a year, if we book within 30 days. That is sure to limit our choices, since the good places will probably be booked up by then. However, if we vacation once every two years, the options really open up. I list this as a mistake, but I’m hoping we can make the most of it. Time will tell.

4 – Bur

Walking barefoot on the beach is fun. Stepping on a bur is not. Neither is pulling the bur off your foot with your fingers and thereby jabbing your thumb and causing it to bleed.

3 – Wrong turn

I took a wrong turn onto I 90 West in Massachusetts instead of I 90 East. This caused us to go 15 miles out of our way, but it seemed like a lot further. Apparently there’s not a lot of call for exits on I 90 West after it’s merge with I 84. Sounds like an exciting place.

2 – Mystery foot injury

Somehow on Monday I hurt my left foot. The top felt like it was bruised, like something had fallen on it. Also, the arch is sore. I spent the rest of the week hobbling around our various activities. It has been over a week now and the foot is still sore.

1 – Sunburn

I told myself not to burn. I didn’t listen. I burned on Friday, making Friday, Saturday, and Sunday uncomfortable. It was painful; it was itchy. It was stupid.

Fantastic Caverns was a ride on a Jeep drawn cart through old underground caves. There are very few of these around that are accessible by Jeep.

The formations are pretty cool and provide a fertile imagination with many ideas.

Out of the natural beauty into the man-made scenery of Zio’s Italian Kitchen. I found the floorplan and decor quite interesting.

Krissy’s grandfather picked us up late in the morning and we headed back up to Springfield to the Fantastic Caverns, one of the few underground caves you can ride a Jeep through.

The tour was quite interesting. We were told about the rate of growth of stalagmites and stalactites, and were then told to approximate the age of the cave by the length of the stalactites. Using this equation, they are old.

The caves were quite historical, found during the Civil War (I believe) and kept from the government’s radar by the finder so they weren’t used by troops. They were underground storage areas, bars during prohibition, KKK meeting areas, and entertainment areas, with a full bar and stage. Yes, one cavern was actually that big!

We were quite hungry upon leaving the caverns, so we headed to Zio’s Italian Kitchen. The fare was probably Olive Gardenish, but the decorations were even better. It was an open floor, with Italian columns and ambiance. My salmon was a bit fishy tasting, but it was an overall enjoyable experience.

On the way home, we just had to stop and experience for ourselves the wonders of Andy’s custard. In our Bangor, Mainer minds, it was just a slightly different version of a Dairy Queen. The Blizzards are called Concretes. I had mine with peanut butter cup, and it was delicious.

Sunday night we just lazed around the room, which became our normal evening habit. This is when I got most of my reading done. I finished two books (one I had started before we left) and started another during the entire trip.

We dropped my car off at the Doughty’s house so we wouldn’t have to pay a week’s worth of parking fees at the Portland airport. Scoob brought us to the Courtyard by Marriott where we had one night in a beautiful room and only a couple hours, all said and done, when we were conscious to enjoy it.

Our checked luggage was 61 lbs, so Delta was going to charge us an extra $90 fee. We decided to juggle some items around and transferred 12 lbs into our carry on. The carry on became rather bulky.

The flights were perfect. I thought the first one, to Atlanta, was actually kind of roomy. I had an aisle seat and my wife sat in between me and a young man who has been in the Marines for about a year. There were a couple of his Marine buddies on the plane and an older man in fatigues. We were safe from terrorists.

We were starving and had a 4 hour layover in Atlanta, so we hit Popeye’s for a meal and Ben & Jerry’s for dessert. Popeye’s was at 10 AM, but we had already been up for 6 hours, so it didn’t feel like chicken and biscuits for breakfast.

Atlanta had wifi, but I couldn’t get a good connection. It had electrical outlets for the laptop, but I didn’t see it until it was almost time to go. I read while Krissy tried to nap. We were both rather distracted from our goals by everything that goes on in an airport. Plus, there was a Delta credit card booth by us and the workers were constantly trying to get passers-by to sign up. Sucky job.

The flight from Atlanta to Springfield was smaller, but I had a window seat. Unfortunately I was too tired to really spend much time looking out. I sorta, mighta barely fallen asleep a couple times.

The Springfield airport is rather small, so we had no trouble finding Krissy’s grandfather and our checked luggage. As far as we could tell, nothing was missing from the luggage. Success.

We were planning on being treated to Lambert’s, home of the Throwed Roll [sic], however the wait was almost an hour. We were driven to Branson and taken to Panera instead. I know people really like their Panera, but when you’re expecting Lambert’s, Panera just isn’t all that.

We got a bit of a road tour of hilly Branson before we made it to the resort. We unpacked and then were taken to Harrison AR to get the truck we were borrowing. The drive is through the Ozark Mountains and is quite scenic.

We got back to the resort, unpacked, and got comfortable. I tried to set up the internet connection, but the computer wasn’t playing nice (it does that sometimes, even when the internet connection itself is fine). I got tired of fiddling around and we read the rest of the night.

12/24/09 – Went to my mother’s for her birthday and to swap Christmas gifts.

12/25/09 – Christmas at home. Then the wife’s dad and sister came over for gifts and lunch. Then to her mom’s house for gifts, and then to her aunt’s house with my wife’s entire family.

12/26/09 – We stayed inside all day. What a happy Saturday!

12/27/09 – Church in the morning, and then the Doughtys came a day early to stay with us! We went to Asian Palace II. It’s not all that.

12/28/09 – Got together with friends to have a prime rib dinner (delicious!), exchange gifts, and play a board game.

12/29/09 – I’m not sure we left the house for anything…the Doughtys were still here, though!

12/30/09 – The Doughtys left. We went to church that night. Then we drove to my wife’s work to look at the Christmas picture she painted on the window there.

12/31/09 – Lunch with my father and half-brother (on his side). It was great to catch up and get to know them a bit better. We stayed up until midnight, logging on to the computer just in time to watch the ball drop in New York.

1/1/10 – We didn’t leave the house. A great New Year’s Day. There was much computer time and much reading time. That’s my idea of a great day.

1/2/10 – We went to lunch with my mother and went grocery shopping, despite the snow storm that has been raging for two days, because we needed to get out of the house. Apparently the wife goes a little stir crazy sometimes.

1/3/10 – Another day without leaving the house. I think life is grand.

In my mind, living at the foot of one of those mountains would offer a lifetime of healthy exploration. Imagine being a child growing up with a mountain beside you. The trails, the streams, the trees, the places to make cabins. Oh, my childhood!

However, unless that’s all you like to do with your life, Vermont is probably not for you. There are few attractions that really aren’t all that exciting to do over and over and over your entire life. Decent shopping, whether for groceries or at departments stores, can be quite far away. So can reasonably priced restaurants, depending on where you live.

It was definitely a nice, serene place to visit, but I would not want to live there. Next year I hope to be on to bigger and better places.

Odd thing: Apparently Vermonters use little kids dressed up in silly outfits to attract people to their yard sales. I thought it was merely odd the first time, but thought I saw a pattern the second time.

Other than the long drive for lunch (and a book, and a couple CDs), we just stayed in the suite and read/played video games. We definitely wound down the last couple of days here.

Today…it’s sunny and bright. Not a cloud to be seen. And we have to leave. Sweet mother of irony.

Took a shower around 6…PM. Only got dressed because my skin started sticking to the wooden chair where I was sitting playing my computer game. At Oreos for supper and Ben & Jerry’s for dessert around 11 PM. Payed for it by 2:40 AM.

Krissy read 2 Nancy Drew books and the Reader’s Digest we brought. Today we really have to get out.