Vacation 2015

We wanted to get to know our new home state a little more so we went to Edisto Beach on Edisto Island this year for vacation.

It felt like we were setting up camp in the jungle with all the vines and Spanish moss hanging from trees and the humidity and heat and bugs!  It was near 100 degrees most of the days we were there. 

There were several bike paths through the state park where we were camping.  We biked under huge spiderwebs with huge spiders in them!

Day at the beach

Picnic at the beach

We visited the Serpentarium

I didn't know until this day that there were alligators in the area where we were camping!  Thankfully, we never saw one other than behind fences at the Serpentarium.

Albino alligator

"Someone turn me over!"

This guy never moved.  He was posing for pictures.  He's so nice because he's nonvenomous! 

A famous, fake tree trunk

The old guys

We were so thankful to discover that our campsite had electricity!  We went out searching for fans and extension cords.  So we were able to sleep each night even though it didn't cool off much at night.

Kayaking with the dolphins.  If you look really closely, you can see some fins.  We kept chasing them but didn't get any closer.

About as close as we got.

We went to a place called Botany Bay that used to be park of a plantation.  This was an old storage shed.

When we came back from looking at some of the old buildings the car wouldn't start.

Waiting for someone to drive by to give us a jumpstart.

Once we got the car started again we continued the drive around Botany Bay but didn't turn the car off again until we got to the island's one garage.

We learned that the alternator had gone out and the garage could have it repaired by noon the following day.

So we did a lot of biking

We always keep our food in the van when we're camping but since we were without the van for a whole day we had to keep the food bin in the tent.  I forgot to put the vitamins in, though, so the raccoons filled up on fish oil, probiotics and vitamin C (and plastic) overnight!

When we got the car back we went back to Botany Bay to see the beach.  We'd heard it was really unique.  It was!

We had to walk 1/2 a mile through the salt marsh to get to the beach but it was worth the walk.

A hurricane and erosion have taken away a lot of the beach and killed these trees. But it makes for a very unique looking beach.  We were there at high tide but were told we would see even more unique shells at low tide.

Pelicans flying from Pelican Island.  There were so many of them!

I loved the live oaks with Spanish moss hanging from them.

We spent a night at a hotel to end our vacation and visited Charleston.

It was really neat to see all the old houses and other buildings.

Lots of the houses in the Historic district had these signs.  It seemed like every other one had hosted either George Washington or Lafayette!

We learned a lot from this visit.  We kept seeing signs calling Charleston the "Holy City" and learned that it's because it has so many churches.  

I think I'm going to make a coffee table book entitled "Windows of Charleston"

Fort Pickney

Ducks at the hotel

They wanted our lunch meat.

The USS Yorktown

Fort Sumter

The flag at half mast to honor the 5 Marines who were killed in TN early in the week

This part of the fort was built during the Spanish American War

What's left of the Civil War part

A cannon ball from the Civil War bambardment

We also visited Boone Plantation. Parts of  The North and the South miniseries, the movies Queen and the Notebook and lots of other things were filmed here. This is the Avenue of Oaks.  

The cotton gin

cotton plants

Part of the set from Queen

A ferny tree :-)

We learned that whoever planted the avenue of oaks was buried on the avenue.

A canon ball from the 1600s used to balance the weight on the barges carrying the cotton to Charleston

The slave quarters

Gullah presentation

The house was built in the 1930s but used materials from original plantation houses in the area.

Rose tree?  It's much taller than me!

This building was the commissary when it was a share cropping plantation.

Now that we're back from vacation we're trying to finish up the work on the house and get it ready to move into next week. Part of getting it ready is to try to get rid of the wolf spiders that have made the house their home!

 The following week Paul will go to class to get certified to be a home inspector.  God has worked things out so that he will have a job as soon as he finishes the training!  I interviewed today for a full-time position in the cafeteria at an elementary school.  If I don't get it then I will be working as a substitute, traveling to different schools. But we're hoping I get on full-time so that we will have health insurance.  The week after Paul's classes the boys and I start school.  It's going to be a crazy few weeks.