Where do I even begin? Oh my...well, for starters...the spring break trip with my sister to the east coast was great!! We spent 6 days with our cousins, Jacob and E2 and their cute puppy Leo! I will try to recount our adventures with as much detail as possible and without boring you to tears! haha
Jen and I flew out of Indy last Friday morning at about 7:30am. We were surprised to learn we had to walk down the stairs out to the tarmac and up the actual plane stairs to board! Our wonderful little plane held only 72 people, but it was a short flight to Cincy without incident. As we landed, it was starting to snow and we were very eager to get in the air again so we could escape the winter storm bearing down on the tri-state area!! We board our next flight...once again walking out on the tarmac and this time finding our plane to be a bit smaller and only seating 50 people! We start to pull away from the boarding site and the captain informs us we will be delayed departure 30 minutes because they had to de-ice the plane...then he explained the process (while unnecessary, was still cool...) and since we were seated in the last row, we got to watch it all go down! Finally we get up in the air and after a somewhat turbulent flight, we arrived in Charleston, SC. We again trekked across the tarmac, through the rain this time, and made our way into the small airport to claim our luggage. ha Then we found our rental car counter and signed the paperwork, made our way outside in even more rain (by this time by lovely hair was crazy wavy and not lookin so cute...to my dismay since all 3 Enterprise guys were young and fairly good looking!?!) and found our car...a little red clown car, Chevy Aveo. *smiling* Seriously, it just keeps getting better!
Being the type C personality that I am (slightly obsessed with organization), I pull out our directions I had printed several days before the trip and let Jenna be my navigator. We make it to downtown Charleston without any problems...our plan: surprise E2 at work! ha Once we spot her office building and find a parking place (the only real problem in Chucktown), we decided that we better call to make sure she hadn't gone out for lunch...especially since we were later getting in than originally planned. Sure enough, E2 was working away in her cute lil green office, so we walked down to her building and found her in the hallway chatting with a coworker. She gave us the dime tour of the Clemson University Extension Office and introduced us to her coworkers! We decided we'd go for a bite to eat and began walking, in the rain mind you, not finding any place that wasn't packed...finally, I notice a small cafe type place across the street so we decide to give it a go. Tacone was a great place to eat!! It's a salad/wraps/grilled sandwich shop and it's delicious. Needless to say, it was a good find on my part! *smiling* After lunch, E2 went back to work and we decided we'd explore Charleston for awhile since Jacob was home sleeping (he has been on night duty for a few weeks and doesn't get home until about 8:30am). It stopped raining for the most part, so we drove straight down to the bay and walked around the park and took lots of pics. Charleston is a beautiful city, even in the rain! After getting Jenna hooked on the architecture and landscape of the area, we figured it would be a good idea to find our way to their house near Goosecreek and Moncks Corner. We did end up having to call E2 for directions at the very end...we were quite close to the house, but it's a new subdivision and not yet mapped! haha We pulled in front of their cute lil house and Leo was greeting us at the door! He is so much fun! He really took a liking to Jen...and he always tried to gain dominance over me...ha...but he's very good and we didn't mind being part of his "herd"! (Leo is an Australian Shepherd.) We watched tv and hung out at the house for awhile with Leo and Jacob, then after E2 got home we all went to Bubba Gump's for dinner! It was great food...and Jenna was a happy lil lark! (She has a strange affinity for the movie Forest Gump along with her friend Anna...no words describe that stupidity!)
Saturday was such a fun day! Kudos to Jacob for taking the day off to be with us girls! (He worked all night, showered and slept in the car amidst all our racket the whole ride to and from GA!) We drove 2 1/2 hours to Savannah, GA in hopes of eating at the famed Lady & Sons Restaurant, owned by food network star Paula Deen! Lucky us, we were able to get reservations for 2:15pm (the lady behind E2 in line got stuck with dinner reservations)!! Since we had a few hours to kill before lunch, we drove to Tybee Island to check out the sights. It was pretty cool to see signs on many business billboards welcoming the Indiana National Guard since they are down there for training before going to Iraq. Unfortunately we couldn't spend much time on the beach since there were 35 mph winds that day! ha We had some extra time when we made it back to Savannah, so we drove around for awhile checking everything out...they go nuts over St. Patty's day down there (all the fountains had green water!) and they even had some sort of Celtic festival going on that weekend. It was cool being able to go into Paula's store too! Lots of cool gadgets, every cookbook was signed by her, plates/linens, tshirts, etc...after doing a little shopping there, we waited for our names to be called so we could eat! We got seated on the third floor (yes, there is even an elevator in the restaurant) and all decided to have the buffet so we could sample lots of Paula's southern cooking! As you can see by the pic, the food was DELICIOUS!! The buffet consisted of salad, fried chicken, cheesy meatloaf, mac n cheese, collared greens, black eyed peas, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes (I think that was it, but I doubt it)...and at the end, they brought around dessert for us to pick from! Jenna and I had the Chocolate Chip Gooey Cake and Jacob and E2 had Peach Cobbler...it was served warm and it was soooo good it was sinful! ha We definitely gained a few un-needed pounds from that meal! We were stuffed to the gills on the way home...it was practically miserable to ride the 2 1/2 hours home...which we made longer by trying to stop and see the ocean at Hilton Head Island, but never could get to the water!?! We were all tired kids that night and sadly, Jacob and Leo stayed up and worked out in the garage while we slept! ha He put together some adirondack chairs they had bought and painted a milk can black and gold (Purdue colors of course!!). The chairs and milk can look good on their front porch.
Sunday we slept in...yay! I don't normally get to sleep in much because of my baby, Toby! ha After we did all manage to get up, E2 made a fantastic lunch...which I still need the recipe for... We all packed up then and put Leo in the back of the truck and headed off for the dog park! Talk about a fun time! Leo is a riot just playing in the house, but throw in a bunch of other dogs, a huge open place to run, a muddy pond...it's sure to be chaos! We had a blast laughing and watching all the dogs play, then headed back to the house for some down time. Our gracious hosts escorted us to the beach at Isle of Palms for sunset...it was gorgeous.
Monday Jenna and I were on our own and amazingly we survived! ha We got in the car and just started driving north with few directions from Jacob about how to get where we wanted to go. Our stops included: South Carolina - Pawley Beach, Myrtle Beach, Cherry Hill, Columbia and North Carolina - Sunset Beach, Calabash. The day can only be summed up by DRIVING! We spent many, many hours in our lil clown car driving up the coast, then southwest to Columbia to see the University of South Carolina Gamecocks, then back east to the Charleston area. We had a lot of fun and took tons of pictures! haha
Tuesday was another day of adventure for the two of us alone. We spent more time walking and viewing rather than driving since we stayed in the Charleston area, but our day included: Folly Beach on James Island, Morris Island Lighthouse, Patriot's Point, Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. It was a crazy busy day driving from one point to another, but again we had so much fun. (I know my last 2 paragraphs don't do our adventures justice, but I'm sure I'm boring you to no end by this point!) In honor of our last night in South Carolina, we all went to dinner at California Dreamin' down on the water....not only was the food great, the service was wonderful AND we saw dolphins swimming! It was a great way to end our trip!!
Yesterday we flew back to Indy through Charlotte, NC. It was a great flight...not full, so we got to spread out! yay! ha We had the same plane the entire trip and it was so clear that we could see the ground the entire flight. It was neat to be able to see the Lucas Oil Stadium and RCA Dome when flying in! This time we had a 'real' plane, not a puddle jumper...and the worst part of the trip was waiting for the stupid parking lot bus to pick us up!! We had to wait for 30 minutes, it was beyond ridiculous...grrr! ha
Now it's home sweet home...back to reality...decisions to be made on life and career (although this is even more difficult with my cousin Zach now gone on vacation to Mexico and still no official word from his company!)...
All in all, the trip was amazing! We already have a list of places we want to go on our next trip there! A traveler is never done....haha
I'm so glad we got to spend time with E2, Jacob and Leo! It was a great break from life back in Indiana and it was definitely hard to break away from the sunny 70 degree weather! At least it has been in the 60's since we got back!
=>On a happy side note - Welcome
Dallas Bergman! He is the cutest lil guy...Rajean and Doug have one handsome baby boy! Check out the pics Doug has been posting on Jean's page! *smiling*
