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| This seems ill-advised. Fortunately, I was not there to spoil the fun. |
We’re settled in here at the Sea Pines and we’ve started to
get the lay of the Hilton Head. As nice
as it is, it may not live up to Watkinsville, GA, and our friends the Byers. Of course the value of good friends is
difficult to quantify, and the Byers’ hospitality was top-notch. But it really was Abby the puppy who stacked
the deck.
 |
| Unlike Lanie, Zoe and Nadia managed to successfully clear the stream. |
The
girls spent the last day and a half frolicking in the woods behind our hosts’
home with their friends Riley, Cole and Connor, and with Abby the dog. The tree house and trampoline were barely
touched, but the stream and ravine were thoroughly explored and the grove of
bamboo was harvested for building materials.
At some point Riley offered up an “arcade” with real prizes (Lanie
garnered a fistful of candy and Nadia is taking home a prized ice cream scoop
with a handle fashioned like a pig).
They seem to have developed a few new types of tag along with a game
that consists of jumping from the six-foot bank of the ravine over the river
onto the sandy shore beyond. Lanie does
not seem to have the leg strength to carry her all the way over the
stream. Luckily, she took her sisters’
advice and put on her bathing suit for this game.
Saturday
was devoted largely to travel -- including a 6 am bus ride from Portsmouth to
Logan, a two-hour flight to Charleston and a four hour drive into Georgia. We
appreciated seeing Tyra, Jeb, and their kids, and we definitely took to
maneuvering around outside without stepping over snow banks, or without the
need for boots, or even shoes in general.
We agreed when Zoe pointed out that the green grass and blooming trees
gave us signals of May even though there’s a week left of February to go.
Sunday’s
highlights included a trip to a small Zoo in Athens, then to the University of
Georgia’s main campus, where all the kids spent about an hour climbing up
inside a gigantic magnolia tree. Athens
is a true college town, with a beautiful campus and an active downtown offering
many appealing lunch options. We decided
on pizzas at the Mellow Mushroom.  |
| One highlight from the zoo was watching a bunch of ill-fated crickets being fed to hungry frogs. |
The big adventure of the day (perhaps it will
eventually stand as the biggest adventure of the whole trip) was a walking excursion
along and in the creek that runs through the Byers’ back yard. Jeb said they had once before completed the
trip from their house downstream to the junction with the Middle Oconee
River. It seemed like a fine idea until
Lanie’s teeth started chattering. She
and Cole started running out of gas about two-thirds of the way to the big
river, our way made more difficult than Jeb expected because of multiple trees
that had fallen in the creek during last week’s ice storm. We managed to follow the creek to the
junction and then hike back via the high country (including some time walking
on train tracks and a few cross-country treks across private property) and make
it home in time for everyone to have a hot shower, eat some dinner and collapse
into bed.
 |
| Lanie caught an escaped cricket, whom she named "Hoppers" and carried around for the rest of the day. She was very disappointed that I would not allow Hoppers in the car for the ride home. |
Monday
is an early morning for the Byers – 6:40 school bus for Riley and Cole. As a result, we were on the road early and
had a relatively uneventful four-hour drive to Hilton Head (second biggest
adventure of the trip so far – lunch at Estill, SC’s China Town
restaurant). Without too much navigational
trouble we made it to the Sea Pines resort and are ready for the good life.
***
From Jen:
When we realized our friends the Byers lived only four hours
from Hilton Head, we gave our kids a choice.
We had promised them a week at a beach resort with very little
driving. We told them that instead we
could spend the first couple of days with our friends, but it would involve 4+
hours in the car each way and NO COMPLAINING.
They didn’t hesitate for an instant – the unanimous decision was to
detour to Georgia.
 |
| How many kids can you spy in this tree? |
So, we’ve added another state to our list. I think this means that the kids have now
been in every state on the eastern seaboard except for North Carolina. And due to Google’s very creative maneuvering
(I think I must have accidentally checked off “Avoid towns of more than 1000
people” or something), we saw a fair amount of Georgia (and South Carolina)
countryside.
 |
| At the Mellow Mushroom. Much less sketchy than China Town. |
The “NO COMPLAINING” part didn’t entirely work out, but this
was partially due to the fact that on both driving days we hit the lunch hour
with nary a restaurant in sight.
Saturday, having stupidly passed up the Chile’s that was right outside
the airport gates, we found ourselves, hours later, gratefully staggering into
a combination Subway/Domino’s/gas station in some nameless small town. En route back to South Carolina today, we had
almost resigned ourselves to a gas station Blimpie’s when we spied a sign for a
Chinese restaurant just off the main road.
This place appeared extremely sketchy, with a single employee eyeing us
in a puzzled and suspicious manner and a single restroom with an “Out of Order”
sign on it (which fortunately turned out to be a lie). Zoe, who was starving and loves Chinese food,
took one look at the place and said, “Maybe we should keep going.” However, in the end it seemed to work out
pretty well – there was no food that was actually prepared since there were no
other customers at the time, so everything we got was fresh made. It took a little longer, but I think improved
the quality. Also, no negative digestive
repercussions as of this point.
In any case, all are agreed that the detour was well worth it. Even if we had done nothing more than sit outside in the sunshine in short sleeves, catching up with friends and listening to the kids frolic in the stream out back, it would have been worth it. And now, relaxed and invigorated, we can plunge into Phase II of this trip and hope it goes equally well
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| I could get used to this. |
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