May 14– Continuing on to the Capitol

I apologize for the delay in getting this posted. It’s Zack again though, if you remember me from the long break since I wrote last.

This morning I awoke somewhat late, as has become the precedent, on Rhonda’s comfortable bed. We had decided late the previous night to make the drive to Washington D.C. today but the friends who are hosting us wouldn’t be available until after 8:00 tonight so we had to find some way to spend the day. We spent a little time in the morning looking at things to do on the computer, than I decided that I was hungry so we decided to fulfill our Saturday tradition of getting doughnuts (I did realize that we missed on week of the tradition but that was only because the food we were being offered at the house was delicious enough that it wasn’t necessary to go anywhere else. [Now that sounds like an insult to the other people we’ve stayed with, but it isn’t don’t worry everyone has been amazing to us, thank you all so much]).

We drove to a nearby, it was literally only a couple of blocks away, Dunkin’ Doughnuts and each got our chosen doughnuts. We drove back and ate them at home with milk, for me, and iced tea, for Isaac. After eating we went up stairs to see if there was anything to do and eventually decided that we should get the blog up-to-date (which obviously didn’t last very long, but I did finish some school work), and thus decided not to visit the city any, even though I’m sure we missed out on something in Richmond.

The rest of the day, at least until we eventually left, was spent on our various electronic devices, wasting our lives away. I went out a couple of times to help Rhonda move some soil for some tomato plants she was planning on gardening, but other than that mainly stayed inside. Eventually at around six we got our things together and after some goodbyes and a couple of pictures we left Virginia. Seeing and talking with more distant relatives is always interesting because the stories are different than all of those in the closer family. I’m glad I got to re-meet Rhonda and meet (I believe for the first time) her son and his wife and kids.

The drive was only about two hours, which I was in charge of while Isaac… well I’m not entirely sure what he did, but he occupied his time with something. We drove straight to our friends in DC without venturing off the road and arrived outside there house at about 8:30. I had been warned of the traffic in Washington D.C. and though I didn’t encounter too many problems the roads are definitely a lot more complicated than those of Utah. Turns and circles everywhere and lanes showing up and disappearing on both sides, not to mention trying to decide which lane is the exit and which is the continuation of the interstate.

After all the winding roads we drove into the drive-way of Stefanie and Jesse, who had been previous youth pastors at Isaac’s and my church (though I was not there very much when they were). We were welcomed into their house and given dinner, an Indian soup that I don’t know the name of, and offered conversation about our travels thus far and other things we’d missed out on since we saw each other last.

After a while of talking the four of us decided to switch the placement of the cars so that Stefanie could leave in the morning. Quickly after this the two went to bed and we moved into our rooms, me on the bed and Isaac on the couch, to eventually depart to sleep.

 

Interesting Observations:

We seem to spend an awful lot of time worrying about this blog, and a lot of time writing it. I’m sorry but as important as you various readers are I think I prioritize the activities of the trip itself. I’m thinking that I (not sure about Isaac) will spend less time worrying about this. I’ll still write them, and they’ll still be plenty full of detail but I’m not going to worry about them. I would rather worry about the trip.

You were expecting a couple more observations weren’t you? Well then you weren’t reading the above statement very closely. I can’t think of anything else interesting so only one for tonight … well now two.

May 13–A Tour of Richmond

This morning I awoke to the pleasant scent of French toast and sausage wafting up from the ground floor of Rhonda’s house. After a bit of coaxing from Zack, I got out of bed, and we went downstairs to eat the breakfast she had cooked for us. During breakfast, Rhonda asked us what we had planned for the day. We didn’t really know ourselves, so she offered to give us a tour of the town later that afternoon.

 

While we waited for afternoon to come, Zack and I decided to do a bit more relaxing and watch a movie (the time The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). Shortly before the movie was finished, Rhonda made it back home, and we set off on the tour.

 

One of the first things that we saw on our tour was a long line of historic houses and other various buildings, many of which had been around since the forming of our nation.

Every couple of intersections, we also saw monuments to various people who were influential in either Virginia or the entirety of the USA.

 

Not long afterwards, the road soon turned to cobblestone.

It was a strange feeling knowing that we were driving over roads that were built before cars were invented. Next, we drove past a location that had been used as a munitions factory during the civil war.

One of the neat things about this part of the country is that so many things (factory included) have been there for well over a hundred (if not more) years.

 

After we passed a good deal of other monuments and important buildings in Richmond, we pulled up to the Hollywood Cemetery. While it may sound like a strange name, there are ironically quite a few famous people that have been buried there, including two presidents (John Tyler and James Monroe) and the only president of the ceded states during the civil war (Jefferson Davis).

       

Although it was somewhat strange looking at peoples tombstones, it was really interesting to see some of the older grave sites (there was even a large section of the graveyard solely dedicated to the burial sites of confederate military officers who died during the war).

              

 

Once we left the graveyard, we made a brief stop at Rhonda’s home, then made our way over to Chili’s to meet with her son and his family. It was nice getting to know all of them over dinner, though their oldest daughter (about one and a half) was too scared to look at Zack or myself throughout the most of the dinner (as soon as she had her food in front of her and realized we were eating too, she turned around and was fine—I guess she figured out we weren’t all that bad).

Finally, we went back to Rhonda’s house, watched a couple more movies, and went to bed.

 

 

Interesting Observations:

-Though most places we’ve been to have had a fairly straightforward organization, the graveyard was not one of them. For a while, Rhonda, Zack nor I could figure out how to get out of the graveyard. When we made it back to the entrance, we took a look at the map, which simply looked like a bunch of scribbles.

-The local baseball team in Richmond definitely does not rank on the list of the worlds most fierce mascots. We didn’t get to see a game (Zack would have refused even if we did have time), but we did drive past the stadium of the Flying Squirrels.

May 12– Visiting a Friend

Today Isaac and I hope woke up at the edge of a Wal-mart parking lot in Norfolk, North Carolina. We had made plans the night before to hang out with a friend that was staying on base at Virginia. After stopping to spruce up a bit, we started the hour drive to where she, Michelle, was staying.
It was about 10:30 when we found the Air Force base. Before we went in, Isaac had to get out of the car because the base checked every persons ID and Isaac didn’t have one. I continued in, found Michelle's house and picked her up. After we got back outside of the base, we picked up Isaac and began driving around trying to find something to do. After about half an hour we decided that bowling might be fun, but having found out that the “Sparetimes” nearby didn’t open until noon, we decided to go shopping.
First, we realized that Michelle was wearing flip-flops and thus had no socks so we went to the local Dollar General and bought a pair of tiny girls socks. We wondered for a little, pretty much following Michelle to wherever it was that she was going. Eventually we walked by the cookie isle and some Double-Stuffed Oreos caught Michelle’s eye. We bought this and some ice and then we were off.
We waited in the parking lot of the bowling alley for a few minutes until it opened. Eventually it did and I got us all two games and a pair of shoes. Bowling was fun, I don’t remember the exact scores but I, of course, won all of the games. Isaac and Michelle, in their jealousy, were making fun of my perfect form the whole time we were bowling, but it was okay because I won (I’m just kidding, my form is far from perfect). After two games Isaac still hadn’t broke 100 so he decided that we should play another game. Isaac didn’t manage to break 100 on the following game but we decided that we were done.
After driving around a little bit more, we found a local mini-golf course that we thought might be fun. After quite a bit of miscommunication in trying to find it we finally called them and got more accurate directions and eventually pulled into the parking lot. They had a deal of $7 for unlimited play, so all three of us got that. There were three different courses, a yellow, a blue, and a red course, so we decided to play a round on each.
After playing the first round normally enough (the course wasn’t exceptional, in fact, it was basically just some fake grass with metal pieces placed randomly throughout), we decided to play the following two rounds in whatever weird ways we could think of. We made shots with our eyes closed, using only our knees or elbows, standing on only one leg. We never kept score but I’m pretty sure tiger woods would have had a hard time beating us.
After these three games it about almost four and Michelle needed to get home so we found the route on my phone and made our way back. We dropped Isaac off at the grassy hill before entering the base. We both said goodbye to Michelle (though at different times) and I dropped her off at her home away from home (she actually lives in Utah).
After picking up Isaac (reluctantly) we decided to continue our drive to Richmond, where one of my relatives was willing to let us stay. The drive was about two hours and nothing particularly incredible happened. We arrived at the pleasant house of my dad’s cousin, Rhonda, in Richmond and after calling her to make sure we were at the right place we grabbed our stuff and moved in.
Rhonda opened up her entire upstairs to us, which has a king sized bed and a twin (I claimed the King), for us to sleep on. She also gave us some pizza for dinner which I thought was really good. After eating, the three of us discussed things to do in Richmond and then realized that the weather was going to be rainy for the next week, so we would be limited to things that are inside.

Interesting Observations:
Playing mini-golf is pretty fun but adding extra difficulties to it definitely makes it interesting. We played one round shooting the ball billiards style using the golf club as the stick. That one took awhile to finish.
Virginia birds don’t seem to know the unspoken rule of the road. We’ll let you eat the food we leave around if you get out of the way when we’re driving. I almost hit a couple birds that flew right in front of my car as I was driving.
Pizza is good, in every way, shape and form. I really liked the pizza Rhonda gave us, but I hadn’t had any like it before. The crust was really flat and it didn’t have a whole lot of sauce but it had so many toppings that it tasted great. In fact, I think I’ll have some now.

May 11–To Surf or Not to Surf

We awoke this morning to the lovely sound of our phone alarms. After taking another half an hour to wake up fully, we quickly packed up our car, and walked into Wal-Mart to buy breakfast. In the bakery section, I noticed that old fashion blueberry pies were on sale for $.69, so I got one for breakfast. Zack, as could be easily be guessed, bought doughnuts for himself. Once we had finished eating, we stopped at a gas station to top off and brush our teeth. Now fully ready for the day, we set off.

 

The previous day, Zack and I had looked up which beaches in North Carolina were best for surfing. As well, we looked for surfboard rental prices, and found a surf shop in the town of Buxton, NC, that rented various sizes of surfboards for $10 a day. From Kitty Hawk, we made our way south towards Buxton. On the way there, we saw (to the west, in the body of water between the Outer Banks of NC and the rest of NC) quite a few wind surfers; at one point we could probably see about 50 at once.

 

When we arrived in Buxton, Zack and I had a realization. If we were to rent surfboards in town and drive back to the beach how in the world would we fit a 6’-8’ surfboard in our already crammed car? So instead of walking into the surf shop, we decided to turn around and scout out the beaches nearby. Our first few stops were unsuccessful, we found lots of sand and seashells, but no surfers (our logic was that the best places for surfing was, well, where we found surfers). Around noon, we found a portion of beach facing the ocean with quite a few cars in the parking lot, so we got out to investigate.

 

When we walked up, we saw a few people with surfboards—a glimmer of hope. Along with the surfers, we saw some large waves crashing not far off shore. As we got closer, we realized these weren't just large waves, they were massive. Apart from two brave surfers far from shore, nearly everyone at the beach was simply staring out at the ocean, watching the magnificence of the waves. Even a few surfers, fully geared, were just standing on the shore looking out. Because neither of us had ever gone surfing before, we decided to stay out of the water.

 

Just down the road from the beach, there was a lighthouse. We decided to go over and look at it, but after seeing the price to go up, we just stayed at ground level.

 

After the leaving the lighthouse,  we starting driving back towards Kitty Hawk. Along the way, we saw a sign for the island of Roanoke. Because it wasn’t far from where we were, we decided to go check it out. Upon arriving in Roanoke, we saw a sign pointing towards the lost colony. Following the signs, we ended up at a visitor center for a local state park. Because most of the things in the visitor center were geared towards children, we didn’t stay long. Nearby, there was another sign stating that the lost colony was ahead, so we began walking up the trail.

 

After looking for a while for the lost colony, we discovered that its name was fitting. Other then this memorial, we couldn’t find, well, anything.

A bit more exploring revealed that the signs for the lost colony were for a very large fictional reenactment of the story of the settlers of Roanoke.

 

Because we weren’t planning on staying until evening to watch the play, we walked back to our car, and made our way to Kitty Hawk. When we got there, we decided to go to the location Kitty Hawk is most famous for—the place where Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful airplane flight. The visitor center here was very in depth, with many different displays.

                  

 

Once we had our fill of the visitor center, we walked up to the top of a nearby hill with a monument to Orville and Wilbur.

Afterwards, we walked down to the track where the Wrights made their first four flights, with a small monument marking the landing place of their flights.

                         

 

After looking at these, we noticed that we only had another half an hour before the park closed. From the top of the hill, we had seen some bronze statues not far off, so we drove over to check them out.

                       

 

By now, it was getting near to evening, so we decided to set off to our next destination—the hometown of my favorite band, Mae. We didn’t really know what to look at in the town, so we just began turning whichever way seemed interesting. Not long after, we realized that we were being followed by someone, so we pulled over. She had stopped us to tell us there was a line hanging below the car with liquid coming out (she thought it was “either a brake line or a fuel line”). While we were very thankful for her concern, it turns out it was simply the drainage hose for our ice chest in the trunk.

 

While we were stopped, we decided to look at what things we could do in Norfolk after 6:30. Shortly, Zack told me to start driving, and navigated me to downtown Norfolk, saying that we needed to hurry because “it” was starting soon. I followed directions, soon finding out that we were heading to a theater. When we got there, we could only find one parking spot. I would need to parallel park Zack’s car.

 

Already having enough issues driving stick this trip, I pulled up next to the car in front of the empty spot, letting Zack know that he was going to have to come around and park it for me. Looking over, I saw that the car next to us was not empty, and the man inside didn’t seem to like the idea of me parking next to him. I’ve heard of people being able to do extraordinary things when they have adrenaline pumping through them. This was one of them. I panicked and did what I had never done before—parallel parked a stick.

 

After that terrifying experience, we hurried across the street, bought our ticket for the movie (we didn’t even know what movie it was until we got in). and took our seat at a table. Once we were settled, a waitress came and let us know how this dinner theater worked, giving us menus.

Looking at the menu, Zack and I each picked out a desert (cinnamon roll and cheesecake, respectively), picked up the phone, and made our orders. Very shortly afterwards, the previews ended, we received our food, and our movie (which turned out to be The Conspirator) began.

 

Once we had enjoyed our desserts and finished our movie, we headed over to the nearest Wal-Mart, and found our parking spot for the night. Before going to sleep tonight, we decided to watch another movie, The King’s Speech. Finally, once our second movie in our double-feature evening was finished, we went to sleep.

 

 

Interesting Observations:

-For most of the day, we saw signs everywhere with the abbreviation OBX (including a couple vehicles with “To OBX or Bust” painted on the window). Though the OB in OBX didn’t stand for anything related to the OB in OB/GYN (one of the earlier not-so-serious suggestions of Zack), we did find out that it simply stood for “Outer Banks.”

 

-On Kitty Hawk, we didn’t have a hard time finding the cheapest gas. For about a 20 mile stretch, every single gas station was selling gas for $3.83 (save BP, whose gas was $3.85; I guess they have to pay for their oil spill somehow).

May 10– Leaving North Carolina

Today was again, not very active. We woke up late again, had cereal for breakfast and then sat lazily around doing nothing until dinner time. We decided early on in the day that we would leave in the afternoon so that we would be in the right area for surfing in the morning. So after a day of talking to Sam and Dee and my attempting to amuse the children (with little or no success), we waited for our old teacher to get home from his new teaching job so that we could eat dinner.
At about 6 he did, and thankfully he made the three of us (Dee, Sam and the kids had all gone somewhere), some food. I’m not exactly sure what all of it was, but it tasted good and I’m sure it was healthy. Eventually we figured that the time had come for us to leave, so we began our march out the front door with our bags in hand.
Now that I think about it we forgot to get pictures with Mr. Pavlack and his family, which I regret. I’ll have to try to get him to send me one and if he does I’ll post it on the blog. Before we left we thanked him for taking his kids out of their room and letting us sleep there instead, it was a great statement of their kindness. Then we left
The drive to the coast of North Carolina was about five hours. Most of it was dark so I can’t say much for the scenery but the one thing I can say is that most of our drive was outside of cell service, or at least good service. So we were left to our own devices, which aren’t many. At what must’ve been one we eventually got to a Wal-mart on Kitty Hawk Island (I think it’s considered an island). After a short break for the bathroom, which didn’t include the inside of Wal-mart because it closed at midnight, we rearranged the car, leaned our chairs back, and fell asleep.
We didn’t get, well any pictures today. Like I said, I wish we had gotten some pictures of the family but I forgot. I would’ve taken some of the drive but it was mostly dark and pictures of darkness are not very interesting.
Interesting Observations:
There’s a Wal-mart on Kitty Hawk. I thought that fact alone was interesting, though the fact that it closes at all is a sign of how big it is. Still I found it amazing how well spread Wal-mart is, next thing you know they’ll have them in Uganda.
I’m not very good with children. I was trying to get along with Addy, the Pavlacks’ niece, but I seemed only capable of either scaring her or making her mad at me.
The ocean is much less beautiful when you can’t see it. I could still smell the ocean breeze when I rolled down my window, but we drove right over a road that had nothing but ocean to either side and saw no water. I kept hoping a lightning storm would come and light up the place.

May 9th–Relaxation from Relaxation

As the title suggests, today was our day of relaxation. We didn’t go anywhere particularly special today, so this blog post will be short. Waking up this morning, Zack and I realized that there weren’t a lot of large attractions in Greensboro. So instead of exploring today, we decided to take a day off.

After getting out of bed, we ate our breakfast of off-brand fruit loops. For the majority of today, we stayed at the Pavlacks’s house, surfing the web, watching movies, and playing games. This morning, Corbin was awake (he was taking a nap last night), so we watched all three of the kids as they played in the living room.

When Mr. Pavlack got home in the evening, we joined him to go to the park with his family. Driving into the park, we noticed that there was just about everything you could want there: tennis courts, soccer fields, hiking trails, a pool, and quite a few other things. At the park, Zack and I got to meet Dee’s mom, who had brought pizza for all of us to share. After dinner, we threw  baseball around for a while, played catch with a football, and talked with one another. After we were finished, we walked back to our cars, drove back to the Pavlacks’s house, and got ready for bed.


Interesting Observations:
-Corbin, though only two and a half, has got a pretty good arm already. For part of the time we were playing catch (with a baseball), he joined in and did pretty well.

May 8–From South to North

Today I didn’t feel like waking up. This is a common thing, but my lack of motivation seemed greater today so when my alarm went off at 8 I was quick to ignore it. At nine I awoke again but still hadn’t quite worked up the motivation to face the day. Finally I got up at about 10 and walked down to the kitchen where Ed and Marty were preparing breakfast.

We had omelets, ham and cheese, and considering how little I’ve had omelets they were very good. I told both Ed and Marty of our intentions to hit the road later that day so while we ate we discussed plans for visiting in the future sometime. After breakfast Isaac and I got ready and started packing everything into the car.

Eventually we got everything into the car, and before we were really ready to leave, we were going to. Before we did, we took a couple pictures with Ed and Marty but then we were off.

We didn’t drive long today. We planned on Visiting a friend, Selena, in the afternoon and it was only about a hour and a half drive to where she lived. We arrived before she was available so we drove around a little in the city but eventually Selena decided that she wasn’t going to be available. Before we left I made a phone call to my mom, wishing her a happy birthday and discussing things back home. Everything seemed alright and she seemed to be enjoying the day celebrating her.

The road to where we are staying for the night was only another hour and a half, so we quickly arrived at the house. A past teacher of ours, Mr. Jon Pavlack, and his wife said that he would be willing to put us up for a couple of days and we were glad to see them.

Jon made us hamburgers for dinner and we spent the rest of the night talking about how life has been since we’d last seen each other. After his wife got home we played a few games of ninja (I won’t take the time to explain but if you don’t know and want to, ask me sometime). I won! After that we talked a bit longer and then went to bed.

Today was more calm, but it was a nice break from all the action. North Carolina is almost a beautiful, there are still trees everywhere and hot weather throughout the day. And the Pavlacks are extremely kind and loving people, and I’m so glad that the are willing to open up their home to us.

Interesting Observations:

There was a huge random peach while we were driving. The pictures explains it more.

 

Happy mothers day! That’s not really so much of an observation as a proclamation but I think it’ll work okay.

I’m gonna miss Ed and Marty and their dogs. Pitbulls aren’t half as bad as they’re cracked up to be and it was fun playing with them.

May 7—Floating Down the River

I awoke this morning to Zack informing me that breakfast was ready. Reluctantly, I rolled out of bed, and groggily walked downstairs. Marty and Ed (her husband) had prepared a scrumptious breakfast of fruits, sausage, eggs, and French toast.

Not long after we began eating, we noticed that the clock struck 8am, signaling it was time to hit the road. Our main plan for today—whitewater rafting.

The drive was fairly uneventful along the way. We avoided construction for the most part, and because we weren’t near any major cities, the roads were mostly clear.

Along the last 40 miles of the drive, Zack and I decided to play the billboard game, both backwards and forwards. The first one was a close one, with Zack winning by two or three seconds. The second one I lost horribly, but I was driving, so I had an excuse (I’ll use that one anyways...). By the time I finally made it through the alphabet again, we were pulling up to the nearest city to our destination. After a wrong exit, an attempt to get back on the freeway that led us back the way we came, a u-turn up at the next exit, and an extra ten miles, we saw the sign on the side of the road for Wildwater Ltd.

Upon arriving, we found ourselves a parking spot, and did some final preparations for the trip (mainly leaving everything in the car we didn’t want to get wet, which sadly included our camera, so pictures are very few for today). While checking in for the trip, we were asked if we wanted to rent wetsuits. Zack asked the lady if we would need them, and she simply replied that the water was a cozy 48 degrees Fahrenheit today. Needless to say, we both rented wetsuits.


We waited a little for the last few people to trickle in, and were then directed over to the equipment shed to pick up a splash jacket, life preserver, and paddle. Once we were all geared up, we got onto the bus to be transported up to the top of the rapids. The drive was beautiful, driving through more of the extremely green forest.

Once up at the river, we went through a few basic safety precautions. The next step was to gather with our groups, so we waited until “The Sunderland Party” was called. We shared our raft with a couple (looking to be in their late twenties), our guide (an experienced rafter in her early 30’s) and her daughter (who was eight years old). We then proceeded to climb into our raft and set off down the river. Zack and I had chosen to sit up in the front, meaning that we would be the pacemakers for paddling throughout our ride.

On the river, the water was cool and clear. For the most part, we were able to see down to the bottom of the relatively shallow water, unless we were going over the class 2 rapids found sporadically throughout the trip. As we went along, our guide would occasionally call out commands such as “three forward” or “two back”, letting us know what action to take as we floated down the river. As well, at one point she had my side row back, while Zack’s side rowed forward, causing us to spin in circles while heading downstream (I think she was showing off her guide skills a little bit to the other rafts). In the calmer moments however, I was able to lean backwards over the side and reach down to glide my hand through the peaceful water.

Though the river was fairly calm for the most part with some bigger rapids (our guide let her eight year old daughter come, so it couldn’t have been that bad), our guide’s daughter was itching for a greater challenge. Throughout the ride, you could hear her saying things like, “We should all start paddling fast now, this is boring” and “You call that a rapid, river? That was nothing!” About halfway through the journey, she even purposefully jumped into the river to “test the waters” a little bit. Though the temperature did rise a bit as the day had gone on, it couldn’t have been much warmer then 50 in the river, brrr.

As we approached the last few rapids of our journey, we saw an orange construction sign hanging in a tree stating, “Bump”. Shortly after the marked rapids, we came around a bend to find the only class 3 rapids on our journey. After being guided into place, we went over the rapid, going over first a two foot drop closely followed by a three foot drop (it felt a lot bigger then it sounds in terms of distance). Sad;y. that was the last rapid of our trip, and we then paddled over to the landing, took the raft out of the water, got in the bus, and drove back to our car.

After changing into a fresh (dry) set of clothes, Zack and I ate another lunch of turkey sandwiches, and made the drive back to Marty and Ed’s house. Though I wasn’t feeling terribly tired, I must have been after going rafting, because I fell asleep on the drive (and stayed asleep for a few hours after we got back). Because I was asleep, I don’t know if anything interesting over this five hour span. I awoke to Zack telling me that it was time for dinner (oddly enough the same way I been awoken that morning).

We then enjoyed a dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and corn on the cob. Finally, we watched the third of the Chronicles of Narnia with Ed and Marty, and got ready for bed.



Interesting Observations:
-If you didn’t know, I’m terrified of snakes. Like, Indiana Jones terrified. When our guide informed us not to touch the branches because a snake may fall out, I made sure to follow that instruction.
-Our guides daughter was even tougher then we originally thought. Turns out, when she was putting on her wetsuit right before we left, she got stung by a bee that had taken solace in her wetsuit. If her mom had never told us, we never would’ve noticed (she wasn’t at all affected by it).

May 6–The Greatening Wonders of SC

This morning was a late one. I awoke at around 9, deciding that I better get on with the day. After a short conversation with Marty, we decided to have pancakes for breakfast and she went to the kitchen to make them while I got ready. As I was, Gracie would frequently decide that she had something to say and would come up to me, barking with full force. She was afraid of me to begin with, Marty thinks it’s probably because of my height, so I would try to get on my k

nees whenever she was nearby and let her come to me. She’s gotten used to me now.

After a while I finished getting ready and after letting Marty finish cooking (thanks for all the food), I woke up Isaac so that we could have breakfast. Over the food we discussed what Isaac and I could do today. Marty’s Husband, Ed, was Flying in from Florida and his plane was scheduled to arrive at seven so the plan was to have dinner at 7:30. I looked around on some of the pamphlets Marty had got out for us, and found one about a state park that looked beautiful so after looking to see how far away it was I decided to make the drive up there.

After Isaac got ready we left and made the roughly hour and a half drive to Caesar's Head State Park. The drive up was as beautiful as the pictures in the brochure and the road curved in and out through the mountain, I had fun driving on it. Eventually we got to the park, packed our bags in preparation for a nice hike, and went into visitors center to find out the best trail and where we would have to start to get to it. After a somewhat absentee ranger (I guess she was a ranger?) finally came to the counter, I found out that the trailhead to the place I wanted to see was actually a lot closer to another State park that wasn’t quite as far down the road.

We looked around a little more, found a gorgeous panoramic view of the area and then left to Jones Gap State Park. Admission was $2 each so we paid that quickly and then after getting conformation that we were going the right way we started our hike up to Rainbow falls. I’m not exactly sure how long the trail was, around 3 miles one way I think. We made it up in a little over an hour and saw the gorgeous water descending from above and landing right at our feet, spraying droplets all over.

I would try to describe how pretty the place was but I don’t think I could do it justice and pictures will serve as a much better description. Just know that trees were everywhere, and everything was green as green can be (and coming from me that’s quite a statement, since I can’t see green very well).

A short while later, we decided that we’d seen enough of the waterfall (plus the park closed at 6:30 and it was about 5:30 so we figured we’d better get a move) so we started the descent. It took about half as long going down so we got to the car a little after 6 and started our drive back to Ed and Marty’s house in anticipation for the steaks we knew we were having for dinner.

We got to the house before Marty had made it back from picking up Ed so we waited in the car a couple of minutes but after just a little the both arrived. Introductions passed between the two of us and Ed, and then we went inside to prepare dinner (well the two of them did, Isaac and I weren’t much help). We sat at the dinner table while everything was cooking and the two of them showed me pictures of my parents when they were younger. My parents and Ed and Marty had been good friends when my parents were just dating (in fact Ed was my dad’s best man) so they had plenty of pictures of camping trips and other things.

(For those of you interested my dad looked pretty similar to Alexander Supertramp/Christopher McCandless when he, my dad, was younger [if you don’t know who that is read or watch Into the Wild]. In fact, with the similarities in looks and interests I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t in fact the same person.)

Eventually the cooking was done and we enjoyed steak, corn, rolls, salad, and baked potatoes, a good home-style American dinner. We continued sharing stories through dinner, and once we finished we moved to cracker barrel where we each enjoyed a sumptuous dessert.

Once we got back to the house Ed and Marty went to bed and Isaac and I followed in step shortly after.

Interesting Observations:

Boiled peanuts are really popular down here, I’m not sure if it’s the whole south but it is definitely popular in the places we’ve been around.

I’m still in love with South Carolina. I don’t even think I’ve made it out of the puppy love stage, everything is still so perfect about it. And now I learn that there are beautiful waterfalls to be seen! What more can you ask for? (I just realized that popular phrase was a question, that’s kind of ironic).

My inward obligation to get in any body of water I see can be muffled under the right conditions. My dad always comments that I have to get in any water larger than a puddle that I see (and he’s not wrong), but today I managed to withhold myself and stay out of underneath the waterfall. Mainly because I was wearing jeans and I didn’t feel like stripping down to my underwear to have a short burst of freezing cold water and be uncomfortable the entire hike down. Oh well.

May 5–Cinco de Mayo in South Carolina

We awoke this morning about an hour after sunrise, still kept warm in the confines of Zack’s car. Though it was the fifth of May, we didn’t really do anything recognizing it (apart from listening to a special on the radio for the National Day of Prayer). After a brief preparation for the day, we were off to discover some of South Carolina.

Once we had driven for a little bit, we were back in the historic part of Charleston. As explained in the last post, this is one of Zack’s favorite areas thus far on the trip, so we put a couple of hours of parking into the meter (finally found a spot today) and explored around town a little. As we looked around, we saw quite a few elaborate churches, some with towering spires. We later discovered that some famous people were buried at these churches, including a few politicians like John Calhoun.

Throughout the town, there were a lot of different historical sites (be it houses or memorials with signs posted out to teach us an interesting part of history).
                                            
After a while, our parking was beginning to run out, so we walking back that direction. Because we hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, we stopped briefly at a Dunkin Donuts, then made our way back to the car. Along the walk, Zack and I attempted to play an impromptu game. It involved creating a conversation only movie titles. It was a lot harder then expected, but we still had fun creating our elaborate, not very coherent story.

We made it back to the car with three minutes of parking to spare, and began driving once again. We soon found a parking lot near a very large battleship museum. It would’ve cost us a bit to park in that lot though, so we drove around a little longer and found a soccer field nearby. While walking from the car, we found a memorial for lost submariners, with a life-size submarine display. We looked at that for a while, then travelled the last little bit towards the battleship.
         

When we got to the ticket booth, we realized that we could either go on the battleship (for a fairly expensive price) or take a ferry to Fort Sumter and tour the fort (for a lesser price). Because of this, we thought it would be fun to go see where the first shots of the civil war were fired, and bought tickets. The next ferry wasn’t leaving for about an hour, so we decided to do some more of our favorite activity this trip—exploring.

Before looking elsewhere, we took a short trip to see if the gift shop had anything interesting.

Off to the side of the docks, one of the first things we saw was a miniature C plane. Walking over, some air force soldiers informed us that we could climb inside, so we did.

While there wasn’t a full size C plane next to it, here’s a picture for comparison.

After that, we decided to walk a little further down and sit on the edge of a small hill overlooking the inlet and some marshes. While there, we listened and heard a chorus of dozens of different birds, each happily singing away. Around 1:10, we noticed that the tour boat was boarding, so away we went.

Aboard the ferry, we sat down in the chairs provided. Shortly after we started moving, Zack and I moved up to the front deck to watch the ocean/inlet as we rode towards Fort Sumter.

On the journey, we listened to the loudspeakers as it gave us some information about the Fort and surrounding areas. Along with the many sea birds flying around, we spotted some dolphins again (these ones were closer, but swam away pretty quickly).

Once at the fort, a park ranger gave all that wanted to hear a brief lesson about the fort, pointing out interesting features. After that, Zack and I walked around the fort, seeing the same remnants of structures partially destroyed during the civil war.
               
Originally, the walls were five feet thick of solid brick. Normal cannonballs didn’t do much damage to the fort, but more developed ballistics eventually took off the top two floors. Some rounds are still in the wall even to this day.


After our hour at the fort was up, we loaded back onto the ferry, and began heading back to shore. During the ride, Zack and I (mostly myself) struck up a conversation with a man named Jim, who shares our passion for travel (him and his wife have been living in an RV travelling the country for nearly a decade).

Back on shore, Zack and I made our way back over to the car, enjoyed a lunch of turkey sandwiches, and got in the car to make our way over to where we would be staying for the night. Though it was a short drive (only about three hours), I could feel myself starting to slowly turn red from the time spent in the sun. By the time we made it to Marty’s house, both of us were definitely burnt (me more so then Zack).

When we pulled into the driveway, two pit bulls came up to the fence leading into the backyard to greet us. Gracie (the younger one) barked up quite a storm, but was very friendly once she realized Zack and I weren’t there to hurt her. Kia (the older one) was pretty calm throughout the whole ordeal of new guests. After some brief introductions between Marty, Zack and I, we decided to go out and grab a pizza for dinner. Once dinner was finished, we went back to her house, and had an enjoyable conversation about life until after midnight.


Interesting Observations:
-College students are fairly stereotypical. When walking around Charleston, Zack and I saw a store for college students; though, rather than having local college merchandise and apparel, it was pretty much just a store to buy cigarettes and alcohol.

-Harvard, though prestigious, apparently doesn’t have the most intelligent graduates. Here’s a sign we saw while walking into the Pizza Hut:

May 4–Love at first sight

This morning Isaac and I woke up late. I guess it was the lack of urgency that kept my motivation away from waking up earlier, but because of it we didn’t wake up until 9:30 or so. We got ready with a similar lack of urgency, taking longer showers and slowly moving our things into the car. We had decided the previous night that we were going to leave Florida this morning and it was with these intentions that we got ready. Eventually we decided that everything was ready and in the car, and with a slight reluctance we left David’s house, where we had taken solace for four nights.

Our day continued with a several hour drive into South Carolina. It was a much shorter drive than we were used and we didn’t know the area of SC that the people were living at so we eventually decided to just drive towards Charleston. This part of the drive seemed longer, probably because I wasn’t the one driving and because most of the roads had lower speed limits.

An hour or so later we arrived in Charleston and I, as the title of the post suggests, fell in love at the first sight of the city (I know you were hoping I met a girl, sorry to disappoint. I like traveling much more than girls). Everything was perfect according to my preferences. The climate was cool, but not cold, just right for running or a nice stroll through the neighborhood. Everyone in the city agreed about the weather; everywhere you looked there was a runner, in fact there were four or five runners everywhere you looked. I’m not even exaggerating there were a ton of runners, even quite a few bikers. Anyway back to my love story, the weather was perfect, the houses were gorgeous most of them made of brick and either fashioned or actually made in the colonial era, there were trees everywhere both palm and non-coastal, and the ocean inlet was gleaming beautifully.

I literally cannot think of anything I would want to change, and thus I decided that I’m going to live in Charleston sometime. I think I’ll write a song about Charleston during the next couple of days. Oh how I’ll miss it when we leave.

As for our activities, we found a park (it was supposed to be related to Fort Sumter but wasn’t) and walked around in it for a little. Before long Isaac needed to use the bathroom and apparently extremely bad because he rushed me out and told me to just drive somewhere anywhere that would have a bathroom he could use. Because we were in the historic area not many places like that were around but eventually we stumbled upon a rite aid and before I had even stopped the car he jumped out and ran into the store.

A while later Isaac got back in the car while I was working out our sleeping arrangements for the night. After this we drove to a different part of town, though it was still by the ocean inlet, and eventually found a parking spot (I’ll admit we weren’t actually parked legally but it was really hard to find parking and the lot I was in was complete open save a couple cars). We walked around the popular part of Historic Charleston and saw a lot of older buildings scattered throughout the city.

There was a short wooden walk way that went out onto the water and we spent a little time on it staring out towards Fort Sumter and the distant ocean. A little further along the trail there was a nice park surrounded by palm trees. In the middle was a fountain that they let people wade in so I stepped into it and cooled my feet.

We continued walked, passed by a guy who let us pet his two cute dogs, and eventually made it to the end of the park where we made a circle through town and made it back to the car. From there we drove onto a smaller peninsula it must’ve been, where I found a Wal-mart for the supplies we needed.

I had, with my dad’s help, found a couple of campgrounds on military bases where we could camp and grill a couple of the burgers we had just bought. But Isaac wanted to stay at the Walmart and in my love for the city, and even the area of it that we were in, I decided that that would be an okay idea. We found a small corner to stay in near some trees and made camp.

While we laid there a few different things happened. The first was a police car and the two cops inside stopped and were inspecting our car for a while. The woman officer went to Isaac’s side and asked a series of questions all the while acting very suspicious of our being there. Eventually they went away simply advising us to make sure it was okay with Wal-mart for us to stay there. Later a cleaning truck and a man cleaning up the leaves, came by making plenty of noise but after a while they left and we were free to sleep.

Interesting Observations:

People love to run in Charleston. I already said this but it’s worth the emphasis of repeating, runners everywhere. Isaac’s theory is that this is due to the lack of parking which is a legitimate option judging from our attempts to find parking.

I love traveling more than girls. I thought this deserved explanation. Girls are great and all but given the option of a good girlfriend and traveling for several months, I’d pack my bags and be out of there. I don’t know if the same is the true for Isaac but all you girls who are interested in me, be warned!

Isaac thinks I should put that he’s easily entertained but I think this is too common of knowledge to be justifiably “interesting” so instead I’m going to say that we saw an interesting little store that had tractors placed on this little island in front of their store. It was quite the interesting sight.

May 3–Back to Daytona Beach

Awaking this morning, we realized that we had slept in. It was only 7:50am, but still late in comparison to how late we’ve been sleeping. After I woke Zack up and took a quick moment to rub my eyes, I backed the car out, and we headed back to the freeway. Almost immediately after leaving, Zack told me we should go in another direction. About 20 minutes away from where we decided to park last night (which was pure chance, as it was just the closest place to where I began feeling tired), was a small pier where you could sometimes spotted manatees.

When we got there, we looked out over the pier to see…no manatees. There were thousands of little minnows though, swimming around in a school together (and reacting quickly if Zack or I moved too fast).

We also spotted a large crab underneath the water, and watched it walk until it disappeared in the shadows. We also saw a strange looking statue, not exactly sure what it as for though.


After getting back in the car, we starting heading towards Daytona Beach. Along the way, however, we saw a sign telling us that the Kennedy Space Center was at the next exit. Because we were originally planning on going to see the shuttle launch (it was postponed until after we were leaving Florida though), we decided to stop by. When realizing that it would cost almost $100 just for general admission, we decided that we should just continue on.


While heading back to the freeway, we saw a sign for the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary. I decided it might have something interesting, so we pulled off for another detour. While it looked promising, many of the things there were geared towards kids, so we left once again without seeing anything significant.

Getting on the road again, we drove the final couple of hours to Daytona Beach. On getting to town, we decided we were at a good breaking point, and reorganized the car and our bags. Shortly after everything was back in it’s place, Zack looked up the website for a lighthouse that David had suggested. It looked interesting, and since most of our other activities thus far were fairly insignificant, we decided to give it a go.

The first thing we did after paying admission into the lighthouse museum was go to the top of the lighthouse (all 200+ steps of the way up!).
  
The view from the top was simply spectacular. We were able to see about 17-20 knots—however many miles that is—according to a sign elsewhere in the museum. Outside of the lighthouse itself, there were a few smaller buildings, each dedicated to a different subject. To name a few, there were buildings on lighthouse lenses (with some massive examples), lives of the keepers (the men who manned the lighthouse itself), and shipwrecks.

Around this museum, there was an abundant amount of information and original artifacts about and from the lighthouse. Many of these items had been around since the mid-late 1800s.
From the top of the lighthouse, we had seen a couple of odd looking buildings not far away, as well as a pier jutting out into the ocean. Once our time in the museum was up (we had spent two hours there and skipped over a lot, but they were closing), we decided to walk over and explore. The first building we walked to was a marine life science center, but it had closed a few hours prior. The next building, we couldn’t find. So we gave up and walked on towards the beach.
After quickly making peace with the beach (or at least looking where someone else had), the first thing we did was walked down the pier.

There were a bunch of surfers wading a ways out, waiting to catch the bigger waves that would come in. Even a parasailor was cutting through waves around the surfers, seeming to float suspended when he would catch big air off of a wave. Down at the end of the pier, there were a few people looking out over the ocean, as well as a fisherman, running back and forth between four different fishing rods.
It was incredible standing there feeling the ocean breeze. We watched as pelicans glided by, boats sailed in the distance, and waves crashed against the pier. At first, many of the waves that would hit would be fairly large in size, but never high enough to get either of us wet. After a bit of verbal taunting (including Zack asking if the Atlantic was gonna go run and get its big brother the Pacific), the waves picked up a bit, some of them reaching high enough to splash on us.
After a while of standing there, Zack spotted some dolphins swimming a few hundred feet away. We watched for a while as about ten dolphins swam back and forth, popping out of the water every once in a while (at one point even flipping a fish up into the water, which I assume it snatched when it landed back in the ocean). We watched the dolphins until they swam away, and, since the sun was beginning to get low in the sky, decided to walk back down the pier.


Right as we turned around, we saw an egret flying right next to us, fighting hard against the wind. It soon landed really close to us, and gave us a look like “Well, I don’t want to be here this close to you guys, but I don’t really have a choice.”

After the wind died down a little bit, it flew ahead of us on the pier. We stopped again when we got near it, and watched it dive down into the water a few times, grabbing some type of small fish as its dinner.

With some sunlight still left as we got to the end of the pier, we decided to walk down the beach for one last time before leaving Florida. A ways down, we stopped to dip our feet into the water. While standing there, we saw what looked like gravel under the sand when a wave would wash up. On closer inspection, however, we realized that all of what we though were rocks would move around after the water drifted back down the beach. It was a really odd sight, as thousands of clams would all burrow themselves a little bit under the sand after every wave.
              
After watching these for a while (and building a sandcastle to try and create a little pool to view the clams better), we saw what looked to be a fish flopping in the water about 30 feet out.

Being curious as usual, we got out the camera, and tried to find it again to get a picture. An older couple happened to walk behind us a short while later, and noticing us trying to take a picture of the waves, told us to watch out for the rays, ‘cause they really would sting. Of course, being the cautious two we were, we walked out a little further trying to spot it. Every five minutes or so, we would see it pop up for a few waves (both the waves of water and waves of its “arms” as it flopped in the water). You’ll have to get a blurry picture, it was hard to get a good one of this guy.


At this point, the sun had gone down, and it was getting dark. Because we had left our shoes near the beginning of the beach, we spontaneously decided to sprint back down to the pier (Daytona Beach is, after all, the “birthplace of speed”). Eventually, we made it back to our shoes, washed off our feet, and walked back to the car.

Because we hadn’t eaten in a while, we decided to use the last of our burger king coupons, getting a free drink and fries with our order of 20 chicken tenders. We then decided to finish off the night with some ice cream from Cow Licks, but they were closed…so we made the final journey back to David’s house, talked with him for a little bit about life and our trip, and went to bed.


Interesting Observations:
-While walking towards the beach, we noticed a blue reflector sticking up from the pavement at about the center of the right lane, and realized that we had seen quite a few around town. Because there was a fire hydrant right next to it, we decided that maybe it was to mark locations of fire hydrants. Sure enough, the rest of the reflectors we saw on the way home all had a fire hydrant right next to it.

-I don’t think this is exactly what its for… (if you can’t read the word in the picture click on it to enlarge)


-Apparently grenades aren’t only used for destruction. We found this cool grenade on display at the lighthouse museum:


-If I found all the little Whos down in Who-Ville, I would’ve put them on this:


-I’ve heard of things being squeaky clean before, but squeaky sand was a new one for us. While walking on the sand at a portion of the beach we were on, we heard a very soft squeaking sound with each step we took. Finding this odd, we decided to step a little more forcibly, and humorously, the sand squeaked loudly. Probably to the bewilderment of anyone watched, we stomped around the beach, listening to the sand squeak like we were stepping on squeaky toys.