June Road Trip 2013 - Charleston area

Today was supposed to be a beach day, but we didn't have lots of luck.  We were checking out Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island.  After much driving around, we finally decided to beach at Isle of Palms.  Beaches are different around here from what we are used to - the sand is packed down and hard, so you really have to have chairs - laying on a towel is not much fun (poor Katelyn).

We were there for an hour when we could see a storm approaching.  It started to rain so we ducked under a beach umbrella that was for rent. :) The rain stopped, so we beached a little longer, but when it started again, we decided to head back to Sandy. Looked like the rain was here to stay.

After driving around a little (touring the island) we ate at Taco Mamacita in Sullivan's Island.  Very good tacos and guacamole, cheese dip, and salsa!

We aren't having much luck with the weather - we had to stay at a hotel again tonight.  We decided we really need to invest in a rain fly for Sandy. 

 

June Road Trip 2013 - Savannah - Day 2

We drove into Savannah for a second day to tour around the city.  One of our goals was to find the waving lady.  She was said to have waved each day to sailors passing for 44 years!  We walked again along River Street (cobblestone streets) and found The Peanut Shop - they had the most samples of any store ever!!  We had a nice snack!

 

 

Walking around the town we found some other cool shops - one was an old mansion (one of the oldest) that now had antiques on each of the four floors.  We also admired the amazing old houses, pretty trees, and architecture.

 

Doug found a place to eat called The Pirates' House.  It was a unique place in that it was an old inn and tavern for sailors and pirates passing through the area. We ate here and then got a tour of the building from a "pirate."  We learned a lot about the history of the building and other interesting little tidbits.

We really enjoyed Savannah - we would come back again because there were tons of interesting restaurants and shops all over the place!

We left for Charleston later in the afternoon.  Unfortunately we couldn't sleep in Sandy, we had to stay at a Hampton Inn because of the rain.

June Road Trip 2013 - Savannah

Katelyn woke up this morning with an earache.  We know all too well not to mess around with these with all the swimming we do over the summer!  So we found the closest Urgent Care and got her some meds. 

Checking out the city of Savannah was on our agenda for today!  We stopped at the visitor center for a map and some info.  We really enjoyed walking around this city - lots of very old, huge historical houses, beautiful trees with Spanish moss hanging from them, and shops and restaurants galore! We walked through the City Market area, River Street (riverwalk), and then W. Broughton Street.

Along our journey we found a chocolate shop we definitely wanted to come back to and also we had heard about a famous ice cream shop that had been around since 1919 that we just couldn't miss. We decided to just eat something small so we found a place called Goosefeathers - Doug and I split a chicken salad sandwich and Katelyn got a black bean burrito that was not so small :).

Back to Chocolat by Adam Turoni - I've never seen a shop like this before!  There were four cases of amazing chocolates.  You pick up a silver tray and then put on the chocolates you'd like to buy (using tongs of course).  Then they have a bar you can sit at to indulge in some of the best tasting chocolate ever!  My favorite was a dark chocolate with a honey filling (from bees right in Savannah).  We struck up a conversation with Adam Turoni himself and ending up getting to try one of his new chocolates which also was a dark chocolate with honey filling, but this one had honey from bees that fed on wildflowers.  So delicious!

Then next we headed to Leopold's for ice cream.  We were raking in the calories today!!  Very good ice cream - Katelyn had peppermint, Doug had coffee and mint chip, and I had mint chip.

We headed back to the campground pretty stuffed!  We swam in the pool and ended our night with a game of Scrabble Slam.

June Road Trip 2013 - Somewhere in NC along Route 95 to Tybee Island, GA

Today was mostly a driving day - we now have a third passenger with us! :)

Our thought was to drive the farthest south we wanted to go and work our way north.  So, today we wanted to reach Savannah, Georgia.  We had to stop at South of the Border and get some fun pictures...

It took us about 5 hours to get to Georgia.  We stopped at a Target to pick up some fans.  The forecast was not looking good - chance of rain or thunderstorms every day!  Ugh!!  We decided if we had to zip everything up, we may want to have some fans to keep us somewhat cool.  I found a campground called River's End in Tybee Island, Georgia, that was really close to the beach.  So that's where we camped first.

We set up camp and then walked to a restaurant that was on the beach (well that's how it was advertised, but there was a parking lot and a dune separating the restaurant from the ocean).  On our way there was a lighthouse.  We ate at North Beach Grill and had a nice meal there - Doug decided to try crayfish bites. We checked out the beach - the water looked pretty dirty - not sure at that point if we would beach there the next day or not. After dinner we returned to the campsite where Doug and Katelyn swam in the pool - I just needed a shower!  Then we played some games (Uno and Story Cubes) before calling it a night!

 

 

June Road Trip 2013 - Surf City, NC to Wilmington, NC

I was anxious to get everything cleaned up and get on the road.  I wanted to quickly forget about all that rain and my restless night sleeping - Doug said I must have stepped on his head about a dozen times as I was getting up to check for leaks! :)

We read about a bakery and coffee shop that I just had to check out in Surf City, so of course we hit them both.  First the Corner Sweet Bakeshop and Treats where we got some cookies for later.  The owner there loved Sandy - a possible trade??  I could manage living at the beach owning a bakery!  Next we went to the Hunga Bunga Java coffee shop.  We had a delicious smoothie, coffee, and muffin there.  It had a very "chill" tiki vibe so we enjoyed our food and drinks there. 

We left there and headed south to Wilmington, NC.  What a great little town!  We parked near a farmer's market that was going on (it was Saturday) in the historic downtown section.  They have a quaint riverwalk section that has restaurants and shops all along it.  They also have side streets that have the same thing.  We really enjoyed walking around the town, going into the cool shops, listening to some live music along the river, and deciding on a place to eat.  We settled on The George on the Riverwalk because I love being able to eat and look at water at the same time!  The ocean is my favorite, but I'll take a river :)  We had calamari (it's been a long time!) and fish tacos.  Both were very tasty!  We would definitely visit Wilmington again - there were lots of interesting restaurants and I'm sure we didn't see all the shops!

We drove to a hotel tonight.  Tomorrow Katelyn joins us! :)

June Road Trip 2013 - Ocracoke, NC to Surf City, NC

After leaving the Ocracoke Campground, we decided to stop at the Ocracoke Coffee Co., which is a great little coffee shop in town.  We were heading to the ferry to take us to Cedar Island, NC, at 10:00.  We shared an amazing smoothie called Jah Makin' Me Crazy and also a piece of lemon poppy seed blueberry coffee cake.  That also was incredible.  I would have liked to try many things on that menu - we'll have to visit again!

The line for the ferry was a lot shorter (we had to make reservations for this one).  It was a nice ferry - the upper section was an air-conditioned seating area.  We decided to eat our other apple ugly from yesterday on the ride over.  It takes 2 hours and 15 minutes.  You disembark in Cedar Island, NC, and we drove to Beaufort, NC, from there.  We walked around Market Street and checked out some shops, but weren't really hungry enough to eat anywhere yet (go figure...lots of pastries already today!). 

Not knowing where we were going to stay that night yet, we continued our drive along the coast.  First we drove along route 58 and checked out Atlantic Beach and Emerald Isle. Then we had to head inland, and finally headed south along the coast again along route 210 to look at North Topsail and Surf City.  Of all the beaches we saw today, the ones here (Surf City) reminded us most of the Outer Banks.

We ended up finding a campground just over the bridge from Surf City called Lanier's Campground. We checked in there and then went to get something to eat. This was not a fun camping night - it rained - hard... and for a long time. I woke up at 1AM and by that time the pop-top was already very wet.  So, we really couldn't put it down.  Doug said it would be fine as long as I didn't touch it.  I was up on and off all night afraid the rain would leak in.  It did, but just a little bit.  We will be getting a rain fly from Go Westy before our next big trip in Sandy!  The funny thing is, we didn't really think to check the weather forecast because we haven't really had this problem before!  We will be checking that from now on!

June Road Trip 2013 - Ocracoke, NC

We've been to Ocracoke several times as a day trip, but decided this time to camp out overnight.  We left from Kill Devil Hills and made two stops - one for apple uglies at Orange Blossom Bakery in Buxton and the second to get some pictures of Sandy with the Hatteras Lighthouse (I feel like I have Flat Stanley!).  It was a busy day to get the ferry to Ocracoke - it took a total of two hours from the time we got to the ferry until we landed in Ocracoke (and it's only a 40 minute ride)!

We decided when we got there to find the campground where we would spend the night.  We checked out the Ocracoke Campground (which is run by the park service) and Teeter's Campground (which is in town).  Teeter's was very crowded with lots of RVs, so we decided to go with Ocracoke Campgournd.  This one was just over the dune from the beach, so we picked a site and then went to spend some time on the beach.  It was an extremely windy day - Doug actually found a good place to sit to avoid all the wind!

We beached until the wind got the best of us, then headed back to the campsite to get showers.  Loved the campsite, but the showers... not so much!  They did not have hot water.  Thank goodness it was a hot day, but taking a cold shower is not very fun.  We got ready and headed into town to eat dinner at Dajia.  I had shrimp tacos and Doug had shrimp and grits. Both meals were very good! 

Nice night for our first camp night - it was pretty neat staying right over the dune from the Atlantic Ocean! :)