Hellooooooooo,Sacramento!

So I don't have much time to post, because my friend Kim and a few other Ranch staffers are on their way to pick me up (with In and Out burger for me to go...might I add) ...but thought I'd let you all know that I've arrived in Sacramento! Thus begins a 4 hour trek to the Ranch! I'm so excited to be here! I'll have an update with more news soon....but for now I wanted to let everyone know I'd arrived....and to remind you to check back!
Blessings!


I mean...I'm here for a month! Cut me some slack! :)


blogging in the baggage claim. I'm a girl on the go!

"Let's Go to the Movies" :The sequel

So today I'm packing like a madwoman trying to figure out how to get everything I'll need for an entire month (including bedding) into two suitcases. However, since I've been on a blogging roll as of late, and I'd hate to break my streak now...I figured I'd post something for your viewing pleasure to amuse you until my first California post which will be sometime either Sunday night but more likely Monday.

Here is Episode Two of Emily's golf cart tourism future. In this episode we learn about the various trees that inhabit the woods. I'm not sure what happened to the British accent she was using on the previous day, but this video contains some sort of funny voice, although I can't quite determine what sort of voice/accent it is. :) Hope you enjoy this peek into our 4th of July with two of my favorite girls!




Watch out for that tree, Uncle Keith!!!

Rollin' on the River.

For those of you (my parents) who have actually followed our entire vacation via my blog and thus are eagerly awaiting the exciting conclusion..my apologies that it's Friday and I'm just now getting around to putting up Wednesday's post. But to be honest...I've been completely exhausted and this is the first second I've gotten to just sit down and type. So...without further ado....

Since Keith and I decided we needed one more day of vacation, we drove back to Columbia Wednesday morning to go tube the Saluda River. Keith found Palmetto Outdoors through Google, made a reservation, invited his brother Mark, and off we went. Well...sort of. The story is a tad more complicated and amusing than that. When we arrived in Columbia at 1 pm (we'd called on the way and made a 4pm reservation for 3) it was overcast. Nay, thundering and stormy. We were pretty determined that we wanted to tube the river, but Keith (and I really...if I'm going to be honest) was worried that tubing a river during a thunder and lightning storm wouldn't be the best idea. Especially since we've seen all too recently what lightning can do. So we called the tubing comany. No, they said, they didn't think there were any storms on the radar. We'd be fine to tube at 4. We called Mark. Mark claimed that he and their other brother Brian had tubed the river in the rain plenty of times. ("In fact, most of the times we've gone tubing it rains. Once we had thunder and lightning but we just climbed out of the water onto some rocks. We'll be fine.") Keith and I, not entirely convinced this was safe, but both too excited about tubing to cancel unless forced, decide to forge ahead with our plans. At the tubing office we are greeted by the most thorough, professional teenage boy either of us had ever met who laid out the 3 rules of the company:
1. Always stay in your tube.
2. Always point your feet downstream.
3. Never stand up in whitewater.
We fill out waivers and surrender Keith's drivers' licence as collateral. (He asked if Keith was the "group leader" and then continued to refer to him as such...much to our amusement. What did we look like...a youth group?) It's 3:30. He tells us the shuttle will meet us at the parking lot where we leave our car at 3:45. We go straight to the parking lot. Mark meets us 5 minutes later. It's now sprinkling. We wait. The shuttle shows up at 4:02. It's a small bus...the type used by most churches. We climb on board to find that half the bus is filled with kayaks and tubes. The professional teenager is behind the wheel and assures us he's "driven a motor home before." 3 other teenage employees (one of whom shows up on an offroad skateboard wearing a wetsuit) and a middle aged man who appears to be the owner climb on board with us. They are all going kayaking together while we tube. We drive about 3 miles and one of the boys announces that the back door of the bus has swung open. The half-clad wetsuit surfer boy climbs like a monkey over the various asundry outdoor gear and pulls the door shut. We arrive safely at the put-in spot where the professional teenager walks us down a path, reviews the 3 rules, tells us to "hug the right" (side of the river that is) and points at some large rocks. "You can put in somewhere down there" he says and leaves. Keith, Mark and I have all been supressing laughter (I didnt' suppress very sucessfully) this whole time. We clamber over the rocks and put our tubes in the freezing cold water. It rained part of the 2 hour trip...but we didn't have any thunder or lightning and thoroughly enjoyed our trip over all. We'd recommend it...but would caution that organization and punctuality might not be this particular company's strong suit. However at only $15 a person and with the free shuttle service...it's a great deal.

Bring it!


Get ready......'cause it's comin'!


The water was FREEZING when we first put in...and I was trying to postpone my butt getting numb until the last possible moment.


The first rapids we came to...this picture was taken just before Mark flipped and ended up in the drink.


Keith and I chillin' out on the tubes!


Rule #2: always keep your feet pointed downstream. This was Keith's view of the river.

Keith's wallet and driver's licence were in the drybox of the middle-aged owner guy, who took about 20 minutes longer than we did to get down the river so we had a bit of a chilly, wet wait at the end...but not too bad. We said goodbye to Mark (again) and headed back to Keith's mom's where she'd run a hot bubble bath for me in the garden-sized tub upstairs. It was as if I'd visited a spa...she'd also lit candles and had relaxing music playing. I curled up for about 45 minutes and relaxed and read a book. We ate a yummy dinner of crappie fish that Ms. Pat and Rick had caught in Lake Murray and grilled squash from their garden with homemade vanilla ice cream and fresh peaches for dessert! I went straight to bed after dinner, exausted and super-relaxed from my bath while Keith got his turn to visit the spa. We left Thursday morning to drive back to Nashville and had a relaxing drive through Asheville, NC and the mountains on the way back. I hope you enjoyed our South Carolina vacation.....stay tuned for my California adventures beginning on Sunday!

A fast boat and an old house

I just realized that I'd never bothered to post a picture of our hotel, so I thought it would be a good way to kick off today's blog. If you ever visit Charleston, we highly recommend it. Among many perks...the location couldn't possibly be better. There. Commercial over. :)

Our first activity today, a boat ride on the Thriller speedboat, we agreed might have been our favorite thing that we've done our entire trip! The boat is a high speed catamaran (double hull) that leaves from a dock near the battery and then takes approximately an hour long tour through the ocean past, Ft. Sumter to the Morris Island Lighthouse where the boat turns around. We then headed back to the harbor and sailed past Ft. Moultrie, the U.S.S. Yorktown, and the Cooper River Bridge before returning to the dock. Barbara, the tour guide, struck a great balance between dispensing interesting facts about what we were seeing, and being quiet and letting us enjoy the ride accompanied by 80's rock music. Her husband, Mark, was the boat captain, and did a great job of steering us through some fantastic waves! A MUST if you visit Charleston!

Keith and I on board the Thriller....check out the spray behind us from the boat! (The sunglasses were borrowed....I do not actually own these!)


Some of the big waves made your stomach flip-flop! LOVED it!


The Morris Island lighthouse. It's in dire need of repair due to erosion and such. If you'd like to help keep the lighthouse around...check out this website.


A full length view of the Thriller...back at the dock after her morning jaunt.

After the Thriller, we pulled through Starbucks for a snack and then on to Middleton Place mansion and gardens. We wandered through the gardens for a little bit and then took a tour of the house. The house was actually originally the southern wing of the original mansion...built as a guest wing for gentlemen who stayed on the grounds. The rest of the mansion was burned and only this wing was rebuilt and became the main house. We then ate lunch at the garden shop cafe and concluded our visit with an approximately hour long self-guided tour of the gardens. The gardens bear the distinction of being America's oldest landscaped gardens. They are absolutely beautiful.


The "Wood Nymph" statue in the gardens at Middleton Place.


A view from one end of the "Reflection Pool."


Keith stands on a limb of one of the countless huge "live oak" trees on the Middleton Place grounds.


The cypress bridge...one of the spots I loved the most.

We concluded the day with take-out from TBONZ Gill & Grill, and ordered the same Ahi Tuna and grouper sandwiches that we'd ordered the other night and a marathon of Deadliest Catch, The Office, and the Colbert Report.

OH! And I almost forgot! We were supposed to drive back to Nashville tomorrow morning, but we're having so much fun that we decided we needed one more day of vacation. (we're not very good at going home....if you remember this also happened when we went to Hawaii in January!) So instead we're getting up and driving back to Columbia to go tubing down the river...something I was dissapointed that we didn't have time to do last weekend. We're then crashing with Keith's Mom and Rick for one more night and heading back to Nashville on Thursday instead! Which means....dum dum dum da dum....one more day of the blog from South Carolina! Enjoy!

Fired up about Folly Beach!

First things first: a little blog housekeeping to attend to. So that you all might maximize your blog-reading experience and get a little edjumication, I've added a new feature to today's blog, and gone back and edited yesterday's blog. Anytime a building, historic site, or excursion is mentioned I've made the name of it a link to either the official website of that place or thing or at the very least a Wikipedia page so that you can pick up random bits of useless trivia or perhaps be assisted in planning your very own Charleston vacation. OK. That being said, on to the events of today.

Keith and I decided that after our late-night ghost hunting adventures of the previous evening, and since we are on vacation afterall, that we'd really enjoy it and both sleep in this morning. We got up in time to grab breakfast at the hotel, but then didn't get around to venturing out until noon-thirty this afternoon. We stepped outside our hotel and found a pedicab at the corner and asked him to drive us first to Starbucks (we have our priorities straight for sure!) and then to the waterfront so we could find a mansion to tour. Our cyclist cabbie did just that..and our day had begun!


Our cabbie was a marine biology student from the College of Charleston. It was his first day of work and we were his second fare ever!!


Keith and I in the pedicab in front of Starbucks.

We had our pedi-cabbie drop us off at the Battery (also called White Point Gardens) where we took a stroll under the live oak trees on paths that were made wide enough for two ladies in hoop skirts to walk side by side. We then headed north again up the waterfront along the sea wall until we reached the Edmonston-Alston House where we stopped in to take a tour. The house was originally build buy Mr. Edmonston and then sold to Mr. Alston, whose descendants still own the house (one of them lives on the 3rd floor to this very day!). The Alston family and their friends gathered on the various porticos to watch the first shots of the Civil War in 1861 between South Carolina soldiers and Ft. Sumter, in the harbor across the street.

Keith and I standing on the sea wall with the Edmonston-Alston house in the background (the pink and white house just over my shoulder).

After our home tour we continued along the waterfront until we came upon the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon and decided we'd like to take a tour of that as well. Many historic events happened in this building...over 250 Charlestonians and other men were held prisoner by the British during the Revolutionary War, although the space was originally a storage area for various cash crops such as cotton and indigo. Tea was also stored and hidden there during the Charleston Tea Party and various pirates were also rumored to have been held there. The original Charleston sea wall runs directly beneath the building and can be seen in the dungeon. Upstairs, the building boasts two more floors of historic rooms...including where the U.S. Constitution was ratified in South Carolina.

Keith took this fantastic picture in the Provost Dungeon.

On the stroll home we passed the Market Street Winery, a local winery. They were having a tasting so we stopped in and got to have a sip of five of their wines. All of their grapes are grown in South Carolina in their own vineyards and other types of fruit are purchased from local growers. We'd recommend the Lord Ashley Elderberry or the Shaftsbury Blend if you decide you'd like to try some Market Street Wine.

I was pretty proud of this photo that I took of the bottles of wine for sale.

Since it was raining when we got back to the hotel we figured we'd hop in the car and hit some further-away sights instead of walking in the rain. I'd wanted to see the Citadel so we went there first. Fortunately, the rain stopped as we pulled in so we hopped out and took pictures from the Summerall Field (the main lawn in the center of campus). We also found the Howie Bell tower to be unlocked and climbed to the top of it to see the "organ" that controls the bells. (I'm not sure that we really were supposed to have access to that...but no one stopped us...and it was cool. After we left, we joked that we should have played Happy Birthday or Pop Goes the Weasel or something on it just for fun.) We also visited the Chapel and took pictures in front of the "Daniel Library" which I thought was cool.

The Citadel.

After the Citadel, we drove over to Folly Beach for a simple stroll on the beach (and of course had to stop for Italian Ices on the way from a street vendor!) that turned into the event of the evening as you will soon find out. We had to park outside the gates of the Folly Beach park because the parking lot had already been gated closed for the night. Keith had his camera with him (as always) and snapped some great pictures of the salt marsh on the bay side and a beautiful house that I liked next to the entrance to the state park. We had a nice quiet walk on the beach...hunted for sea shells and splashed our feet in the warm salty sea for about 20 minutes before we headed back. It was quite the dramatic end to the day!

Keith took this picture of a pelican at Folly Beach.


Keith picks up sea shells on Folly Beach.


A view of the salt marsh and the house I thought was so beautiful.

When we reached the boardwalk again, we looked up to see that the roof of the beautiful house I'd liked was on fire! We hurried through the parking lot and were soon able to see that the fire department and police were already on the scene. A small group of neighbors had gathered and since our car was blocked in, we hung around until the fire was out. The owner of the home was home alone out on her balcony and unaware that lightning had struck her house and set it on fire. A family renting the house next door was walking back from the beach and saw the roof on fire and called up to the woman who had the presence of mind to shut off all the electricity before exiting the structure. No one was injured and the fire seemed to be confined to one corner of the roof, but Keith and I couldn't imagine the extent of the water damage from the fireman's hoses. Fortunately, the fire was put out about 30 minutes after it started. I'm sure we'll see it in the paper tomorrow.

Keith's initial distance shot of the house on fire.

A closer shot of the burning house.

You can clearly see the corner where the lightning hit the house.

Firemen were on hand from the Folly Beach, James Island and Charleston Fire Departments.

Keith's passat is dwarfed...and blocked in by the James Island Fire Department Truck and the EMS ambulance.

Let's go to the movies....

So to be quite honest, Keith and I are being lazy bums this morning so I figured that my blog post tonight probably wouldn't be very long. SO......for your enjoyment and pleasure today, I've posted the following video from our time in Columbia of Keith's nieces. They are pretty cute. Enjoy! I'll post more in the coming days.


One of Rick's relatives had a dog named Scruffy who was old and blind and met with an unfortunate end when he fell in the pond when his owners were out of town. When Ms. Pat saw the dead pup floating in the pond Rick took matters in his own hands and fished the deceased pooch out by hooking it in the tail with a fishing pole. Emily gives a dramatic retelling of the tale in the video above as part of our golf cart tour.

doin' the Charleston

This morning Keith and I left Columbia and drove two hours southeast to Charleston for a mini vacation! We arrived early afternoon and hit the ground running with a stroll around the straw market, homemade gelato from a local candy maker and shop, and then a carriage tour of downtown Charleston. The carriage tour was a great overview of the city and Keith and I found several places that we want to go back to and make sure we visit while we're here. (as a fun side note, the girl who sold us our tickets for the carriage tour turned out to have graduated from Keith's high school 2 years behind his brother Mark, and was the daughter of Keith's high school history teacher. Small world!)


Chris, our tour guide, hangs out in the carriage with our horse, Dakota. Dakota was a sweet horse, although she didn't seem the least bit interested in getting anywhere in a hurry!


A view of the Old Exchange Building (and Dakota's behind.) This building served a host of purposes but also housed a dungeon and was involved with the import and export of goods at the port.


A view of "Rainbow Row."


Our carriage tour company barn.

On the way home from the carriage tour we got take out (Ahi tuna sandwich for Keith and a fried grouper sandwich for me) from a local grill and then headed out to freshen up...this Charleston humidity is something fierce! At 9 pm we met in front of the United States Custom House for a ghost tour of downtown. Our tourguide, Noah, was a total history buff and told spooky tales of the downtown area. After the tour was over we headed in for the night where I'm writing this blog right now! Tomorow is supposed to be a little rainy...but we've planned both an indoor and an outdoor itinerary so we're ready for anything!

Keith took this cool picture of the U.S. Custom House where our ghost tour met!


This restaurant is supposedly one of the most haunted buildings in Charleston. A bankrupt cotton tycoon had sold a shipment of cotton worth around 30 million by today's standards. This contract was going to help him get his entire business back on the ground. As he sat in his office and watched boat containing the valuable cotton shipment sail out to sea, a drunken sailor on the ship dropped his pipe and the tycoon was forced to watch his entire cargo go up in smoke. He hung himself in his third floor office. Since then weird things have happened in the building. The third floor is now a bar and one group of friends claimed that a cold wind blew through the building and the furniture began to levitate and then stack itself up!


St. Philip's Episcopal church.


The graveyard of St. Philip's.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy 4th of July, everybody!!!

Today was a little more restful than yesterday, but still action-packed! Keith's stepdad, Rick had the entire Browder clan over for lunch and he and his brothers smoked an insane number of chickens! While we were waiting for the food to cook, Emily gave us another golf cart tour. Lunch was really yummy...although I'm glad there wasn't a test at the end where I had to recall everyone's name and how they were all related because there is no way I could have passed! (Although the Daniel family clan is also quite extensive so MAYBE I would have been ok since I've had practice!)


Emily and I relaxing in the shade.


Rick and his brother slather the chickens with B-B-Q sauce.
Cooking chickens for 30+ people is no small task!

After lunch, Keith and I took on Mark and Angela in a corn-hole tournament in which we were victorious in a best 2 out of 3! Emily and Abigail were exhausted and took a two hour nap in the afternoon so we took the opportunity to have "adult swim" while the girls were snoozing. Adult swim wasn't nearly as high energy as kid swim was and involved lots of yummy snacks by the pool! We swam with the girls some more after they woke up and were so proud of Abigail who learned how to swim in the deep end for the first time today! She swam all the way from the stairs to the very deepest end of the pool on her own! We were so excited!


Keith concentrates on a throw while Mark watches.


Mark, Angela, Keith and I chow down on hummus and tortilla chips.

After pool time ended, Keith, Mark, Rick and I headed to the field next to the house to shoot some skeet. I'd never shot a shotgun before (although I DID do 4H shooter sports in middle school and had played Annie Oakley in my highschool musical) and had certainly never shot skeet so I was proud when I hit the clay pigeon on my very first shot! I certiainly didn't hit all of them (my stats were approximately 1 hit for every 4 shots) but was proud of my self for having shot a shotgun. Keith, it turns out, is an excellent shot and busted almost every clay target he aimed at!


Keith the marksman keep his eye on the target!


If you look closely below the yellow "rowboat" wind catcher, you can see my yellow shotgun shell flying through the air!

We decided against buying our own fireworks to shoot off and headed out to Lake Murray to enjoy the professional display instead. Rick's sister has a house on the lake so we went there and watched them from the dock of her guesthouse instead of fighting the crowds at the public parks. The main house is absolutely amazing...and my favorite part was seeing the infinity pool...I've never seen one in real life and was blown away by it. The fireworks were beautiful too and far enough away that we couldn't hear them which Abigail really appreciated! The girls and I also splashed our feet in the water on the little beach area in front of the main house and Emily and Abigail even built a sandcastle. We were sad to say goodbye to Mark and his family tonight after the fireworks display and the girls made me promise to come back some other time to visit "even if it isn't even July 4th!" Tomorrow Keith and I will head to Charleston, SC by ourselves for a little mini-vacation which we're really looking forward to. Stay tuned for our adventures in Charleston!!!


European villa? Nope...South Carolina lakehouse!


One of the big fireworks in the Lake Murray display!

Cannonballs and more cannonballs

This blog is a tad long...but I'll blame it on the pictures! :) This blog is from July 3rd...but I was too tired to post it yesterday...so you get it this morning instead!

I didn't mention this in my introductory blog yesterday, but when I arrived last night, Keith's mom told me that the nieces were really excited about getting to meet me...so excited in fact, that they had insisted upon making me a cake. They made this cake all by themselves with minimal supervision from "Mimi" and what resulted was an amazingly delicious "death by chocolate cake." They had mixed up a chocolate cake mix and dumped chocolate pudding and chocolate chips in the batter! Yummy! They had also decorated it by themselves: lots of flowers and a message that read "Welcome to SC, Monkey" with a large picture of the state of South Carolina. ("Monkey" happens to be a nickname that Emily and I both share...to her delight.) The funny part was though that after they'd baked it, they decided it looked too good ("My mouth was watering!" said Emily) so they each cut a piece out of my cake to eat...before they gave it to me! Kids are so fun! :)

Here's the yummy cake with my two pieces missing!

Today was a fantastically fun, but thoroughly exhausting day. Keith and I both slept in and felt refreshed when we left the house about 10:30 am for a tour of downtown Columbia. Our first stop was the state capitol building, which was unfortunately closed for the "State holiday" of the 4th of July. We walked around the grounds and I got the Reader's Digest condensed version of a South Carolina history lesson. The statue of George Washington out front of the building is missing half of his walking cane...the statue was vandalized not by rowdy teens of Columbia but by Sherman's soldiers as they passed through the city during the Civil War. Soldiers also fired on the still-under-construction capitol building not to destroy it, but to see how far away the city was from their encampment. The capitol building was hit by cannonballs in 6 different places, and when the construction was completed, instead of repairing the granite, large brass stars were added to mark the places where the cannonballs had hit.

Me next to one of the cannonball hits at the capitol building!

Two old men in suits were loitering in front of the building with picket signs (although they had them laying on the pavement so we couldn't see what they said...not a very effective picket line)...Keith suspected that they were there to lobby for the resignation of the South Carolina governor. Anyway...we never did find out why they were there, but got quite a laugh when we heard one man sigh a deep, satisfied sigh and say to the other man, "it's a beautiful day for freedom, isn't it?"

After the capitol building we drove around the campus of USC (where Keith attended his freshman year of college) and then headed to the river walk which was beautiful, although a bit hot! We strolled along the sidewalk and ventured out into the low river to wade, climb a low-hanging tree and jump from boulder to boulder out into the river. From there we headed back to the house with a quick side trip to see the house that Keith grew up in.

Keith the raccoon hanging out at the river walk!


Climbing out on the river rocks!

When we arrived back at the house, Keith's brother Mark and his wife Angela and daughters Emily and Abigail (who I hadn't met) were there to eat lunch and go for a swim. Emily and Abigail are two of the sweetest girls I've ever met, but also two of the most energetic! They thought I was a great pool toy and we dove and jumped and swam and raced and splashed until I could barely stand up. Emily's favorite game was to convince Keith and Mark and I to all cannonball into the pool with her at the exact same time and see how big the waves were when we surfaced again. Abigail isn't a fan of the deep end at all but liked to jump off my legs in the shallow end and pretty much clung to me every second that I was in the pool.

Bombs away! Emily and I jumping into the pool!


Abigail and I hanging out in the pool!

Late afternoon Emily decided to give Keith and I a "tour we'd never forget" of "Mimi and Paw's" land and the adjacent land of various members of Rick's family so we loaded up the golf cart and off we went. Emily was not only our chauffeur, but our guide as she narrated the entire tour in this hilarious pseudo-British accent. She gave out both factual information ("and on the left you'll see the home of Paw's parents', the Browders") and a hilarious running commentary of big words and not entirely accurate information ("now we are entering the deep woods of the famous Egyptian princess Cleopatra where many mysterious creatures live like squirrels, stinky deer that poop everywhere, and dogs which are also called mammals.")

Emily gives us a narrated tour of the Browder woods.

After our tour, we enjoyed a little more pool time and then I showed the girls my violin and played for them because Emily is going to take violin at a week long music camp at a local church in a week or so. Rick cooked an amazing dinner of grilled beef and veggies picked from the Browder garden and the kids watched a movie outside while the adults sat out onthe patio for dinner and "chit chat" (Emily's words again.) After the kids went home Keith and I mangaed enough energy for a trip to Wal Mart to buy ammo and clay pigeons for skeet shooting on the 4th and then both collapsed about 10 pm, thoroughly exhausted.