Roadtrip Day 5 - Savannah, GA

On day 5 we drove from Columbia to Jacksonville.  Pretty much half way is Savannah.  I had never been but had always heard it was beautiful.  Even though we wouldn't want to spend a ton of time, it seemed like the perfect spot for lunch.  Yes, I managed to convince my husband to take a detour.  But to be fair, I also thought it was right off of 95.  In reality we had to get on another highway to take us to the coast, but still not too far.  For lunch we stopped at The Pirates House based on a recommendation from a bloggy mom.

It was perfect.  We made a reservation (just because I like to earn Open Table points whenever I can) but on a Tuesday afternoon I don't think we needed them.  My husband and I got the buffet and my oldest duaghter ordered a grilled cheese off the kids menu.  The buffet had probably 10 items so not huge, but covered everything we expected from a "Southern Luncheon buffet".  My husband loves Southern food, so he was in heaven, even I went up for seconds of the barbecue pork and rice.  My daughter was happy because we were able to get her mac and cheese from the buffet.

We were seated in one of the rooms that was connecting the two main buildings.  The whole place is a maze of various size rooms and has been around since 1753. They do have "pirates" who come by your table and pose for pictures.  Usually that kind of stuff bugs me, but they're not trying to sell you photos, you use your own camera if you want a shot.  My kids I think were a little put off by it though cause they were hungry and didn't want to stop for a picture, so we didn't get a really good shot. Oh well.

I had read some reviews by people saying that they were disappointed because they were expecting something more like "Pirates of the Caribbean" but honestly that's what I liked about it. It was old, but maintained, there were little signs posted around telling the history of the house and what the rooms were used for in the past.  In the room we were in, there was a sign over a tunnel that had been discovered maybe 30 years before that had never been on any plans and they're not quite sure what it was used for.  Makes for good lunch conversation, was it where they hid their treasures? a dungeon?

There is a gift shop upstairs which has some cute things but a lot of it is typical kitschy gift shop stuff but pretty reasonable prices.  My daughters each bought a necklace and bracelet set, and we got them each a "gold pirate coin" - the coins were only 50 cents each.   We didn't spend a lot of time exploring the other rooms, but still the kids liked it and I would definitely recommend it to others. 

After lunch we decided to take a short walk along the water and back towards our car. It was really hot so they kids didn't have much patience for it, but I still enjoyed our brief stroll.  I love the trees in this area with the spanish moss growing on them.  So pretty.  My daughter was fascinated with the streets that were paved with brick or ones paved with seashells.  All in all a great stop.  I would have liked to linger a little longer but it was just too hot, so after our walk we filled up our water bottles at the cooler that the Pirates House very nicely has for public use in their courtyard and headed down to Jax.

This is the fence of a private home next door to the Pirates House. I just thought it was really creative instead of the standard old fence where all the posts are the same. I don't know if they were left over from another project, salvaged from somewhere, or purposely made this way for the fence, but whatever the case, it caught my eye, especially the way it played off the blue house.

Roadtrip Day 3-5 - Columbia, SC

Day 3 was our shortest drive.  Only 180 miles.  Easy peasy.  I was hoping to do a drive by of the Biltmore on the way, but apparently that wouldn't really work with the direction we were going in.  (My husband is not a fan of detours).  Oh well, maybe our next trip whenever that may be. That's one thing about traveling you're never going to be able to see everything you want, so always good to leave something for the next time.  Our next stop was outside Columbia, SC to stay with a golf buddy of my husband's and his family.  This was the stop I was most nervous about as I had never met these people.  All my husband really told me was that the husband was a cool guy, he and his wife were both doctors, and they have two kids, a 10 year old girl and a 7 year old boy.  Oh and they have a nice house with a pool and it's only for 2 nights.

We got there around lunch time so went to a restaurant for lunch as they had just gotten back from their own one week vacation the night before and had no food in the house. I have to admit I was surprised to learn this and then really appreciated that they agreed to have us stay. I know I wouldn't be ready to have people stay after being gone for a week.  I'm still getting my house back in order, and we've been home for 5 days.

When we sat down for lunch the kids were all looking at the menu and one of the kids asked what Michael was going to eat.  Before I could say anything, he responded, "I don't eat cheerios".

Yep, my stubborn little two year old is still just eating purees and I've basically given up trying to get him to eat table food or even the stage 3 foods with the chunks in them.  He's healthy and growing well, and the doctor doesn't seem concerned, so neither am I.  But I am looking forward to the day I don't have to bring food for him anytime I think we may be stopping for a meal somewhere.  I brought 100 containers of food on our trip and he went through most of them over the course of 10 days.  I know it's purely a control thing for him, and one day he'll just decide he wants to try something of ours food.  Occasionally he will make chewing motions with his jaw when he's eating so I think he's getting close but then he's been doing that for a while and nothing seems to change.

Ok, back to our story.  After a nice lunch we went back to their house and everyone got in the pool.  SC was the hottest of all our stops topping out at over 100 degrees.  The kids all got along well, and my little man loved being in a house that had a boy as there were tons of cars, trains, etc to play with. We barbecued for dinner and the kids went to bed, and then we all settled in pretty early too.  Monday the parents had to work but their nanny came and we all took the kids to the Edventure Children's Museum in Columbia.  It's a really cool museum and in many ways better than the one we have here in Chicago. They have this big two story model of a boy in the foyer that you can climb through and see the different organs and how they work.  Really cool.  They have a full size fire engine and outfits for the kids to wear.  My son loved that.  They have a construction section with a mini bulldozer that the kids can pedal and move padded "bricks".  There was a farm section with a tractor to climb on, and a TV studio where kids can pretend to do the news and weather.  They all had fun doing that.

At this point the kids were hungry so we left to go to lunch as the museum didn't really have much in terms of food.  Why is it that children's museums have such lousy food options?  Don't they realize people would stay longer if they had good food?  So where did we go?  Chick-fil-A. Ok, maybe not the best option, but since I'd never had it, and it's what the locals wanted we went.  We pulled in right around lunch time, and couldn't get a parking spot.  There was a long line for the double barrel drive thru.  We ended up parking in the tractor supply store next door.  The funniest part though was that the McDonalds across the street was practically deserted.  Anyway, we had our lunch which was better than I had expected.  The kids got kids meals and each got a book with their meal.  My daughter received Wind in the Willows which she has already read.  Somehow she found out that she could trade in her book for ice cream, well that was a no-brainer.  And of course once she did that her sister did the same.

We headed home and my kids wanted to get in the pool and the local kids thought they were nuts.  Why?  Because it was too hot.  Too hot for the pool?  Didn't make sense to me at first until I dipped my toes in the water and realized it was like a nice warm bath, not a refreshing place to cool off.  So the little man took a nap and the girls all played school while we waited for the sun to go down behind the trees and the pool could cool off.  In the time my son napped they had spelling, math, Italian, and art.  Finally the little guy woke up and they had "recess" in the pool.  Our oldest is getting pretty comfortable swimming, but the younger ones spent most of the time in the hot tub (without the jets on) which they referred to as the "kiddie pool". Before dinner they played school some more, and they even got report cards.  They both passed :)

Once the parents got home, we went out to dinner.  We got home around 8 and their kids had been promised that they could watch a movie in their home theater.  Unfortunately this was already decided without running it by us, so we kind of had to allow ours to watch as well.  They were ready by 9 (their usual bedtime) and settled in to watch Cars (which was longer than I thought).  They didn't get to bed until 11, but enjoyed the movie. Overall it was a good stop, very relaxing, everyone recharged and I after spending the previous couple of days in a house with no kids or toys it was good to just be able to let them play.

The next morning we wanted to leave by around 9 as we had reservations for lunch at the Pirates House in Savannah before hitting Jacksonville.  Unfortunately nobody was packed so it was going to be tough, but at least tonight the kids went right to sleep.

Roadtrip - Day 1-3 - Waynesville, NC

The best part of this trip for me was the variety of places we got to see.  The first stop was Waynesville, NC (close to Asheville).  A small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. One of the highlights was as we were winding through the mountain roads my daughter was looking out the window and said, "I'm falling in love with this country." Comments like that make the whole trip worthwhile.

We visited my husband's uncle.  He's 75 and a widower, and lives in a great house on one of the mountains. He has a great deck on the front part of the house with lots of birdfeeders.  We saw a whole bunch of hummingbirds, woodpeckers and other birds while we were there.  He has seen wild turkeys, raccoons and even the occasional bear but none while we were there. We arrived fairly late on Friday night, but Saturday set off to explore the mountains. We stopped for waterfalls and other scenic spots, and stopped at the highest point of the Blue Ridge as well. It was a little cloudy most of the day but we only got rained on for a little bit, and another highlight quote was at one point when we were driving through the clouds at the top of the mountain, my daughter said, "I totally have to tell my friends at school about this."

In the afternoon after a good barbecue lunch, we went over to Cherokee which is a pretty touristy section with Indian souvenirs. My daughter is in Indian Princess so she was interested to see what they had of real Indian stuff.  A lot of it was kind of cheesy honestly, but the kids each bought something. My oldest bought an arrowhead, and her sister bought a worry stone.  She loves rocks especially ones that are smooth or sparkly.  This one was both. They also each bought a thermometer/compass on a keychain to put on their backpacks.

Outside one of the stores we saw a guy do a hoop performance where using hoops about the size of small hula hoops he dances to a drum beat and intermingling the hoops in certain ways forms outlines of various animals that were important to the Indians.  Hard to explain but pretty neat. Our son thought it was really cool and was giggling and clapping through most of it.

After a stop for ice cream we headed home to relax for a while.  The kids explored the forest behind their great uncle's house and marveled at the trees.

This is a view from the deck where I sat for a while and read, disturbed only by the occasional hummingbird.  If I ever get a vacation home, it will definitely be in the mountains. It's so peaceful.

We had dinner in Waynesville, which was quite a cute little town and I have to admit much nicer than I had expected.  I was expecting something similar to Cherokee, but it was really quaint and had lots of cute shops and galleries that unfortunately were all closed.  Had I known I would have asked to go there after lunch to explore. As much as I would have liked to see it, I knew the Biltmore was a no-go.  My 2 year old would definitely not have tolerated being in a place like that, and even his sisters probably would have gotten bored easily.  Oh well, maybe on a different trip or when they are older.