a trip to charleston (days 2 and 3)

the tip of the peninsula that charleston lies on (you cannot see fort sumter in the distance, but it's there)

rainbow row (a famous row of multicolored charleston houses)

oh yeah, a baby eating prunes in the park!

we used priceline to get a cheap hotel, and it turned out to be really decent. it was right next to this little residential lake, and we went out and sat there in the mornings before dane took a short morning nap.

dane loves to try and give me kisses. really, he's just grabbing my hair as hard as he can and lunging to eat my face. but you can think of it as kisses if you want to. 

we splurged a little bit and went on a carriage tour of charleston (with about 15 other people--it wasn't private or fancy). it was neat to see all the beautiful houses in the historic district of the city.

just like on the little nature tram, dane got bored, so we tried to entertain him by taking pictures of him . . . it worked for about 30 seconds.

poor guy, he totally has food remnants all over his face. he probably has terrible parents.

waiting for our lunch from the to-go place

we were very disappointed in the food. ugh. but we ate it in a nice park near the water, which made it a little bit better.

these charleston houses were so amazing. the "front door" of the house wasn't really a front door at all--it just led onto the bottom floor balcony of the house. all the "original" charleston houses were only one room wide and two or three stories tall--for ventilation purposes, so they could open the windows and let the breeze come in in the hot summers. most of them had two or three balconies. our carriage tour guide told us that most of these houses were worth 1.2 million per FLOOR. not too shabby.

 an historic house museum that we toured (the nathaniel russel house). 

this super cool inn right next to the battery park (right at the tip of the peninsula) where i want to stay next time we go. don't these fantastic trees just kill you? they look like the coolest climbing trees ever.

dane at the battery.

baby on a cannon!

i know it's not that funny, because thousands of people died, but it always seems funny to me to see monuments to the confederacy, because growing up i always had the impression that the confederates were evil and loved slavery and that anyone promoting the confederacy now must be racist and hate the government. i've now figured out that's probably not true, but i still like how it seems subversive to honor the rebels.

again, this poor baby. i was apparently scatterbrained while i was packing because i not only forgot most of my toiletries (including my deodorant . . . gross!) but i also forgot to pack any bibs for him. so we had to make do without bibs the whole weekend. this was how tommy was feeding him breakfast yesterday morning, with the hotel hand towels protecting the carseat and himself. but he didn't seem to mind!

we were all very glad to make it home from charleston (particularly since dane cried a lot of the way home, even though we'd specifically waited all day to drive when he would be asleep), but i'm also very glad we went. since tommy's graduating in a year, we know we're most likely going to be moving somewhere else, and we want to take advantage of being this close to so many interesting places. hopefully we move somewhere else new where we can explore even more!

a trip to charleston (day 1)

good news: we went to charleston! we've wanted to go since we moved here. and we finally did it!

bad news: traveling with a baby is HARD, folks. 

okay, let's be fair. dane was amazing, under the circumstances. it just turns out that he's a lot less portable than he used to be, when he could and would just nap anywhere and everywhere and didn't have a set schedule or very many opinions about things. it's just been in the last month or so that he's started napping at 9 and 1, pretty regularly, in his nice quiet dark room with his nice sound machine going and nothing to interrupt him. so he really did not take well to having to nap in his carseat as we walked around charleston all day. this led to the hours of 1-3pm being filled with a hyper baby followed by screaming. poor baby. and poor parents. 

but seriously, did you know that charleston has been voted the best city to travel to in lots of magazines? (okay, that sounds like a really lame fact. but i can't remember the magazines right now and we heard that several times while we were there . . . so i thought i'd just put it out there.) and i totally agree--it was REALLY awesome. i loved everything about the city. so historic! so beautiful! everything was so close! hardly any traffic! not overwhelming! good food! seriously, i kept thinking of things that i loved about it as a vacation spot and they just kept coming. i would love to go back someday (sans grumpy baby, perhaps?), and i would really love to read some books about the history of charleston. 

friday, our first day there, we went to the magnolia plantation and gardens, one of the old rice plantations just outside of the city. tommy and i both had a good time practicing our amazing photography skills trying to take some pictures of the beautiful grounds and gardens. 

hello, baby boy with teeth!

we went on a "nature tram" ride that took you around the grounds of the plantation. a lot of the grounds are just swamps, and we saw tons of wildlife: alligators, egrets, turtles, etc. i don't think i've ever seen alligators outside of a zoo before--i loved it.

huge alligator, just across a creek from us!

the plantation house and gardens (including a maze). 

baby turtles! are you kidding me?

this is the spot where i said, "THIS. IS. HEAVEN." it's terrible how a picture really can't capture how fantastic this place was. seriously--picture the river going by, with this beautiful path right next to it, with these giant trees shading you, and a soft breeze tousling your hair--i want heaven to be just like that. (and then we discussed how it felt kind of wrong to say that this place felt like heaven when it was built on the backs of slaves--so i don't want heaven to be JUST like that, just to clarify.)

right next to the plantation, actually on the plantation grounds, was a "swamp garden" where you could walk along these wooden platforms and be IN the swamp and see all the nature up close. at first we weren't sure it was worth the extra $8 we paid to get in, but then after a bit, we decided it was. i love that kind of thing.

oh my goodness! more baby pictures! (he loves this hat--he loves grabbing the strap and holding onto it while we walk.)

his teeth! i'm sorry, i just can't get enough of them. 

don't worry, we didn't take this many pictures the other days. that's probably because friday > saturday > sunday, probably because we were more tired every day we were there (especially dane). also because this place was so crazy picturesque. but i thought this was a long enough blog post as it is!