last week-ish, the kids and i loaded up and headed to western ny to visit fam and have a little change of scenery. my mom was able to take a few days off work, and on one particularly lovely day, we drove out to letchworth state park to “hike” and be in the sunshine and […]
vacation
charleston. last moments.
after three days (one, two, three) of pretty great adventures and excursions, our charleston trip was winding down. on our last evening, we partook in some local flavors. obviously i had to have a praline. (the kids went with fudge) and derek cooked up some local caught fish. i also strolled over to harris teeter […]
charleston. day three.mcleod plantation, angel tree, tea.
for our final full day in charleston, we headed to james island, where we took a tour of the mcleod plantation. derek had done a lot of research, and of the remaining plantations in charleston, mcleod is the only one that really focuses on the lives of the slaves and their descendants during their time […]
charleston. day two.wildlife-less kayak trip.
our second day in charleston was sunny and pretty, so we decided to escape the actual city, and head out to the wilderness for a bit. on our way, we stopped in at bitty and beau’s again. not only was a cute little shop, with good coffee, but the entire reason it exists is to […]
charleston. day one.aquarium, rainbow row, city market.
derek’s parents have like eight billion timeshare points or credits or whatever however it works. and often they get free random extra stuff in the offseason. basically, they can’t possibly use up all the time each year, so they often gift us vacations. such was the case a few weeks ago, when they gave us […]
polar express(great smoky mountain railroad).
we love watching and reading the polar express every year at christmas, and always say that someday we should ride the one of the many polar express themed train rides offered in our neck of the woods. well, our “maybe someday” turned into this year, when our family gift from the grandlidboms was a polar […]
being thankful in batavia.
now that we are (stuck) back in winston-salem, we are back to figuring out how to spend various holidays. i was determined to spend christmas in the stupid new house, because the ONLY time i ever missed having a house while we were on the road was christmastime. so, that made thanksgiving a perfect time […]
shenendoah national park.part two.
our second full day in shenendoah was beautiful. unfortunately, so overnight wind and rain had knocked a LOT of leaves off the trees. there was a distinct difference in fall foliage between the two days. on tap for the day was a short little hike that derek discovered that took us up to bearfence mountain. […]
crayola museum.easton, pa.
after two legs of the trip, we found ourselves just outside easton, pennsylvania, home of the crayola museum. this is another spot that we visited when we were very first on the road, and we were pretty excited to go back again. i took the kids, which gave derek some time to do his actual […]
new england apple picking detour.
the ride home from acadia is somewhere in the 17 hour range, so we broke it up strategically across four travel days, finding stopping points along the way where we could do something fun in the morning and then load up and drive to the next spot in the afternoon and evening. our first such […]