Things got a bit rough after day 2 so I never did get back to posting about the rest of our trip. I did try at one point but the wifi at our last hotel was worthless. I did fix the computer (I got the penny out of the slot) so the pictures all made it on to the computer. I'll have to check to see if I put them up on Picasa (Google Pictures).
Day 3
This was one of the best days of the trip. We spent all day in Charleston and while there we a mishap, everyone enjoyed the day. It was pretty hot, but we made the best of it. We started the day with a trip to Fort Sumter. (For those who don't know the minute details of their history, this is where the Civil War began, although there was only one casualty here and that was actually due to an accident after the battle was over). The boat ride over was beautiful and relaxing. Both kids had fun with that. When we got there, Ari fell and skinned up her legs pretty good. The park ranger was really helpful and ran to get the first aid kit. Once we got Ari all patched up we started around the fort. The problem here being that you get about an hour to explore the fort before the boat heads back. Take out the time we spent making sure Ari was okay and we had much less than that. So we toured quickly through the fort, carrying the kids where there were steps rather than finding a ramp or elevator (which was broken anyway). I just took pictures of anything I wanted to read and kept moving to make sure we could take in as much of the fort as possible. It ended up being a nice time, but I think even the full hour would be shorter than I would really want to explore. We'll just have to come back another time.
After the fort we headed to the market. It's a mostly open air market which was fun to wander. We didn't end up with much, other that some water ice to help cool us off. I also got some cinnamon roaster cashews. For lunch we went to Bubba Gump's, which we had never been to before (although one recently open up in Baltimore's Inner Harbor). The food there was good and they had rubber ducky races where the kids could drop the ducky into a stream and watch them as they floated down to the bottom. That kept Ari occupied for quite some time.
After wandering the market, we took one of the horse and carriage tours. We got tour number 3, which happened to be under construction. We therefor got a slightly altered version of the tour, which seemed to confuse the horse quite a bit. Great tour overall and something I'd like to do again to get a better view of the town. I know our trip here left a good impression on Amanda as she wants to come back again at some point.
After the tour, we headed to a the site where the aircraft carrier Yorktown is located. It was almost closing so we just wandered the grounds and took a few pictures before heading out. After that we headed to Texas Roadhouse and had dinner, where I left a watch that I had just bought over at the Fort Sumter site. At least it was a cheap one. We then made our way back to the hotel.
Day 4
We started the day over at the outlets which were down the street from our hotel. We spent a good portion of the morning there. We then started out towards Myrtle Beach. This was a really rough day as Ari wasn't feeling very well and was in a really bad mood all day. Not good for a day where you spend a lot of time in the car.
When we made it to Myrtle Beach, we headed over to Broadway at the Beach, where we started off with a trip to the Ripley's Aquarium. They've added a mermaid show since we were last there and Ari couldn't wait to get there. It was a fun show. Simple, but fun to watch Ari's reactions. she then got to meet one of the mermaids and get her picture taken with her. After that it was off to wander the shops. We stopped at Build-a-Bear and
Hotel #3 was by far the worst. It was in N. Myrtle Beach and was loud and run down. We couldn't get the kids to go to sleep with all of the cars and people making noise well into the night. We had gotten a recommendation for the hotel from a friend, but I think we booked the wrong one. Turns out there are several similarly named hotels around there. If I remember correctly, it was the Holiday Sands. We actually ended up cutting our stay there short and giving up the money for the last day. The pool was okay and Ari still had fun playing in the water, but other than that we couldn't wait to leave.
Day 5
We started the day wandering the boards. Not a bad area during the day. We walked from the hotel to the area where the boards actually started (its technically longer but it starts off as concrete) and stopped at a few places. Buffett's Landshark restaurant looked good, but we weren't really hungry yet.- Plus it was really load and the kids weren't enjoying all the noise outside. We stopped at an arcade which had a wall full of old baseball games. The kind where you actually have to hit the pinball into the holes along the field. Played quite a few games of that.
After the boards we went back to swim. Ari loved that and so did Lily. It was actually pretty relaxing. Afterwards we cleaned up and headed over to Barefoot Landing. It's a nice shopping center area with a lot of local shops and some big name places. We ate dinner there at Joe's Crab Shack and then wandered around until Ari started getting grumpy. At this point in the trip I think she was getting homesick and tired of all the traveling around and driving.
We spent our last night in the hotel and had all the same issues. Luckily Amanda's Aunt Pat and Uncle Ev's place was available to stay at the out last night there. We moved over there in the morning.
Day 6
As I said, we got up, checked out early and went over to stay with Aunt Pat and Uncle Ev. Oh, and Spanky (their Giant Schnauzer). We spent some time on the beach which Lily loved and Ari had mixed reactions to. She hates the sand but loves the water.
Later in the day we went to Murrells Inlet, which has become a tradition over the years. Same as always with the nice, but somewhat crowded walk past all the bars and the little island with all the goats. There's now a pirate tour ship there, which Ari liked to see. When it started getting darker and the mosquitoes started coming out we left.
Day 7
This was the day we started heading back. We packed up early and headed towards Raleigh, NC. We had a hotel booked there and tickets to see the Frederick Keys play the Carolina Mudcats in Zebulon, NC. The hotel was nice and relaxing. The stadium, and the town of Zebulon, were out in the middle of nowhere. It was a small, but nice stadium. Nothing there for the kids to do, unlike the Keys stadium that we usually go to. So, we got to watch about half the game before a thunderstorm hit and since we have a human lightning rod for a daughter (she has four long metal rods in her back), we headed to the car and back to the hotel.
Day 8
This was all driving, so nothing special to talk about here. We went out of our way to avoid DC which worked fairly wall and drive home. We got home fairly late and both had work the next day so we quickly did what we had to in order to be ready for the next day and headed to bed.
The main things we really learned here are what the kids can and can't handle. Ari has trouble with staying in the car for too long with all of her back and muscle problems. We needed to stop every hour or two which made for a very slow drive. We also needed to just let her stay asleep once the fell asleep. We were worried she would miss something and woke her up a few times (such as when we made the teddy bear) and those were the times she was at her worst. Lily is just a one year old full of energy, so all the normal issues apply for her :)
