East Coast = Rain

Our timing on the East Coast isn't the greatest.  Fall.  Hurricanes.  Rain.  Let's try spring.  April showers bring May flowers.  That's ok.  I like flowers.  And this time we have a trailer.  We got some monster rain, though.  While we were out.  Which meant we had to bust a move to get from the van into the trailer with minimal drenching.  I talked to the kids, we had our plan.  Except that I failed to EXPLICITLY mention the groceries we had JUST bought.  So those weiners all bailed on me and left me hanging out in the rain to collect the groceries.  Those kids are so rude.  I'm raising rude children.  Sigh.  

NS hanging out under the awning.  We've got sandy dirt at our campsite, which became sandy dirt.  Which is now my floor in the trailer.  Blech.  Oh, and G left his towel outside from his shower, and our dish mat was outside from cleaning up from breakfast.  And we had left vents open.  Oh, and our Sprinter leaked from the roof.  Known problem.  Class action lawsuit.  For years prior to ours.  Let's hope that they just lump us into that one.  Oh, and it's time for our next checkup, too.  A day at the dealer, we love it.              

This is the lake at our current park, Sesquicentennial State Park, in Columbia, South Carolina.  Beautiful park.  This was our first stroll around the place, trying to get our bearings.  There are playgrounds here, a splash park, the lake, several hiking trails, a Jr. Ranger program, and a variety of watercraft for exploring the lake.  We're pretty pleased with this find.                

I do so love a good tree.  And I love a good bunch of trees even more.  I'm not entirely sure what kind of trees these are, but I love the broad, sweeping motion of the branches.                                      

We were greeted by ducks along the path.  Unlike geese, these guys were pretty chill.  I really don't like how aggressive geese are, and so I'm psyched these ducks didn't attack.                    

That's a turtle.  Can you tell?  I kept seeing these stick-like objects in the water, but they would eventually go back down.  Thus the label, "turtle."  Hard to tell.  But that's my story, and I'm stickin' with it!                    

  The Jr. Ranger book had the kids looking for animals or plants you can find in the park.  So we took the nature trail, which is a short little trail that has signs along the way.  We learned about poison ivy, pileated woodpeckers, dogwood trees, flying squirrels, and more.  All in a half mile!                

It takes us a while, but we start looking at smaller things, things that you don't spy if you're just busting your butt to get through the hike.  NB showed me a bunch of bright pink/purple leaves.  Just down the path from that, G showed me this collection of helicoptor leaves.  After I took this picture, he tried to get them to spin down as a group, but that was a no-go.                                  

As a group, we are noisy.  Stomping through the forest, constant chatter.....just noisy.  I hung back with NB while he told me about some stuff, and in a moment of silence, we heard a rustling through the leaves.  This guy was impressive to see on the move.                  

And this is how the kids spent their down time during the rainstorm.