North Carolina, Again

As we make our way north this spring, we're hitting some states we hit last fall.  First on the list, North Carolina!  While we stayed in the western/central part of the state last November, we're on the coast (or close) this time around.  First stop, Neuse River Recreation Area in the Croatan National Forest.  

As Easter is rapidly approaching, we've taken some time to make some Easter crafts.  We missed mass for the 2nd and 3rd weeks in Lent, which was really weighing heavily on me.  We've made it to every mass since, but I still haven't spent much effort on the season.  It's not been easy, and I hate that the season has found me so lacking, but I'll do better next year.                

About an hour or so from our campground is the Beaufort location for the North Carolina Martitime Museum.  Here we learned all about fascinating things like buoy breeches.  Oh, and Edward Teach....you know, Blackbeard.  So these buoy breeches were used to rescue people from sinking ships.  There was also an 11 passenger rescue boat (?) that freaked me out as it would have been so incredibly tight a fit for 11 people.  But for efficiency, it was the way to go.  It was a pretty cool museum, and after we explored, we walked around Beaufort.  Here we also hit the visitors' center for Cape Lookout National Seashore.  While we didn't get to the actual seashore, the kids were able to do the underwater ranger papers.  They learned a lot with that particular ranger book!                                

We also spent an afternoon checking out New Bern.  Some fellow campers recommended it as a place to walk around, and it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.  We were taken with the bears they have throughout the city.  This one was particularly fun, just hanging out as a kind of gargoyle.                                    

This bear held the Bill of Rights.  That was good for the kids to see again!                                        

We also went to the birthplace of Pepsi.  Notice that it states it's "healthful."  I love old ads.  There was not a lot to do, it was really just a store full of Pepsi paraphenallia, but it was a nifty little stop on our journey.                                    

Our campground is a short walk from the river.  K, NB, and I took a walk there the first day we pulled in, but it took almost the entire time we were at the campsite before the others came out and saw it.                    

G's convinced he can start fire with friction.  We'll see...he's bound and determined!                    

I think these are cypress knees out in the river, but I'm not entirely sure.  The kids had a fun time hanging out in the water and playing.  The weather has been a bit of a mixed bag while we've been here.  Bright and sunny when we arrived, downpours for a couple days, cool and breezy for a couple days.  I do love spring.      

Brand New Feature!

 Ok, I'm finally with it.  Partially.  Before we set out on this trip, I knew I wanted certain things for my blog, but a lot of them never happened.  Today Bill set me up with a subscribe button!  All you people who have followed me have, I'm sure, figured out that I do NOTHING with my Google+ account.  I'm hopeful that this new subscribe button will help all of you keep connected with the blog.  Yeah!

Congaree

Congaree was our most recent NPS visit.  We're camping right outside of Columbia, but Congaree is on the other side of Columbia, so it was about a 35 minute drive or so.  We're not really quick on Saturday mornings, we like to have our pancakes and sausages.  Oh, and we had to clean the car from the deluge of rain the air conditioner poured on the kids the other day.  So we set off, and got there right around 11:30.  Fairly empty parking lot, though it did fill up while we were in the visitors' center.  We went on the boardwalk trail, along with pieces of other trails.  Congaree is a swam/bottomland hardwood forest.  Pretty cool.  

This is right outside the visitors' center.  I was much relieved to see the 'squito level below ruthless and war zone.  The Everglades had the level right around ruthless.  Not fun.  But this sign was quite truthful.  We met a couple bugs, but that's because a few of us are sheer magnets for the beasts.                  

The forest boasts some of the tallest trees east of the Mississippi.  Beautiful, tall trees standing in puddles.  Not that there was water everywhere we walked today, but the area does flood every year.  I liked the non-flat nature of this downed tree.                                      

This was the first of several snakes we saw at the park.  I'm not a fan of snakes, but it is kinda cool to see them slither around.  You know, slither AWAY from me.  FAR away.                                      

If you've never been to a swamp (Congaree, Everglades, similar places), get thee there quick.  The cypress trees that grow there are really amazing.  Their roots grow back UP out of the soil.  The growths are called knees, and they're not entirely certain why this occurs.  But the knees all look different, and they somewhat reminded me of the hoodoos in Goblin Valley.  I like the two entwined ones in this pic.                                  

Towards the end of our walk, we even got to spot some turtles in Weston Lake.  We didn't get to spot much wildlife, so it was cool to get to see the turtles.                      

I've been trying for a while to catch a butterfly with my camera.  Sesquicentennial Park has a TON of butterflies, but they are all well-versed in eluding cameras.  This was the only one I saw who landed and stayed somewhere long enough for me to get my camera out.  All in all, our day at Congaree was a bunch of fun and we got to see some really spectacular scenery.

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.

Mayfield Dairy

We took a tour of Mayfield Dairy yesterday.  It's in Braselton, GA.  Taking tours of places across the US has been fun.  We haven't done a ton, but we've enjoyed the ones we've taken.  

To take this tour, we all had to have hair nets.  And Bill needed a beard net, too.  He looks good!  We showed up for the first tour of the week, so we were the only ones on the tour--YEAH!!!!  The tour cost us $4.50/adult (G counts), and $3.50/child (NS still counts), but we got ice cream at the end, included, so it was a fair shake.                  

The kids got to "milk" a cow afterwards.  It actually sprayed water at the kids, too!  The tour took us about 45 minutes, which was a good amount of time.  We spent way too much time in their gift shop before the tour, but we did manage to leave everything right where we found it.                                    

Sitting around after the tour, just enjoying our ice cream. Bill actually upgraded his to a milkshake, because they offer a pecan pie milkshake.  I got turtle tracks.  A very good flavor.  Mayfield is a massive operation, thousands upon thousands of gallons of milk processed every day.  Just got me thinking about what I want to do with my own land someday.

Changing It Up

K's hair has always been a fighting point between the two of us.  I like her to brush it, she does not.  It gets knotty and quite messy, and so she protests.  So one morning after asking her to brush her hair, she just said she wanted a hair cut.  Notice that her hair is down to her shoulder blades or so.  Maybe a little past them.                  

This is how she brushes her hair.  There are still a bunch of knots.                                        

I brushed it out right before we started the haircut.  That is some long hair.  Not Rapunzel, but not short.  We went through pictures on the internet before starting, and she wanted a pixie.  That's a huge change.  I didn't want to warn her about any potential regrets, I just didn't want to put any thoughts in her head.  Possibly a mistake.                                    

I googled a step by step instruction, and this is how our initial cuts turned out.  So far, I like it.  I'm no master hair cutter, for sure.  I usually like my initial cuts, but as I work my way up, it gets less awesome.  This was no different.                  

This is the finished cut from the front.  She may actually have made me cut it a wee bit shorter after this one, just to get the hair more out of her eyes.                      

Initially she really loved it.  After a few hours, remorse set in.  She spent the evening very upset about not having long hair any more.  She woke up this morning cheerful again, so I think her short hair is really what she wanted, she just has to adjust to it.  I think if she wants to go shorter, though (she wants spikes or a mohawk or something), we'll have to take her somewhere.  I've gone outside my comfort zone.

Blue Springs

Blue Springs State Park is a manatee refuge.  When I mentioned going there to Aunt Beth and Uncle Chuck, they highly recommended it.  So even though we saw a bunch of manatees at the wildlife refuge, we took to the road again to see the manatees at the state park.  There were only two manatees there the day we went, but the water was so clear, we got to see a ton of other wildlife.  

We loved seeing all the gar.  We got to see catfish, as well.  With the water so clear, we stayed around and stared at the fish quite a bit.                      

We got up close and personal with this manatee.  He's an unusual color.  Hahaha!  We only spent a half day at the park, then headed back to our campsite for lunch.