Heading to Beaufort & Sleeping at the Aquarium - April 11th

The day was beautiful as we headed to Beaufort. We took the back roads (actually we didn't have a choice) which we love, but unfortunately we might have overwhelmed Gwen with the long drive, but Gwen was a trooper!

The "problem" with the area is that it's not that the distance from Charleston to Beaufort is long, but because you are dealing with inter coastal areas, you are weaving in and out of waterways and can't go in a straight line to your destination.

But I did get in another one of my "fixes" - there's a roadside stand/store that we've been to before that sells homemade pies, spices and peach cider (yum!) - I just love anything "foodie." So when I walked in I did my typical once-around and grabbed what I could, especially the peach cider. I wish I could buy the cider in IL because it is so good - it makes you think of summer!

Sometime later we arrived in Beaufort, which is a small "city" on the inter coastal - just beautiful. I wouldn't necessarily plug it as a full-fledged destination area even though it has certain aspects - restaurants, nearby beaches etc. It's just a quiet and beautiful area that we picked that was near Charleston and Savannah. However, it was where they filmed The Big Chill, Forest Gump and The Great Santani, so if you remember the scenery, you'll remember how beautiful the area is.

The house we rented is a historic house - apparently Beaufort's 1st aquarium, which we couldn't figure out because it's a house, but I suppose in 18-something that's where you'd have a 1st aquarium.



So we parked and started lugging all our luggage to the front door. Unfortunately when we walked inside we very quickly realized that the house wasn't clean - full of dust, the bathrooms had toothpaste spray on the mirrors - it was just gross. Which was very odd since before we went to the house we did a drive by and saw that the cleaning service was there to clean because the house was rented the week before.

Now I can be messy at times, but I'm pretty neat in general - when I clean...I clean! And hey, if it's your mess, it's not as off-putting as someone else's!

We were just annoyed because you pay a lot of money for a vacation rental and you expect it to be clean.

Well unfortunately I went into some sort of ocd-mode because I just couldn't get it out of my head that it wasn't clean - poor Larry, Gwen and Scott had to see me running around the house muttering "I can't believe they didn't clean...we need to clean."

We called the owner of the house and they were apologetic and said they'd send out the cleaning service again. Unfortunately we didn't realize there was only one key to the house, so when we left to buy stuff (including cleaning supplies, natch) at Walmart the cleaning service couldn't get into the house! So basically when we returned we discovered the house wasn't clean except for the filthy outside table.

After running around an hour or so cleaning, we were all calm because the house was clean and we could relax - and I became "normal" again and no longer was flipping out about cleaning - OK I'll fully admit that I got a little scary...but come on...the house should have been clean. Hopefully Larry, Gwen and Scott forgave me for my goofiness - I'm usually more relaxed about things, honest :).

Adding insult to injury we then discovered that the bikes that were promised for the house weren't there and the grill I do believe had never been clean - not really off to a good start!



But the evening ended well. First we colored Easter eggs (who doesn't like Paas Easter Egg Coloring and using the metal egg dipper!) and then we grilled after Larry and Scott scoured the grill. We had wine, a fabulous meal by Larry and Scott, great music and Dominoes - it was a fantastic evening, despite the earlier "bumps."