Atlanta & A Visit with Meg - May 3rd

Pretty much right after our wonderful vacation, I had a week long trade show in Atlanta that the association I work for puts on - so much for maintaining a zen-like bliss after vacation!

My friend Meg, whom I have known since high school, lives NE of the Cobb Galleria where the trade show was, so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to visit with Meg, have her meet Larry (he was able to come and enjoy Atlanta while I was at the show), I could meet her husband and 2 kids and we could catch up - perfect plan!

Thankfully, Larry and I were able to get to Atlanta several days before I needed to be on-site and set up for the show and we were able to stay at Meg and Sam's house.

What can I tell you...it was like Meg and I had just seen each other yesterday - we were able to catch up immediately. We talk on the phone, but actually having "face time" really was great. It was so much fun because I kind of felt like I was at a sleepover at her house like we did in high school.

Meg and Sam have two beautiful daughters - Riley and Mackenzie - too cute!

Unfortunately, we were only able to stay 1 night, but we had a blast! We definitely need to visit more often - the last time we saw each other was about 13 years ago in Chicago. But again, we talk often, so at least we keep each other in the loop with each other. Hopefully we'll see each other soon - Meg...you "owe" us a visit to Chicago!

Port Royal, Bateaux & What a Sunset! - April 17th

After dinner we walked around Port Royal a bit - we wished we discovered it earlier in the trip - just a lovely and sleepy town on the water.

We then headed to Bateaux(www.bateauxrestaurant.net)for drinks and to watch the sunset, which no one was on, so we thought it would be nice and quiet.

We went inside and asked the maitre d' if we could sit on the porch for drinks - he just kind of "sniffed" yes, which kind of threw us. Bateaux really is a lovely place and based on the reviews the food is apparently phenomenal...but the attitude on this man! Manners, or lack thereof, is a huge pet-peeve of mine...particularly in the service industry.

We went upstairs, which had a good number of people, and sat on the porch - just 4 of us - all to ourselves.

Our server took our drink order and I swear he had the same personality as the maitre d' - with lock-jaw voice to boot! Well, when he was bringing out our drinks he couldn't get the door open, so I see that he is struggling and get up to help him and he very curtly said "no!" to me and very sternly told another server to open the door. We were all kind of in shock. I was just being polite and quite frankly, whether it's appropriate of not for a guest to offer help, the man needed help...so I tried to help!

He finally warmed up to us and we figured out that the cranky maitre d' seemed to have everyone on pins and needles, so no wonder our server was acting so stiff and panicked.

So we relaxed on the porch, sipped our drinks, sampled strawberries and enjoyed the beautiful sunset - truly a great last night on vacation! I definitely would have dinner at Bateaux if we were in the area again - the menu did look quite delicious.

Back at the house it was a packing fest! But of course, we left enough time for some last night games and wine!

On Saturday, we packed up and dropped Scott and Gwen off at the Charleston Airport before Larry and I continued on to IL - however, not before we stopped in Knoxville at our new-favorite Cuban restaurant, Little Havana (www.lhknox.com).

This was a fabulous vacation - it's always a blast when we travel with Scott & Gwen!

Now back to reality and on to Atlanta for a business trip in May - I definitely will need a nap somewhere - I feel that I will be running on empty shortly.

MoonDoggies & Boo II - April 17th

When we reached Port Royal we decided to get a quick bite to eat to tide us over until dinner, which we decided would be a BBQ place that looked pretty good.

So we went to MoodDoggies Cafe, which was a sandwich shop. There were hardly any people inside which was a shame because the owners could not have nicer - although we were there at an "off" time, so I'm hoping it was just the time.



The wife/owner is apparently is related to someone who provides the peppers to the Tabasco Company and she made her own homemade hot sauce from these peppers - she gave us a sample and Larry and Scott said it was phenomenal. The "boys" then decided to order fried pickles, which I have to tell you, turned my stomach at the thought of it - and I like pickles!

Fried pickles...tasty!



But you know what? Oh my gosh...were they spectacular! I only took 2 because I can see how'd they'd be addictive and one could eat a basket before you know it - and where would that get me? Chubby!

The owners cat was hanging around the porch, so animal person that I am, I went to pet it. But as I was going towards it it went outside on the porch and saddled up to the skinniest raccoon I have ever seen!

Boo II (yes, apparently there was a Boo I) was a raccoon that showed up on the restaurant porch one day as a baby and the owners fed it and it kept on coming back.

Honestly, if I could have hugged this thing, I would have because it was that cute.

Boo II actually takes food out of his "owners" hands (I think he actually lives in a tree or something on their property and comes in for food), so I guess he/she is pretty domesticated. And I guess since Boo II lives in their back yard, they weren't really concerned with him/her getting sick with rabies - so they felt pretty comfortable. But I still wasn't going to go there.

Anyway, as you can see, Boo II is quite cute!



I think Boo II looks like a little bear cub - don't you agree?

MoonDoggie's was yet another place we loved - mostly because of the owners being so nice and hospitable - another great moment on vacation!

The BBQ place on the other hand was only OK and no alcohol because they let their liquor license expire (???) But we were all in such a good mood, it didn't really matter.

Flippin' Fripp Island - April 17th

Friday was our last full day of vacation and we wanted to make the most of it.

When we rented the house the owners mentioned they had another house on Fripp Island and if we would like, they would leave us guest passes at the gate (it's a private island) so we could go to the beach - that's all the instructions they provided us.

We were planning on going to the beach earlier in the week but it was never really warm enough - quality "beach weather." But Friday was looking pretty good, so we thought we'd go for it. Fripp Island is one of the islands located near Beaufort. Honestly, I thought it was right around the corner, but I guess circumventing all the water and the particular road we were on - it took a good 45 minutes to an hour to get there.

As we were driving along the only road that would take you to Fripp Island, I kept thinking "where would people do their food shopping???" I think the closest store was near beaufort - what a pain!

We were passing the time by stopping at a couple of shops - it seemed we'd never get to Fripp Island.

So when we finally arrived at Flippin' Fripp Island (it's new name christened by us, since we were now a little punch drunk in the car and annoyed) - we got to the gate and gave the guard the owner of the rental home's name. Unfortunately the guard said that they had no record of us coming from the owner and therefore we couldn't enter. Apparently if we did have a pass they only last one day - which we didn't know, but again, they never told us anything.

So we were miffed because the owner never said when we had to visit on a particular day and we were upset because this was another thing they did not follow through on. Again, the house was wonderful, but you tend to get a little cranky when things fall through the cracks: unclean house, no bikes, filthy grill, Flippin' Fripp Island - need I go on?!? So we turned around and left Flippin' Fripp Island.

Just over the bridge was a state park that Larry and I had been to a few years ago with Vern and Joann, so we thought since we drove all the way down this rediculously long road...we should at least do something!

We walked out on the pier to see the water and to mock Flippin' Fripp Island (do I sound bitter???) - it was just beautiful; we then visited the on-site museum.

The park had some trails, so we thought we'd get a little exercise before lunch.

As you can see, the scenery was just beautiful.



As we were headed back towards Beaufort we thought we'd grab some lunch at one of the roadside seafood shacks, which looked fabulous - but unfortunately they were all closed for lunch because it was after 1pm - can't seem to catch a break!

The game plan was to then go to Port Royal for a snack, dinner and later for drinks at Bateaux, which is this beautiful restaurant near the water that has this great upper porch we thought we could watch the sunset.

So we headed up the ungodly long road to hopefully food and drink hevean.

A Night at the Lanes & Some Miffed Bowlers - April 16th

After the highlight experiment and a day at the spa...we were ready for some action Thursday night...bowling.

OK, maybe it's not THE hot spot at night in Beaufort, but we thought it would be fun to go bowling on our 2nd-to-last night in vacation.

So we headed to the bowling alley. When we parked, and this is important, there were only a few cars in the lot.

We walked in and headed for the rental desk. This very tall and menacing woman waited on us and we told her we want to buy individual games. She said, "you should do the special for XX dollars and you get unlimited amount of games." So due to her recommendation we went for it.

Then she assigned us to one lane, which we thought was odd because there was a couple next to us that had 2 lanes and we had 4 people.

We were having fun until half way through our second game, she announces the lanes are closing and we had to close out within five minutes.

We then realized we were completely ripped off because there was no point buying unlimited games if we were only going to make it barely through 2 games. They didn't even let us finish our second game!

We tried to complain, but honestly, you would NOT want to mess with this woman. So we were muttering under our breath all the way out..into the parking lot..out on the street etc. The only thing of course that would cure this was a trip to Friendly's...which managed to cure our frustration.