Leg 1: Charleston, SC!!!

My plan was to leave at 8:00 a.m. Monday morning. We weren’t too far off by hitting I-4 by 9:45 including breakfast at Einsteins.

Bags for 7 weeks!

Goodbye House!

Einstein's line

How you travel with children

We went a pretty direct route. I-4 to I-95 North.

Jacksonville!

Our first stop (except a rest stop) was Brunswick, GA, to get food. I Urbanspoon’ed a restaurant near the coast that served authentic lowland seafood and fare. We traveled 10 miles east, through the lowlands of Georgia to discover it was… closed. Bummer.

Luckily, I caught sight of another prospect a little bit away that seemed to serve our needs.

The kids chose to eat “outside.”

Now, I’m not sure if everyone has spent time in this area. But between the factories and the watery swampage, the smell was… similar to my kitchen after crab night.

After a bit, I realized I didn’t smell it anymore. Is this why people live here? They get used to it?

The restaurant left something to be desired (as well as a suspected stomach ailment for my husband) and we continued on our journey.

We arrived in town at 5:00, got dressed for dinner and headed down to “peninsular Charleston.” I had attempted to gain reservations for Slightly North of Broad (S.N.O.B), but I didn’t receive email confirmation, so I left a message at the restaurant and headed in that direction.

Since we had time to spare, I took the kids down to the South Battery. I explained to them how Hurricane Hugo swept out a lot of the Spanish Moss that used to grace the Oaks. They raced around the large rectangle and read every monument (reading 20 minutes, CHECK!) The sun set while we were there and we wandered in the dark and checked out the priced of the mansions on Realtor.com. Just 3.5 million for Cici’s favorite!

^^Sierra's house^^

We went to the restaurant next, and off course they didn’t have our reservations. They offered to seat us at a tiny table near the waiting area if we waited 25 minutes. We declined and headed to a larger establishment down the road a bit.

BBQ… sigh… Whatever. I had the steak. Chris sprang for the big BBQ platter (ate it allllllll). Sierra had the brisket and loved it. Isabel, the ribs. The food was decent. Nothing special though.

We slept in the next morning. Or… at least… I did. The kids went down the lobby and consumed breakfast with Chris. We bummed around the hotel room working on school stuff and then decided to leave around 11:30.

I know. We are lazy.

Next stop: Jack’s Cosmic Dogs

I think this is the first place in which the décor and theme actually excused the food for me. I am actually going to forgive the “ballpark-like” hot dogs in my buns. I even tried their blue-cheese slaw, which was excellent (I hate slaw).

 I liked it there. If you go, order a brat or something higher grade for the meat product. It will heal all wounds.

Next, we headed to Mt. Pleasant, where my Mother’s family cemetery is. We stopped and picked up some flowers and then searched for it. We found it after a couple calls to Mom and Aunt Betty.

Isabel and Cici really enjoyed exploring the cemetery. Since I spent some time this year using Ancenstry.com, I was able to identify most of the people buried there and their relation to us. It was actually quite lovely and interesting.

I was concerned about how I would feel going there. This is the first cemetery that I have visited since Ian died. Isabel was a little leery at first, but didn't show any outward signs of distress. She actually seemed surprised and a little relieved to see other children who were buried there. Maybe she didn't feel like we were the only family to lose a child.

We left Mt. Pleasant and headed downtown again for our trolley tour. It met near the Market, which houses lots of vendors and authentic Gullah basket weavers. After strolling around a bit and buying postcards and candy, we met up with our tour.

Dave was our trolley horse. He is getting close to retirement and is described as “ornery.” I have been on one of the tours before, and this one was significantly disappointing. No “Rainbow Row.” No “South Battery.”

Apparently, the city has commandeered the tours to limit the amount of traffic in the streets. It is a lottery system of which “route” you get to take. We got the BLUE route. –sigh-

Best meal so far? Fleet Landing Restaurant. Right on the harbor. Outside dining. Everything we had was amazing. Especially these “stuffed hushpuppies.” I would highly recommend it.

The only think we missed this stop was Fort Sumter. #FederalShutdown

We did get a "substitute bell" picture in case Philadelphia is still shut down when we get there...