Anniversary Trip and Loose Ends

I've worked out my issues I was having uploading (it had to do with printer issues I was having because that's where I load my cards to) and can now give you the back log of stuff.

First I'm going to tie up loose ends before talking about the trip. And I'm not sure that all of you know that I have these "loose ends" but people are waiting to see these things so...

On Nick's trip down here (when we went to Fort Sumter as alluded to in the ABC along post) I actually took a decent picture of him:


You all know how hard that is!

Then I managed to get the brothers standing near each other:
Funny. Apparently Nick's classmates could not believe how much they looked alike and his instructor (commander, I'm not exactly sure what!) had to take a picture of it...

Some of you were also asking about the cake that had us start our anniversary trip in Anderson, and here that is:
My MIL just blows me away with her ability to do the cakes. Just amazing.

In knitting progress we have the "traveling sock" that briefly turned into Mom's socks (hold on Mom, I'm explaining) and are now defunct:
I've done the heel turn at least twice and tried it on this time and it's just not fitting me right. And in not fitting me right, I know it won't fit Mom right as we have similar feet (mine are just one size bigger so I don't have to make her socks as long...).

I frankly think it's the toe up method is just not right for the fit of my socks. So, between that and the fact that I no longer want to work one at a time I want to work both at the same time on two circulars (loved that method, really the best for me) I have gotten different yarn and some Addi Turbo Lace needles because my Boye's didn't go that small and am now happily working away on a pair of socks for Mom that shall remain picture-less until she receives them so that at least pattern and color (I could be mean and tell you their hot pink with day glow yellow stripes but she would know immediately I'm lying as my sister Sarah would want to steal them as she loves tacky stuff like that) are a surprise.

Then in my current lace knitting you last saw the elusive Feather and Fan Shawl pictured in this state:



And it is now in this state (even a little further than when this picture was taken):
Can't you see how exciting lace is in the knitting process! That's another reason you won't see this much, as it will just become a bigger and bigger blob until it's washed and blocked.

I tried to get a picture of the center flower with out me having to go through the drama of pinning it:
But I'm afraid that all 90% of you will see in that picture is my skin peeking through the holes that you can see...

There are also several other things in progress but I'm so unorganized they're not worth mentioning at this point.

That said, on with our trip!

You see this sign:


I don't know exactly when I started noticing them, or when they were put up, but I remember seeing them around Anderson while growing up (I'm not sure if I noticed them in middle school, or high school, but I know it was sometime during that time period). They are also all around Charleston.

I knew it started here in the low country and worked to the upstate on the historic route of places that built up as the state and country developed and I've been wanting to travel it for a while.

(There is actually a website for it too, If you want to go to it. SC Heritage Corridor.)

So, for our anniversary, since we were already in Anderson, we traveled the route backwards. We expected to take three or four days doing it but rain put a hamper on our plans so we mostly just drove and didn't see all of the sites we wanted to but it was a very enjoyable trip. We plan to do it again with better weather to see more of the historic sites.

First we started in Oconee county at the nuclear power plant and it's tourist destination the World of Energy which is actually more interesting than you would think.

I like this picture below more what you can see of me and how I often am on car trips hanging out the window with the camera...
and just in case you wanted to see, this is what SC's nuclear power station looks like:
Next we headed to Brasstown Falls which is one of a number of water falls in the area. What we thought would be a nice trail such as this:
(this is actually the very beginning of the trail) to see beautiful falls such as this:
(this is just one part of the falls and the only one that we could see)
And small discoveries such as tadpoles:
Was thwarted because of this:
That gnarled root lined hill is the easy part of the trail (which looks in this picture easier than it is, when I lift my leg to step up on some of the parts of that I was put in a squat position and expected stand up from that... can we say thank goodness for karate!) to see the falls. We only saw the very top section of the falls because we didn't want to risk the camera and we didn't have the proper shoes on or anything for hiking.

So quickly we were out of Oconee and back in Anderson where I set another precedent for Chad, try to stop at the historical markers that pop up out of NOWHERE if you can. Like this one:
Again, quickly moving on as we really didn't have much we wanted to do in Anderson (we've been to a lot of the places and weren't extremely interested in others) we made it to Greenwood and discovered that they are working on making the route more interesting by placing signs such as this:

And looked at the Gardens of Park Seed Company. They really were pretty, but it was a shame that we couldn't see all of the plants they had to sell because the store portion was closed.
We spent the night in Greenwood and then, as stated before, because of rain, set out along the road without seeing some of the things we wanted to (Revolutionary and Civil War Battlefields etc)

We found some more historical markers:
And wished that we could see exactly what the sign referred to:
And continued on our way to Edgefield, a small little town that presented us with our second problem of the trip: "back" roads through South Carolina, on a Sunday, lead to small towns that uphold our "traditional" blue laws (don't get me started on these, just... yea, let's not get on that soapbox) so many things were closed.

There were a few things to see in the Edgefield town square though, as Edgefield has been the home to 10 SC governors including one who went on to be the most famous SC politician, Strom Thurmond:
What I found most interesting was this plaque on the statue:
I don't know how well you can see it but it was placed in 1984. It hasn't been updated to show when his senate career ended (2003) or his death also in 2003.

We continued on our way saw another historical marker that popped up out of nowhere (can't you just picture me looking at Chad going "quick, there's one up ahead, we've got to stop!")
And soon made a slight detour from the route (at least part of the route) to travel Highway 61 - the upper part of it is not on the route but the lower part of it, the part that I love the most, is. I love the way 61 looks because as you've seen before I love tree lined streets:

I will have to remember to show you come December/January, the difference the foliage makes on this road. It's just breath taking. (Have you figured out yet that I'm really a big dork...)

The weather was nice in Charleston, and being such a tourist city there are plenty of things to do on Sunday, so we stopped at Charles Towne Landing, the place where we believe the first settlers of Charleston landed in 1670 and stayed for 10 years before moving to the peninsula that Charleston sits on.

It's really very nice and had a lot more than we expected to see for the $5 entrance fee. There was a mini "zoo" showing animals native to SC such as these birds:
and bison!:
There are of course areas they are working on excavating:
And beautiful views of Charleston that pictures don't do justice to:
(why, yes I can see MUSC's new hospital and recognize other buildings... I'm sorry that I can't do justice and point them out to you)

We saw raccoons that were very wary of us (not part of the mini zoo at all):
And a beautiful tree lined driveway that leads up to a beautiful southern house (the Legare-Warring house)
At which point we had to return to our car and miss the gardens because we were running out of time.

All in all it was a fun trip that we will repeat in better weather.