Friday afternoon (once swimming camp and baseball camp were done for the week), we hit the road south. This will be the centerpiece of our summer: a month-long stint — July 2014 — in South Carolina.
We made what felt like, for us, a huge decision (since we try to never go to the same place twice) — we decided to go back to the same place, even renting the same exact house, as last summer.
It felt like summer would really begin once we began the road trip south. This is now four years in a row that we’ve made the trip deep down to the Lowcountry of South Carolina. It is a two-day drive with an overnight at a hotel somewhere in Virginia.
There is lots of iPod’ing and iPad’ing in the backseat ~
And always an audio book in the front seat. Since this is Dash’s first summer with us, this was his first trip to South Carolina. He was conked out most of the time, and handled the long drive like a champ! He seemed to know, like we do, that the pay-off would be huge ~
A stop at Taco Bell has — for whatever reason — become a ‘Must Do’ part of this road trip. It is the one and only time each year that we eat at Taco Bell. It is funny how these little rituals develop. I wonder if the bambinos will remember stuff like this when they are older — ‘Oh, yeah, and my family used to do this crazy 16-hour drive to South Carolina, and we’d always stop at Taco Bell…” ~
There was a long section of the drive — somewhere way south in North Carolina, or maybe it was way north in South Carolina — where I sat in the backseat with Kyle and Meera, while Owen rode shotgun. My backseat portion of the road trip began in order for me to oblige Kyle’s request to watch a video with him that neither his brother or sister would watch unless forced entirely against their will — a documentary about the history of immigration, coal mining, and labor union development in the United States. He thought it was fascinating. I thought it was boring as heck. Meera and Owen were just relieved they didn’t have to watch it.
Readers of this blog know that I post hundreds of photos every year. You may or may not have noticed that I rarely post photos of myself, and have — maybe never? — posted a selfie. Well, this is what happens when mama is in the backseat for a few hours — boredom sets in, people get silly and giddy, and strange requests are made, like, “Mom, come on! Let’s take a selfie!?!” And mama rolls with it and might even post it to the blog.
We know we are very deep, deep, down, down in The South when we finally spot a highway sign for “Hot Krispy Kremes! Drive Through! Next Exit!” We’ve been on the lookout for one of those signs for a long, long time and some of us (one in particular) is a very enthusiastic lover of the hot Krispy Kreme!
We had bought a new travel game for this trip, and we can now highly recommend it — Auto Bingo. This entertained four of us (and the driver) for a couple of hours during the especially dicey last leg of the drive.
But then we arrive. The beach house was just how we remember it — actually even better. The view from the porch was, somehow, a quick reminder of why we did this, and an affirmation that we had made the right decision in coming back. I snapped this with my phone within minutes of our arrival ~
And just minutes after that — yes, the pay off. Feet in the sand, bodies under the waves. Warm water, salty breeze. Miles of protected coastline, in an incredibly natural state. There is no boardwalk or beach bar or buzz. In fact, there is not much of anything, except just us five, left to our own devices, away from the intensity of our “regular life” up North. That is a great life we have up there… we wouldn’t trade it for the world. But, we really benefit from the balance of the slow-paced southern summer too. I’m not sure that our current “regular life” would be sustainable without our July retreat. Harbor Island beach ~
Dash was right. It is so worth it! ~
