Life On The Other Side

Over the Easter weekend, we took probably one of our last long roadtrips for awhile. It was a quick trip down to Georiga to visit with family and spend some time together. The trip itself is about a 3-4 hour drive depending on how many stops you make along the way (bathroom and snacks) and, of course, the traffic. We left Saturday morning and, surprisingly, there was hardly any traffic on the roads. I guess most people probably left on Friday since it was Good Friday and living here in the “Bible Belt,” a lot of people either were off or took the day off. We came home last night though there was much more traffic and two rather nasty looking accidents. The trip itself was fun and relaxing. Spending time with family is always nice and we have a good time.

If you’re not familiar with the interstate here, to drive from N.C. down to Georgia, you obviously have to travel through South Carolina. The trip itself passes through Greenville and numerous smaller towns along the way. The most enjoyable thing about the trip is seeing the greenery and the rivers and lakes. Unfortunately like most interstate highways, you also see tons of billboards and the such. There are also two specific things about S.C. that you can’t miss while driving down to Georgia. The first is that there are cigarette wholesale warehouses and the second is fireworks can be purchases all year. I have come to ignore the cigarette billboards because I don’t smoke so I have no interest in them. But I suppose if you are a smoker, buying wholesale cigarettes can save you money. As for fireworks, most states that I’ve lived in and most states in general either ban them or let you buy them for certain holidays with permit. In S.C. you can buy fireworks every single day of the year and, apparently, use them every single day of the year. I commented to the hubby that I don’t see how these businesses can survive since I’m not sure people actually buy them every single day of the year. In any case, I’d like to see what the inside of one of those fireworks warehouses looks like because they are enormous. The irony is that you can’t smoke near there so no cigarette warehouses are nearby but don’t despair because there will be some billboard along the way that will alert you of your next stop.

There aren’t many weekends left that the hubby and I can enjoy by ourselves. The weeks seem to go by rather quickly as the due date for the baby approaches. This weekend we didn’t have much planned so we decided to take a drive. We woke up Saturday to a bleary and wet day, and decided to jump in the car and drive east. On previous trips, we had gone north, west and south but never east. The drive was pleasant and not bad for a rainy day. We drove from Charlotte to Rockingham taking the scenic route through Indian Trail, Monroe, Wadesboro and assorted other small towns along the way. The hubby and I enjoy seeing small towns and the beautiful North Carolina countryside. True there wasn’t much to see but it was beautiful and green. Rockingham is mostly known for its dragway which we didn’t bother to visit. However, we did visit an outdated Hardee’s and had a mediocre lunch. Despite the appeal of the taco salad on television, the real thing has a lot to be desired.

The rest of the weekend was less exciting as we did our usual Target run on Sunday and spent some time at the bookstore looking for new reads. Oh, and baseball season is in full swing now but our beloved Braves haven’t been doing very well. They beat the Dodgers but lost to the Giants on the road. Tonight is their opening game at home and I hope they do a lot better.

We had a lovely time on our trip down to Georgia and especially to the coast where I finally got to meet some of my hubby’s extended family. Both of the hubby’s parents grew up in a town along the Georgia coastline which over the years has seen some changes but remains relatively the same in population. The attraction to this town is really the islands off of it known as the Golden Isles. These consist of Jekyll Island, St. Simons Island, Sea Island and Little St. Simons Island. These areas are rather the “touristy” areas that attract visitors to the town where my hubby’s parents grew up because getting to these islands you must travel through Brunswick.

Since it was my first time there, this gave my father-in-law the opportunity to play tourist with all of us as he showed us around the town and throughout two of the islands: Jekyll and St. Simons. Jekyll was once the winter retreat to many of America’s wealthy families including the Rockefellers, Cranes and Macys. Today these homes are being maintained and/or restored for the public to visit. While we didn’t have time to tour inside the homes, we did take a lovely walking tour of the area where these homes were.

This is Indian Mound, the winter cottage of the Rockefellers.

This is the Crane Cottage, the winter home of the Crane family of the Crane faucets and fixtures.

We also visited St. Simons Island where we had dinner with some family one evening and walked along the pier. The next day we visited the Fort Frederica National Monument. Here are a couple of pictures from our visit there:

This is the fort itself along the coastline.

A lovely picture of the coastline along Fort Frederica.

The trip down to the coast of Georgia was just wonderful and especially getting to meet the hubby’s only living grandparent, his grandmother who is truly a southern lady! Even at the age of 88, she is sharp as a tack with a lovely sense of humor. I can’t wait until our son gets to meet his great-grandmama.

Other highlights of our trip was visiting some of my hubby’s college friends and their new babies; spending time with his parents, brother and sis-in-law; and finally eating some Chipotle and yummy Chinese food! In all, it was a nice vacation and one that the hubby needed!

The hubby has decided that he has earned a well-deserved vacation. Here! Here! I totally agree! So this weekend we’re off to visit family and friends in Georgia. It’s always nice to getaway even though the getaway is only a couple of states away. Part of this vacation will be spent near the coastline of Georgia and I am looking forward to that. I haven’t seen the ocean since our last trip to Charleston, SC which was last July. Even though my FIL (father-in-law) says there isn’t much to see because of the brown ocean water, I still marvel at the vastness of the ocean and how open and unencumbered I feel when I’m around it. The ocean brings back so many good memories of growing up and spending time with my own family there. I can’t even begin to count the numerous times we’ve gone swimming, fishing, camping and had picnics by the ocean in Hawaii. All those were the best times growing up especially because my dad loved the ocean. I hope our son who will have the honor of bearing his late grandfather’s name as one of his own feels the same way. I hope to take lots of pictures on this trip and to post a few here to share. I haven’t been to the coastline of Georgia so I’m looking forward to a couple of things besides seeing the ocean. I’m looking forward to the drive there because it’ll be somewhere I’ve never been before and I am looking forward to visiting a new town. Really, the significance of this visit is to meet some of my hubby’s extended family members that I have never met before, not even before we got married or at our wedding. In fact, I have only met my husband’s immediate family so meeting extended family is exciting to me. On this trip I will meet his only living grandparent, a cousin or two and an aunt and two uncles, I think. Like I said, it should be fun and I enjoy spending time with family. Updates when I return!

Unlike last weekend, the hubby and I stayed close to home this weekend. Yes, we did do a few things like go and see the movie “Serenity,” pick up a baby gift for his friends who are having a baby in December, attended an after Halloween “Halloween Party,” and eat out a few times including at the Waa-Hoo. If you’re not from the South or have visited this part of the U.S., then you probably aren’t familiar with Waffle House. There are tons of Waffle Houses in each city, town and the such up and down the interstate in the South (though in looking at the Waffle House website, there are some in other parts of the U.S.).

I was introduced to the Waffle House during my first visit to the South last year. It’s a small diner (and I do mean small) that specializes in breakfast though you can get other sandwiches and the such. Don’t expect a large menu or one with a lot of choices. But the service is fast (and generally good) and the food is good (and cheap). They cook right out in the open and it isn’t typical where the waitress will hang up the order on a rack. Nope, they read it off to the cook(s) who can remember exactly what to make. It is rather rare that they will bring you an order that is wrong. What’s also fun is listening to them call off the orders because they use their own special language that I can’t even explain. There’s also fun in ordering if you get the lingo down right and mostly when orderng hashbrown. My hashbrown order is usually “scattered, covered and capped.” Which means I want a loose hashbrown (not a patty) with cheese and mushrooms. You can also get them other ways for which I can’t remember how to say it. And they do serve waffles if you’re wondering. If you’re wondering more about the Waa-Hoo as most locals here call them, you can check out their website at www.wafflehouse.com.

I’ve been a bit quiet lately mainly because there are a lot of things going on in our household that I can’t really talk about right now. But what I can talk about is the hubby’s birthday. My old man (j/k hubs…) will be 38 years old come next Wednesday. Fortunately for him, he comes from good family genes and doesn’t look a day over 27, I think. Really, the boy looks at least 10 years younger than he really is. We’ll be heading off to Georgia this weekend to celebrate a little bit of his birthday with the people who really deserve the kudos for giving birth and raising such a good fellow. And lucky for me, I got to marry him! It’ll be a short and quick trip for us but I’m hoping that I’ll get to see some autumn colors on the way down. Last year about this time, I was also going to Georgia (the first time in my entire life) to meet my future in-laws. Can you imagine what pressure I felt meeting his parents for the first time especially when we were already engaged? Yep, it was a little nerve-wracking but everything went swell. Since then, I’ve been down to Georgia more times than I’ve gone home in the last five years. I especially enjoy being in the same house that the hubby grew up in most of his young life. Unfortunately being that it’s been almost 20 years since he graduated high school, his room no longer looks like the room he had. I think I might find it a bit disturbing if it still did. I know it took my parents a few years after I left home to change my room around. Despite the physical differences, the memories are still vibrant in those spaces. I’m sure the hubby feels the same way when he goes home.

Daylight savings time will be ending this weekend so that will give us an extra hour as we “fall back” with our clocks one hour. Falling back an hour is always a little easier than “springing forward” an hour. I’m not sure why but it feels like you are losing an hour of your life when you spring forward. Imagine what you could do or could not do in an hour.

We got back a little later in the evening than we wanted to last night from our quick trip to celebrate the birthdays of the hub’s parents (my in-laws). It was a nice affair with presents for them and going out to dinner at a rather swanky French restaurant in their town. Okay it wasn’t too terribly swanky but nonetheless French. The atmosphere was a bit over done as far as things “French” but the food was good. In all, the weekend was mostly about family and a rather relaxing time.

On the drive home, I was telling the hubs how much I enjoy spending time with his family. His dad tells the most animated stories about family incidents and his mom is such the Southern woman though not as stuffy. I guess spending time with them, especially his dad, made me a little sad. I still miss my dad and wonder how he would have handled all of this… my husband, his family and my new life in the South. I am most certain that my dad would have loved the hubs because they are so similar, and would have enjoyed “talking story” as they say in Hawaii with the hub’s dad. It’s been over four years since my dad passed away.

I guess I started to miss my family in general being that they are so far away. It’s wonderful that we live near family at all and I am happy for that. I guess with the holidays approaching, my thoughts turn toward family, particularly mine. The hubs and I haven’t really discussed what we’ll be doing during the holidays but for the most part, his are generally governed by his job meaning that he can’t really take additional time off. I hope to see my mom for a little bit since she will be on the mainland and it’ll be more economical and easier for me to meet up with her. Time to start figuring out our family holiday time.

We’re off to visit his ‘rents, my in-laws, for a couple of days for their birthdays. Conveniently, both of their birthdays happen to be around the same time. Nothing too exciting planned except dinner out at a French restaurant in their town. See you next week!

Over the weekend, the hubby and I drove to Nashville to attend an “encore” wedding of one of my friends. Neither of us have ever really been to Nashville meaning we’ve never really stopped and stayed. I would guess that neither of us would put Nashville on our list of “must-go again.” Of course we weren’t really there to vacation but I’m not sure you would want to go there to vacation in the first place. The encore wedding ceremony which turned out to be a confirmation of vows was really for the groom’s family and friends who could not make the original wedding in Hawaii. Well the hubby and I couldn’t either so this was our way of joining in on the celebration. The ceremony was brief and not entirely formal with a viewing of a DVD made by the couple. The baby pictures and the formal wedding portion of the DVD was great but the “music video” part was a bit too cheesy for me even though I, myself, had only gotten married a couple of months ago. It’s not something the hubby and I would think of doing, thankgoodness. Following the ceremony was a BBQ luncheon in the church hall. The whole affair was very Nashville. I’m sure my friend would not have done something like this if it wasn’t for her husband and his family. Overall it was very nice.

Nashville itself doesn’t appeal to me. Yes there are a lot of historical sites and things to do but nothing in particular I really wanted to do. And the things I would have even considered didn’t fall into our schedule so we did the things we like best: shopping and watching movies. At least we can say we came, we saw and we conquered (sort of) Nashville.