Catching up on 2012 - April

*Warning--this may be a long post*

The main thing that happened in April was getting to go on a fun trip with my grandma to South Carolina and Georgia.  I seriously love the south, especially the coastal areas.  Our tour guide on the trip even said to me, "You should become a coastal girl.  You look like you belong here!"  If I didn't love living in Utah and being close to my family so much, then I would probably do it.  All the places we went were so amazing and I could totally see myself living there. 

I was able to go on this trip because my grandpa couldn't.  Every year my granparents take a trip or two, usually in the fall and winter.  This trip was in the springtime, right in the middle of lambing season, so my grandpa was way too busy at the farm to go (not that he was very upset about it... he doesn't like traveling much).  My grandma really wanted to go still though, because South Carolina was one of 2 states that she hadn't been to yet.  She paid my whole way, so it was a pretty sweet deal for me.  My granparents go on the trips with a tour group, so the travel agency takes care of everything.  You just have to pay your money and show up.  The crowd that goes on these tours are not exactly what you would call.... young.  It was me on a bus with 30 old people. haha.  But I loved it, and they loved me!  They all told me how nice it was to have some youth on the trip.  I really did have a lot of fun with them.

Well, Day 1, we left early in the morning and flew from Salt Lake to Charleston, SC, with a layover in Atlanta.  The day mostly consisted of just traveling and settling into our hotel.  I left my phone on the plane on accident, so the whole trip I didn't have my phone.  It was actually kinda nice, other than when I would loose my grandma and needed to call her.  That night we ate at the Charleston Crab House.  I don't really like any seafood, so that was one thing about being in this area.... everyone was eating shrimp and salmon and crab, etc.  I had chicken for almost every meal, because that was the only other option left on the menu.  I did have lots of variety of chicken though, and it was all good.  Southern cooking.... yum!  I have never eaten more in my entire life.  We probably ate more in the 6 days of the trip than I would eat in an entire month.  Hey, if it's free, I might as well take advantage of it right?  I will say I did like the crab hush puppies.  They were pretty tasty!

The sign for the restaurant is upside down for some reason.

Day 2: We went on a tour of Charleston.  Let me tell you, these old cities were definitely not made for big tour buses.  At all!  We had some pretty tight corners and a few close calls with parked cars, but we had an awesome bus driver who got us all out alive.  We drove through the streets and saw all the colleges throughout the city.  One of the coolest colleges is The Citadel. It's a military school, and we got there just as class was getting out.  Oh man.... so many cute soldiers!  I was in heaven!  A few of them gave me some weird looks because it was me with all the elderly folk.  I didn't fit in too well with my group (I got looks like that everywhere we went). We had a great tour guide named Joy, who told us a lot of history of the city and made the tour so interesting.  We also went out to Fort Sumter, which is were the Civil War started.

The Citadel


Fort Sumter

The skyline of Charleston.  It's nicknamed "The Holy City" because there are so many churches.

Lots of cool old buildings.                                                                            And lots of boats!  In this picture there is 

                                                                                                   a fishing boat, a sailboat and a battleship.

Everything is so green and pretty.  Flowers, bushes, and trees EVERYWHERE!

Day 3:  We went to the Magnolia Garden and Plantation.  It is an old rice plantation that has been turned into a garden for tourists.  We were there right in between the spring flowers and summer flowers.  It was still very pretty and green, but not many flowers.  We took a train tour around the grounds and saw a whole bunch of birds and alligators.  

Old slave houses

Alligators in the swamp

Cute little swing

After the plantation we got on the bus and drove to Savannah, Georgia.  

We got there around dinner time and we ate at The Pirate's House.  So cool!  My variation of chicken that night was Honey Pecan Chicken.  It kinda tasted like Honey Nut Cheerios, so it was pretty good!  I was proud of myself for trying something like that.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am a super picky eater.  

After dinner we went on a ghost tour.  Savannah is one of the oldest and most haunted cities in America.  We got on the "ghost trolley" and drove around the city at night while a tour guide told us some creepy stories of Savannah.  

This town square is where the gallows were back in the day.

Day 4:  We went to Jekyll Island, which is a ritzy resort island used by all the rich folks back in the early 1900's.  Today there is a hotel that people can still stay at and golf courses (The golf movie "Legend of Bagger Vance" was filmed on the island).  All the old houses have just been turned into tourist spots.  It was a beautiful day on the island and we had a nice fancy lunch at the Jekyll Island Hotel.  

Jekyll Island Hotel

Me & my new friends hanging out on the porch  :)

So at this point I was ready to find a beach.  I have heard so many great things about beaches in the south, and up until then, we still hadn't gone to one.  But then we went to St. Simon's Island and my wish was granted.  First we saw an old church and an old graveyard.  Fun fact:  The difference between a cemetery and a graveyard is that a graveyard is affiliated with a church and a cemetery isn't.  So all the cemeteries on church grounds are actually called graveyards.  

Stained glass window at Christ Church in St. Simon's Island, Georgia

After seeing the old church, we finally went to the beach!  Oh my goodness, I loved the town of St. Simon's!  It was so cute and had a whole bunch of quaint little shops and restaurants.  And of course the beach.  I walked along the sand and went to the top of the lighthouse.  We even saw some dolphins just off the beach.  They were so close!  I could have spent a lot of time there, but unfortunately we only had one afternoon.  Then we returned to Savannah for the night.

View from the lighthouse

Day 5:  We went on a boat tour of the rivers around Savannah to do some dolphin watching.  We got to see lots of dolphins just playing in the water and the captain of the boat gave us a really cool marine biology lesson.  He cast a net into the water and pulled out a whole bunch of creatures and told us all about them.  

We had the rest of the day to just explore Savannah.  We went to the Juliet Gordon-Lowe house--she was the founder of the girl scouts.  We also went to the Savannah Bee Company.  We tried like 25 different kinds of honey... yes there are that many!  We ate lunch at this crazy restaurant with tons of alligators in the front yard.

Then in the evening we went to the Historic Savannah Theater to see a show.  It was an incredible performance.  I would love to go there again and see a few more shows.  They did a great job.  Right across the street from the theater is the town square where parts of "Forrest Gump" was filmed.  The parts where he is sitting on the bench waiting for the bus.  The actual bench wasn't still there--it is in a museum somewhere.  But I got a picture of another bench, just to show that I had been there.

Historic Savannah Theater.  The show was called "The Beat Goes On".  They sang only music from the

 60's, 70's & 80's.  It was so fun, and I even knew every song!

Forrest Gump's bench.... well, close enough.  

Day 6:  In the morning we got to go to go to Paula Dean's restaurant for brunch, then headed to the airport to fly home.  When we got back to Salt Lake at about midnight, my grandma realized she hadn't had her van keys the whole trip.  We searched through our luggage 3 times and finally called my sister to come get us.  Then we had to wake up at 5 am to go meet my mom at her work with a spare key and go get the van.  Come to find out, there was a spare wired to the bumper the whole time.  If only we had just called my grandpa in the first place.  We knew he had to get up early to go to the farm, so we didn't want to bug him at 1 in the morning.  Oh well.... we were very tired the next day but we survived.  It was a great trip and I got to see some amazing places.