Hunting Island

In addition to those polished and charming cities on the water, we also visited more rustic places, like Hunting Island. About an hour from Charleston and a stones throw from Parris Island, this island takes a different step back into the history of South Carolina. The lands here are protected from development and the largest threat to the loggerhead turtles here seems to be the steady ocean creep that is slowly reclaiming the beaches.

The main attraction on this island is the lighthouse.

We enjoyed our time here, and were especially intrigued by the large amounts of driftwood. As the ocean creeps closer and closer to the lighthouse, the native palm trees in its path are swallowed by the waters and shaped over time by the sands and tides.

This was once a popular layover for sailors and pirates.
It's not hard to imagine Blackbeard and his crew hiding out and counting their treasures here as they waited for their next mark to make their way toward the rich port city of Charleston.

Tree bones

Charleston, SC

Recently, we took a little trip down south to Charleston, South Carolina. It's a beautiful city filled with brightly painted homes and palmetto trees. Due to location-- ideal for shipping and distributing goods-- it has a rich history filled with both prosperity and conflict. Today, it is recognized as America's "best mannered" city.

The flags above are the United States flag and the state flag of South Carolina. I point this out because this poor flag is often mis-identified by those not from South Carolina. My husband (who does happen to be a South Carolina native) was once asked by a co-worker..."what's up with all those radical Islamic fundamentalists you got down there???"

Confused by this question, he asked the fellow to explain.... turns out... it was the flag.

If you look closely at the pictures below, you will see that it is the abundance of palmetto trees that inspired this flag's design.

I liked this fountain. This little girl and I feel the exact same way about pigeons.

A view of the new span bridge. All of the stories I had heard were about how scary the old Cooper river bridge was. This new bridge is very nice. Not scary at all.. well... that is...

until Gumby attacked!

Birthday at the Beach

It was Mom's birthday this past week and we celebrated in Destin, Florida. Here she is at Ruth's Chris Steak House enjoying a saxaphone serenade.

My sweet nephew Logan.

The girls bury their dad in the sand.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Sweet Ride!

Lately, I've been making all the neighbors jealous.

I can tell, because every time I pass them by on my new wheels, they just stop and stare. I feel kind of bad, you know, because I know there are a lot of folks out there that wish they could get their hands on one of these baby's.

Oh yea,

That's right!

Those are white-walled tires. Springer front end-- for comfort. Tractor seat. The works.

I get so much attention with this clean vehicle, I hardly need to use my "I love my bike" bell for people to know I'm coming.

But I do anyway!

Well, I'm about to head out to Florida for some fun in the sun! When I get back I'll post some photos from the trip. Woo Hoo!

Here comes the summer!

Air and Space

Not quite the final frontier...but, the National Air and Space Museum, aka, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, is all the way out near Dulles Airport. There is also another Smithsonian Air and Space museum but it is in downtown DC.

Unlike most other Smithsonian Museums, the National Air and Space Museum has a fee. It's a parking fee, not an admission fee. They say it's because the airport requires it. So, don't neglect to bring $12 with you if you plan on stopping your car.



The Museum has plenty of aviation history. Some of it is not so pretty...











And some of it is downright adorable!



This thing looks like it flew right out of a Pixar film, don't you think?

There are planes for the wealthy........... and planes for the stealthy.

They even have helicopters.












And, of course...... there are plenty of amazing space gizmo's too!

Satellites, missiles, shuttles, rovers....

And, no trip to the Air and Space would be complete without a look at the most famous piece of Astronaut clothing ever!

Yes, there definitely is something for everyone at the National Air and Space Museum.

My Cuticle

Sitting in the salon today-- listening to the tunes and chatter-- I heard a song and it reminded me of something that happened not so long ago. It made me laugh and probably made the poor stylist a little bit nervous about just who she had sitting in her chair with the head full of tin foil.

Since I'm no longer worried about getting fired by a certain employer, I feel much more free to tell this story on myself. I probably should keep quiet about it still, but, as you'll see from the story I'm about to tell, I'm sometimes prone to make impetuous decisions that I later regret.

So, here's what happened:

Most days at the office consisted of pretty much the same thing. Lots of sitting, lots of staring at a computer screen, lots of mouse clicking. If a person didn't take a few minutes every now and then to just be silly, all of the monotony could potentially cause permanent damage. We knew this because we happened to share space with a poor girl who most certainly had crossed over into that frightening territory and now did nothing but spin around in her chair while applying makeup and divulging waaayyyy too much personal information about herself to practical strangers.

So, on one particularly heinous day at the end of a particularly heinous week, Hallie (a co-worker, and all around awesome lady, who has also left this particular employer) decided that we needed a fun break from the drudgery. So, inspired by the online parody "My Cubicle", she concocted a contest where each of us (there were about six, at the time) would write our own version-- Weird Al style-- to the tune of the song "You're Beautiful".

We feverishy jumped into action with a renewed vigor we hadn't seen in many months. Pens were flying, sweat beads forming. Laughter could be heard intermittantly, as each person re-read a particularly clever line they had composed. Her plan had worked. We were alive again!

After fifteen minutes all submissions had to be turned in for consideration. I typed mine up for efficiency's sake. It would take at least 20 minutes for anyone to even read my handwriting, so typing was definitely the way to go, right? Well.. this is the beginning of the "things I would later regret" portion of the story.

My entry would be titled "My Cuticle" and would include many inside jokes about "fungus toe" and other unfortunate digit maladies. After completing a particularly humorous (I thought) stanza about pulling out all of my hair and putting it back on with glue (something I imagined our chair spinning co-worker might have tried before), I quickly sent my masterpiece to Hallie's computer, cc'ing the other competitors. Or so I thought......

But no. I had actually sent my ode to office boredom and insanity to a different email list. One containing many many people who had absolutely no idea about our afternoon diversion, one including the managing attorneys of the case we were trying hard to not think about.

Heads started popping up from behind computer screens. I kind of remember someone saying, "Michelle, did you know that you sent that to Mr. so and so?"

I stood up. I turned green.

"What's wrong?" Hallie asked.

"I just got myself fired." I replied, not believing what I had just done.

"Recall!" "Recall!" someone yelled across the room.

"What????" "I don't know how?" "What do I do???"

There was screaming. There was scrambling. Finally, someone with much more Outlook prowess dashed to my computer and recalled the message.

Had they read it? Had they seen the incomprehensible toe fungus ramblings with my name as the sender? How was I going to explain this to my husband? How was I going to explain this to my next employer when they asked that inevitable "why did you leave your last job" question. What had I done!!!!!

God was kind to save me from my own stupidity and the emails sent to the big cheeses were recalled before (supposedly) being read. I was not fired.

And I'm pretty sure I won the contest! ;)

See, these are the types of co-workers and friends that made that place tolerable and that I'm really going to miss. They helped me out when I needed help. They made me laugh when I needed a laugh.

Thanks guys! You Rock!

National Cathedral

I went to the National Cathedral this weekend. It's an impressive gothic building filled with beautiful stained glass windows, wrought iron works, wood, tapestries and other forms of art.

It was obvious that a lot of time and money had gone into this place.

Overall, I left feeling as though I had visited a very nice museum. It was a little too dark to take very good photos inside with my camera without a tripod. The signage was plentiful. The brochures-- helpful. All of the benefactors were carefully credited for their contributions. There were lots of flags, statues of former presidents, colorful windows depicting the 1803 Lewis and Clark expedition, a tribute to lawyer and histioran Charles Warren, the Apollo XI mission (complete with a piece of moon rock brought back by its crew), a tribute to our armed forces, a memorial to a diplomat and statesman, one for an architect of the building, symbols of the Laugue of Nations, the United Nations and (I'm not making this up) "peaceful uses of atomic energy". There's even a Museum Store!

However, I didn't feel as though I had visited a living church. I was not motivated to worship by the thousands of pieces of art. The whole thing was kind of scary, to tell the truth. I guess that's partially a product of the gothic style. But it just didn't seem like is was a place dedicated to Christ. Christ was simple and humble and..... well, He was a lot of things. He is a King, it's true. Perhaps this place was someone's way of showing Him as King, but, to me it looked a whole lot more like the type of king the world was hoping he would be and not the type he actually was. It was this difference that caused people to reject him when he came as a servant instead of a political and military ruler.

But it sure was a pretty building.