Charleston with friends :)

 We were so excited to get to Charleston, not only because it's such a cool city but also because our friends, Steve and Lisa were flying from Boise to meet us there.  

We pulled in and parked and hit the ground running.  We walked all over town, seeing Rainbow Row, the Historic District and a general overview of the market.  And we also ate.  

The next day we headed down the road a couple of hours to get to Savannah, GA.  We took a segway tour of the downtown area and learned a lot about different buildings within the district.  We also visited a war memorabilia museum which turned out to be quite fascinating.  The owner/operator has been collecting stuff from each war for his entire life.  He had so much stuff it would have taken many hours to go through it all.  We also visited one of the many historic houses in the area.  

Our third day was spent back in Charleston where we did a more extensive visit to the market and we took a carriage ride.  A highlight of our ride was that we were being pulled by Gary....the horse.  :D  Unfortunately, half way through the tour, Gary got a gimp in his step and we had to pull over and wait to be picked up by another carriage.  Poor Gary.  After we returned safely, we drove to the USS Lexington. Although I do love our military, I sometimes get bored visiting these museums because we visit every one of them if it's in a town we are visiting.  But, this tour was the best of the best in my opinion.  It's well worth a tour!

After so much sight seeing we decided to have a down day.  It was a lazy, rainy day anyway and we took advantage it.  :)

Our last day we did a plantation tour and went back into the city for some shopping (again, my hobby).  We found a very cool bar that had some very fancy drinks.  What else would you expect from Charleston?  ;)  We had a fantastic time and took advantage of the food and drink scene.  Can't wait to go back! 

Hilton Head, SC

Hilton Head has always been on my list of beach locations that I wanted to visit.  We finally made it there this year after two years of canceling our reservations.  We started our stay off by enjoying a few days of relaxing on the amazing beaches.  Then we explored the area a little by taking a day trip to one of our favorite places, Savannah, where we hung out at the river walk area in between thunder storms.  We also visited historic Beaufort, which has an impressive amount of history and architecture to enjoy and finally the Stoney Baynard Plantation. 

Hot Springs, AR & Gulf Shores, AL

 We pulled into Hot Springs where it was indeed hot.  ;)  Unfortunately one of our a/c units broke.  But, we were determined to make the best of it since we wanted a spa day on Bath House Row  at Hot Springs National Park.  We did enjoy a day of pampering but then we spent a day waiting for the mobile repair guy to diagnose and work on the a/c.  The only other thing we did while there was drive into Little Rock to visit the Clinton library.  Much to our disappointment, there were no blue dresses on display.  We've now visited 10 of the 13 museums, on both sides of the aisle and we were quite surprised to see such bias and outright hatred on display.  It was very disappointing.  

We left a day early to get to our next stop which was Gulf Shores, AL.  It is one of our favorite areas.  We had a couple of beach days and I had a shopping day (my favorite hobby).  We really enjoy the area for its laid back feel.  It gives you a chance to decompress. We also took a day and drove down to Pensacola to have dinner with my brilliant and handsome nephew.  So great to catch up with him since we hadn't seen him since his graduation from the Naval Academy in 2019.  I hadn't been to downtown Pensacola for decades so it was nice to see it again.  Some towns have statues that they put in front of various businesses and then paint them.  For instance, Chicago has bulls.  Pensacola has pelicans.  :D  So fun!  

Onward to Hilton Head, SC!

Dallas/Fort Worth

To complete our Texas tour after nearly a month, we stopped in the DFW area.  We continued our tour of the presidential libraries and museums with a stop at the George W. Bush library.  It was interesting to go through all of the information about the Gulf War and 9/11.  He had a lot to deal with during his 8 years as our president.  We also went back to Sundance Square and the water gardens in Fort Worth as they were both closed and/or devoid of life when we visited in 2020.  Stupid covid...  We wrapped up our stay with a visit to the Stockyards and dinner with our good friend Garrett. 

The Vineyards Campground and Cabins

This was our second visit to the park and it is easily on our list of our favorite parks.  The park is very quite, but easy to get on an off the major connecting roads in the Grapevine area.  The park is situated around and area of the Silver Branch Lake.  There are a mixture of site types, cabins and tent camping options.  The have a boat launch, swim area, basketball courts, camp store, hiking trails, etc.  The sites we have stayed in were concrete for the pad.  We had a picnic table in the grass area next to our site.  The wifi worked reasonably well.  If you are looking for a nice place to stay in the DFW area, we recommend The Vineyards.  

WACO 2022

 Another short drive down the road took us to the home of Chip and Joanna Gaines, Waco, TX.  Of course if you are with me, you know your first stop will be the Silos.  When we went in to the main building we were kind of disappointed to see that it wasn't very full of people or merchandise.  After buying a couple of things we went outside and followed the signs to "more shopping".  Boy, were we surprised by their expansion!  In case you haven't been for a while they now have their own furniture store and then little "outlet" stores that sell everything from clothing to soaps and lotions.  After spending a bit of time there we stopped at their bakery and loaded up on sweets for the road.  

The next day we drove back to College Station because we have some friends that live there.  We met up for lunch at a fantastic BBQ place and then they took us on a tour of the campus and then the football stadium of Texas A&M. It was amazing!!  We found out about so many of the A&M traditions like the Corps of Cadets.  They have their own "museum" on campus and I would recommend a visit.  Because our friend played football for A&M, we got a "backstage tour".  We got to see the Heisman that Johnny Manziel won, the team meeting room, the tunnel that the team goes through to get to the field and the field itself.  Jack and Shelly, thank you so, so much and we may just have to take you up on the offer to attend a game and your much anticipated tailgate!  

One of the reasons this year's route took us back to Waco (besides Chip and Joanna) was so Gary could go tour the Branch Davidian compound.  :D  We didn't know what to expect and were surprised at how much there was to see there.  They have an interesting take on why things happened the way they did and surprisingly, they don't just blame one side.  It ended up being a highlight of our time in Waco.  Afterward, we went to the other reason why Gary wanted to go back to Waco, Twisted Root Burger.  It is a fun restaurant that serves all types of meat burgers.  From big game to turkey burgers, they have it on their menu.  You can see it from the freeway so I highly recommend you going, it is worth the stop.  

Lastly, we went to the Dr. Pepper museum.  Hard to believe that a little town like Waco was the birthplace of such a renowned soda but it is.  It's worth an hour stop.  Best of all you can get a Dr. Pepper float at the end of the tour!  

Next stop: the DFW area!