Just Lately in June

Well, we've had a lot more great adventures here and are loving our summer! It's so nice to have a break from school and homework and to just be able to relax and hang out. I started writing about these things as they happened but then time got away from me and here it is the end of June, so here's a little summary of what we've been up to for June, sorry it's so long!

Tropical Storm Andrea

So, one new thing that happened was that we both experienced our first tropical storm. It rained soooo much it flooded a little bit in our neighborhood (luckily not in or by our apartments) and was windy... that's about it. I guess I should be glad that nothing happened, and I am, but still... a little disappointing Andrea. 

The part of our neighborhood that flooded. Apparently floods can get so bad downtown that people use kayaks to get around haha. 

USS Yorktown

There is a ton of history here (as I've said before) and it blows my mind. They literally have buildings here that are older than when Idaho became a state. And the stories of what happened here goes back to the settlement of the nation, and beyond that with the Native American tribes that lived in this area. Though I don't know why you would live here without air conditioning and bug spray, but that's besides the point. One of the first things that we did here was head out to tour the Yorktown. It sits in the Cooper River just off of Charleston Harbor  next to another ship and a submarine. You get to tour all three and they were all interesting. The Yorktown in so incredibly large, I just can't handle how it floats on water haha. And the submarine was so small I got claustrophobic so I don't even have any pictures of it haha. I hated it down there and have no idea how people live like that. 

The USS Yorktown is an aircraft carrier that was built during WWII. It has seen a lot of different places and has been a part of important incidents in the war. I can't remember how many people stayed on it at one time, but it was a lot. Somewhere between 3-4,000. As seen by this recipe calling for 10,000 chocolate chip cookies. :) 

The USS Yorktown

This is the USS Laffey

Beds

Barber shop on board :)

This is a sliver of the original flag that flew on the USS Laffey and made it through WWII.

Can you believe actual surgeries happened in this tiny room?

Command post!

Giant bullet. Probably has a more scientific name but I don't know it.

Chocolate chip cookie recipe. 500 eggs and 12 pounds of butter... 

Flight deck.

I did manage to get one picture of the submarine... :)

Mystery Theatre

So, this last weekend was great. We laughed so hard because we did the strangest things, at least for us. Definitely out of our comfort zone. Friday night we went to a Mystery Theatre that we found when we were walking around downtown and walked past this sign that said The Black Fedora Mystery Theatre. We decided to go inside and ended up talking to the manager and decided to go see the show called Inspector Noclues. It was supposed to be funny instead of serious, so we thought it was a good choice. Well, when we walked into the theatre we noticed that there was no stage. Just a small area at the front that was not nearly big enough for a whole play. As it started, we realized that it made sense because they use the audience. A lot. A whole lot. Like, both Rusty and I had multiple parts. If you know either of us at all, you know that this is not something that we would do. Ever. But let me tell you, it was HILARIOUS. Rusty played the part of a hippy and he did so good. His voice was absolutely hilarious and everyone loved him. I played a big boss lady and then had to go up to sing a song with a group of people. Anyways, the play was funny and cool because it was different and it was awesome to be able to participate. After the show we walked around downtown and went through the Old City Market. I love downtown here.

Outside the theatre!

Shaggin on the Cooper

Another thing that Rusty and I never do is dance. But... there was this swing dancing party going on at the pier down on the Cooper River and I really wanted to give it a try. Saturday afternoon we went to the beach and flew our kite, played in the sand, body surfed and walked on the pier. Then we went home and got ready for this dance. It couldn't have been in a more beautiful spot and the band there was awesome. They played all kinds of great songs and before I knew it, it was time to go. A few hours had passed without us even realizing it (well maybe he did, he didn't really love the dancing haha). It was so fun to try something new and I realized that I love dancing when I get to dance with him.

Where the dance was...

After the dance we went and played at a playground close by. We spun on these things until I almost puked.

Farmers Market

We've gone to the Farmers Market a few times here, and in a few different places. Every town has their own on a different day, so depending on when we want some fresh produce we just go there! And let me tell you, I have had some of the best peaches and tomatoes that I've ever had. The one downtown is the biggest because it not only has produce but it has food vendors come in too. One time we decided to get a gyro from this Greek tent and the lady there was so sweet. She just looked at us and asked if we were dating. And I said that we were married, and she said "Oh good. One day you two will have beautiful babies." Haha she was straight from Greece so she had a great accent which made it all better. 

Waterfront Park

One night we just wanted to chill and slackline in a park so we looked for one online. When we got there, it is actually really awesome! It's right on the Cooper River and has a whole bunch of art scultpures, a lot like the Art Park in Seattle. We got there and watched the sun set and saw a HUGE cargo ship go through too. 

Ponds = Alligators

So, any body of water here is full of some alligators. That's just a given. But somehow, up until now we have only seen one alligator: a baby one. But I know if we looked longer we would see them, but part of me doesn't want to just stand by a pond and look for alligators when I am close enough they could eat me. Because who knew, but alligators actually can run. Really super fast. And that is terrifying to me. Also, the playground at the camp where I work has a pond to one side that is separated by a fence but because of all the rain the fence and the ground now have a pretty big gap. Just big enough for an alligator to slide through. So guess what duty also comes with making sure children down kill themselves on the monkey bars? Yep, looking for gators. I honestly don't even understand how that just came out of my head. I never thought I would think that haha. Oh also, the first week of June three alligators were run over by cars. This is a whole new world that's for sure.

Party in the Park

So, the radio here is kind of hilarious. The stations are mostly gospel, and that's it. I finally found one country station that I just pretty much listen to all day every day when I'm driving around, and it is actually really good. They did this thing called Party in the Park every Tuesday in June. It was a free concert outside where they had up and coming country artists come and sing (the last one was Easton Corbin which was awesome!) Anyways, we went to three of those concerts and they were all a blast. The concerts were all at the Memorial Park in Mt. Pleasant.

Ravenel Bridge

So there are two bridges that go from the penninsula we live on over to Mt. Pleasant (where I work). I take one bridge every day called the Holt Bridge, and it's pretty cool. Nice view, nice bridge, whatever. But there is another bridge called the Ravenel Bridge and it is super awesome. It just looks cool and has these giant cables and is just huge. Also, this is the bridge that had a guy threatening to jump off a few weeks ago and the policeman got him to come down for Andolini's Pizza. So, that's cool I guess. Another cool thing about this bridge is that there is a pedestrian walkway on it! It has really cool views of Charleston and of the Cooper River going out to the ocean. You can also see Ft. Sumter and the USS Yorktown really well. Anyways, we decided to walk over this bridge on our way to one of the concerts and it was awesome. 2 1/2 miles long with some cool lookout points; definitely worth it for us.

Kiawah Island

Kiawah Island will definitely be added to more in the future because we just barely crossed over onto the island the Friday that we went out there. But it was tons of fun! It's a private island with really rich people living there... we just go to visit. If they will let us (we still haven't had to cross over the gates so we'll find out soon). When we went out we went to Freshfields Village to see an outdoor concert. They were actually really good and were big on audience participation so we ended up at the front doing some dancin :) After that we went to Vincent's Old Fashioned Soda Shop. It was so cute and everything was vintage, so obviously I was in love with it. After that we walked around the shops a little bit, played in a toy shop, and then went home.

The drive out to Kiawah Island is stunning. These giant live oak trees go across the road and are so big.

Paddle Boarding

Okay, easily the coolest thing I've done so far here. Maybe ever. We decided to try paddle boarding because we've never done it before and because it is "the thing to do" here. Everyone does it, or says they've done it before, and there are always people doing it when we go to Shem Creek. Shem Creek is also the place with all of the dolphins, so we thought what better way to hopefully see some dolphins! So we headed out there on Saturday at around 11 and got all set up. The place we went with is right on the water so we had our instruction and then walked ten feet and headed out. Literally as we were getting in the water we saw a dolphin. I just knew it was going to be a great day! During the whole trip we saw about twenty of them, sometimes as close as three feet away. I could hear them blowing water out of their blowholes and saw them so close. It was absolutely fantastic. We also decided to go up a smaller creek which was absolutely beautiful with all of these trees on one side and beautiful houses on the other. The water was so still and calm and we were jumping in and swimming around that I couldn't help but think that Andy Griffith was going to walk by sometime. Also, paddle boarding is actually not hard at all. I even ended up doing a little yoga :)

 

Sullivan's Island

There are lots of beaches around here but the two most popular are Folly and Isle of Palms. We heard about a beach called Sullivan's Island and decided to give it a shot on Saturday after we went paddle boarding, and I think we have found a new favorite. Each beach has something great about it (Folly has a cool pier, Isle of Palms is beautiful) but Sullivan's is cool because it is less popular and therefore less crowded. I didn't know why until we got there, but it's because they don't allow any alcohol on the beach. Well, obviously Rusty and I do not have any problem with that. And we loved that it wasn't crowded! We went out and body surfed and played in the water and had a great time. And bonus, we were really close to a cool lighthouse. And Rusty caught a crab. On accident. All great things.

Riverdogs Game

On Thursday we went to a baseball game! The Riverdogs are Charleston's team and they were playing a team from North Carolina called (get this haha) the Crawdads. The Riverdogs and the Crawdads. I really couldn't make these things up. The game was awesome and although I personally think that baseball games are slow and can be boring, they feel very summery to me and always make me happy it's summertime. And Rusty loves them so I can't complain to much. :) Oh and there was this cute little old man that was selling peanuts and he would go around and sing songs. I loved him.

Attempts to Hike

Rusty and I like to be outside and we like to hike. I got a book for my birthday about hikes to do in South Carolina and we finally whipped it out and decided that if we went in the evening it wouldn't be too hot. That was true, but we still didn't make it the whole hike. Here's why. We drive out to this place called Ion Swam in the National Forest and I am stoked. I was so excited to go to this swamp. We park the car and as soon as we get out there is a swarm of mosquitoes. Luckily we had our bug spray so we are just spraying everything; all over our clothes, our hair, our faces, the air around us. Absolutely everything. Then we start down the trail and there are all these things moving on the ground, which was really grossing me out. I couldn't handle it because I thought they were spiders. Good news though, they were just teeny tiny frogs. Which is better, but not by much. Anyways, every time we would stop all you could hear is this insanely loud buzzing coming from all around you. After a few minutes of this we just had to turn around. This swamp definitely beat us, and Rusty has some videos on his phone to prove it. We laughed so hard we wouldn't have been able to breathe even if the bug spray wasn't suffocating us.

I was trying to get a picture of the tiny frogs at a run while I escaped the mosquitoes... you can see one on the very left. 

I am not sure why, but after this hike we decided to still go try the other hike we had planned for that night. I guess we thought since it wasn't a swamp it would be better? We drove out to this place that was a ceremonial site for Native Americans. There is some significance about oyster shells being placed in a circle... but I don't know what it is. But it's the largest one of those in the country so that's.... cool. Walking through the woods to get out to the salt marsh was a little tricky. Here when you are hiking you have to think about spiders and snakes and frogs and mosquitoes and lizards which can make things a little complicated. But we made it out there. And good news, once we got out onto the marsh there were no bugs and it was BEAUTIFUL. Just like in a movie. Blue skies, beautiful green grass coming through the water, white birds diving down all around us. Just picturesque. We even found some crabs which has never happened to me before on a hike. This is a strange place.

You see crabs in random places here. Like on the sidewalks and climbing up trees.

Rusty's crabby friend.