Love Vacation, but Really Love Home

I took this picture of a beautiful park in Charleston, SC.  It is called White Point's Garden.  It is in the bay of Charleston full of beautiful huge live oaks and flowering azaleas, surrounded by huge stately mansions that look out over the park and out over the bay beyond.  The park has some very old statues.  One of William Moultrie.

William Moultrie (/ ˈ m uː l t r iː / ; November 23, 1730 – September 27, 1805) was a South Carolina planter and politician who became a general in the American Revolutionary War. As colonel leading a state militia, in 1776 he prevented the British from taking Charleston, and Fort Moultrie was named in his honor.

   -Wikipedia

This was our morning yesterday, walking around this beautiful area.  We had driven there from Savannah.  We considered staying a night or two in Charleston.  I wish we had.  But we were missing our dogs pretty bad and drove on home after a quick (too quick) dash around Charleston, stopping at this park and one other little park.

We came to Charleston after we drove from Savannah, GA.  On Thurs last week, we took the dogs to dog boarding and drove from Arkansas down through Texarkana over through Shreveport and over to Alexandria, LA and stopped for the night.  The next day we drove through Baton Rouge and stopped at couple stores, bought a shirt.  Then we drove on to Florida and down into Tampa were we have friends.  We stayed there a couple of nights and while there, we went in their boat through the Alafia river and Tampa Bay.  We went to an island in Tampa Bay, Fantasy Island.  We collected shells and walked the path through and around the island.  Then the Alafia.  We were enjoying just idling and visiting.  Having lovely weather and soaking up the sun, looking at all the neat houses.  Then we approached a couple other boats stopped and a couple of kayakers.  They pointed out Manatee!  We counted 15 or more.  They were just skimming along the edge, eating vegetation and easing up for air and just floating gracefully.  It was amazing.  We also saw an alligator sunning on a log.  It was about 5 or 6 feet long.  The first time, i am pretty sure for seeing an alligator and i know the first time seeing manatee.

We had a nice seafood dinner and had breakfast out Sunday before we took a little hike and then loaded the car to head on up the coast.  We drove through Orlando and Daytona and on up through Jacksonville to where we stayed in Savannah.  It was a great vacation.

The only thing I would change, is staying a couple days in Charleston and not driving all the way 1200 miles from Charleston to home in a single setting, but my husband gets the need to be home and just hightails it.  He used to do it when we toured on motorcycles too.  I guess it is just something i need to deal with.

I drove from Charleston all the way up, just south of Columbia SC, through Augusted, GA then all the way through Atlanta and to Birmingham.  We were doing to stay for the night there, but DH says "Oh, why don't i just drive us to Tupelo"?  So, then we get there and he says, "OK, Memphis".  Before we got to Memphis, i was like "We are going all the way in one drive, aren't we"?  We pulled into our drive 4am.

Our bed felt great!  We slept till 10 am and the picked up the dogs.  He spent the day washing the car we drove and i did laundry, unpacked and cleaned windows.  Hey, spring cleaning!

Hope you have a great rest of your Wednesday.  See you Thursday.  We are going to dig up some ivy at my inlaws and take them some grapefruit we picked from my friends' yard.