south carolina...take two

One of our favorite places we visited while in South Carolina was Brookgreen Gardens.  This is not just a garden, but also a zoo and the site of the Oaks Plantation which was set on rice fields.  The zoo portion had all kinds of animals from bald eagles and otters to alligators and foxes.  

The garden portion has wonderful collections of flowers and huge sculptures all over the grounds.  

Here's Kinsey in the Palmetto Garden.  I'm in love with the brick wall in the background.  It's two bricks wide on each section.  This would be great in our backyard...maybe in the future?

An overview of the Palmetto Garden.  The palms are on all four sides and hundreds of poppies line the pool.  The poppies are such a great burst of color.  I'm so happy they were in full bloom when we visited!

Foxglove up close.  I'm thinking about getting some for next year's garden.  

Me and some new friends. 

Just one of the many smaller sculptures in various beds throughout the gardens.  

In the middle of Live Oak Allee.  These are centuries old Oaks with Spanish Moss hanging off the branches.  Another favorite spot!  Below the trees are beds of hundreds of daffodils.  Unfortunately, they were practically over blooming when we visited.  I can only imagine how great the yellow flowers looked against the green leaves and dark trunks.

Of course, we did visit the beach.  We went to Huntington Beach State Park and the beach within walking distance to my grandparents' house in Murrells Inlet.

Kinsey isn't doing a crazy dance in the picture below (at least not at that moment).  He's bending down to touch the water on our last morning in the Grand Strand.  

This is a huge fish/shark tank in the Charleston Aquarium.  Twice a day or so, someone dives in the tank and feeds the fish.  We weren't here when that happened, but it must be crazy to see. 

The albino gator.

Hello Mr. Turtle...(or Mrs. Turtle).  

The week and a half went way too fast!  We're hoping to go back sometime in the next year.  This was our first visit in 7 years!

Acadia...four years later

We just came back from a 1 and a half week trip to Acadia National Park.  We first went to what we call our "favorite place ever", on our honeymoon back in 2007.  We decided to celebrate our fourth anniversary with a trip back to the park and some much needed relaxation.  

 Here's an overlook at the top (well, what we discovered to be the first of the three "peaks") of a mountain that we grossly underestimated the climb.  At the top, you could look out over the lakes, oceans, and land of the island.  It was a great first hike of our trip and an excellent place to enjoy a soft pretzel and maple mustard that we packed from our new favorite bakery.  (I admit that I became rather obsessed with these pretzel nuggets of glory....and the mustard was phenomenal.  I could eat one everyday.)

This is from my favorite "secret" spot along the park loop in Acadia.  There is a little pebble beach that isn't marked at all and you wouldn't know it was there if you weren't looking for it.  I have no idea how we found it on our honeymoon four years ago, but we did and we think of this place when we think of Maine.  There are all kinds of gorges between the mountain of rocks and when the water is rough, you can witness some pretty intense wave crashes.  I love this sheltered hole of water along the edge.  Check out the those colors!

Kinsey skipping stones on the "secret" beach.  

A trail in the woods we followed.  Who doesn't like the quiet of the forest with soft pine needles on the ground and moss?

Two of the videos stocked in our cabin.  We aren't movie people (we have only been to the movies 4 times in the seven years we've been together), but these scream us.  Seriously.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to watch them.   

We did have time for these books.  A Walk in the Park proved to be an invaluable guide.  It list all the trails in the park with detail information on the elevation, difficultly, terrain, and different routes.  We learned that when the author says "different and strenuous", he means it.  We wanted an easy hike one day and chose a trail described as "one of the most difficult and dangerous trail in the park".  (Jordan Cliffs, anyone?)  

I loved the bright orange book (which takes a certain person to enjoy) and the one with the raccoon proved informative when on our last night at the cabin, we saw a family of raccoons come right up to our (glass and locked) screen doors.  Raccoons are much larger in real life than you may think.  The only other time we saw one was in the middle of the day at a nearby creek back home and yes, it definitely wasn't healthy.  

We stayed here.  The cabin was in a wonderful location in the park and really close to trails (walking distance).  We loved this fireplace in the corner.  The window to the right of the fireplace is where the family of raccoons came up.  The cabin even had a small loft (which I named the "puzzle loft" because there were puzzles up there).  

Here's the outside of the cabin.  Complete with a birch tree growing in the middle of the wooden walkway to the door.  Love it.