Rainy Sunday

It is a rainy SC Sunday today so I thought I would update the blog while my jambalaya was cooking on the stove. Mmmm..

We packed up last weekend and randomly headed to Savannah. It certainly was worth the trip! I am really enjoying all of these neat little cities being so close. It's a mini vacation that is only a half gallon of gas away. Anyway, I digress as per usual.

I have decided there is a reason there are airports for people to fly into for these awesome coastal towns. The drive anywhere more than 1 hour east of here is backwoods like crazy. We can't take the interstate to get everywhere so we end up on 2 lane highways winding through the low country into the coastal areas. The ground goes from very green and rolling here to very sandy, flat with a bunch of scrubby trees and serious poverty. No real room for farming and no other industry other than manufacturing that I could see. Not the most fantastic economic conditions as all of the fabric mills shut down about 30 years ago when the jobs were shipped overseas for cheaper labor. I don't think there is a lot of education through that area and most of those little towns we drove through I would not describe as thriving. There had been a bunch of storm damage in the area and you couldn't really tell what was a result of the storm or just the result of low income living. Not to take anything away from the poverty in Kansas, but the poverty I observe here on the regular basis blows it away. SC would win the figure skating “Poverty Gold Medal” if it existed. Kansas wouldn’t even make it through the free skate. You could park a truck between the haves and the have-nots here. No one really seems to notice when their mansion is built by a falling over trailer covered in rust with 15 dogs and 15 cars parked outside. In Kansas you would never buy or build in the “wrong neighborhood” for fear of never selling your house. Here there is no “right neighborhood” full of only beautiful houses unless it is built in a subdivision and less than 20 years old. I am thinking about running for President of SC and my platform is going to be all about “functional arson” and cleaning up the place so everyone can appreciate it. Again, I digress.

Back to our trip. Savannah was phenomenal. It is a city with something for everyone and something to see every time you turn around. The waterfront is fantastic with great restaurants and some pie that my dad can talk to you about for hours. We got to watch some fantastic basketball from a rooftop bar with a view of the river. The city is full of history with squares and parks filled with monuments, statues, and old churches. Everything is within walking distance from downtown and the food is great. We usually avoid all of the touristy stuff and try to be local. Worked out well as we would have spent 3 hours in the line to get into Paula Deen’s restaurant otherwise! We had some of the best pizza of my life, ate some super fresh oysters (one with a pearl in it..weird) and shrimp and relaxed. We drove about 15 miles to an island off of the coast and watched crazy spring break fools splash around in the ocean and drink their beers..even I wouldn't have done that. Anyway, we saw a lot in a short amount of time and now have another spot we know pretty well to take folks for fun!