Sweet Grass, Sweet Tea, Sweet South

What could be better than spending spring break with two of my favorite people?  Well, other than spending it with three of my favorite people, I don’t really know.

Last week I headed to Charleston with my parents—my first visit to the “Lowcountry.”  Rain kept us indoors for a couple of days, but when we had good weather, boy did we make the most of it!  For instance, in the span of about three hours, we visited the Old City Market…

 

…White Point Garden…

 

…and Rainbow Row (which looked a little less rainbow-y in the light of a cloudy afternoon, but it still counts).

 

We also took a great “Gullah Tour,” led by a funny and entertaining guide named Alphonso Brown.  He introduced us to the Gullah language (which is musical and lovely but spoken too quickly for me to have gotten any of it in long-term memory) and to the Black history of Charleston.  I didn’t actually take any photos on this tour—partly because the bus windows were covered with raindrops, and partly because I was more interested in hearing what was said—but it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Having more or less finished Charleston (at least for this year), we went to north Myrtle Beach for a few days.  Our first day there the temperatures were something like 20 degrees below normal, and my parents started making noises about being cursed, because the exact same thing happened to us last year.  However, we finally got some nice warm, sunny days to walk on the beach and laugh at the spring breakers who found it necessary to plunge into the water—sometimes fully clothed—despite the water temps in the 50s. 

 

I discovered I really like piers.  Don’t know why.

 

We also discovered Myrtle Beach has a boardwalk.  Who knew?

 

Vacation always ends too quickly (I am told that it has to so that we can go back to work to save up for the next trip), but I have some nice photos and a few new freckles to remember it by!