a week in South Carolina...

My week began with a work trip to Greenville, SC. I taught a full-day class on Wednesday at a conference for architects and then a session on Thursday afternoon as well. Unfortunately, that meant that I was away from home for 2 ½ days, though. These work trips get harder and harder as Mercer gets older. I’ve been sad when dropping him off at daycare the last couple of trips. My role at work, however, is changing a little bit and I’ll be doing more teaching – which means potentially more travel.

My girlfriend from college, Cindy, lives in Greenville and I got to see her one night. Also, I went for a really long walk the last day I was there in town. There’s a river that divides the downtown and the “Westside” area has a lot of cool shops and restaurants. On one section of the river, there are hotels and restaurants built-up as well as pedestrian walk-ways and seating along the water. Another part of the river has more pedestrian areas, paths down into the water, and lush gardens as well. When exploring these gardens, I stumbled across a series of old winding staircases that swerved up into the hillside and through a thicket. I took these steps ‘til I hit a no-trespassing sign. I think these stone paths led up to a private girl’s school up on a hill? It was interesting.

The one area I didn’t explore was farther afield up the river was a children’s area. I think it was heading towards the direction of the new children’s museum that recently opened there. Todd & I agreed that we should take a day trip up to Greenville and explore that sometime soon.

I arrived home late Thursday night, unpacked, and re-packed for our trip to Hilton Head, SC on Friday. We were attending the wedding of a college friend, Pat, in Savannah on Saturday; however, instead of staying in downtown Savannah, we decided to stay out at the beach. This was Mercer’s first time experiencing the ocean. Saturday morning, we met up with ANOTHER college friend, Carla, and her family on the beach. It was nice to talk / catch up / and watch Mercer explore. He dug in the sand with his shovel and with his hands. He put it in a bucket. He used a sifter (with Todd’s help). He gathered water in a pitcher and sprinkled it (or dumped it in some cases) into the bucket of sand. He splashed around in the shallow water as the tide was moving out. He and Todd went pretty far out. He jumped on waves with our help. He touched a star fish and even picked up some sea shells. Overall, he loved it. The only thing that we could tell that he didn’t like.... the taste of salt-water! Oh well.

Sunday, we went back to the beach and did much of the same things in the water and the sand before checking out of the hotel. We definitely want to come back to Hilton Head to rent bikes, see more of the island, and explore more of the amenities. It’s definitely a good family-destination.