We meet Jason’s mom at his brother’s house in Gulfport, Mississippi. Our visits with his family always center around food, and this visit was no different. We went to several different seafood restaurants, both for lunch and dinner.
His family isn’t big on pictures, but I managed to get them together for a few pictures.
Our next stop was southwest of Atlanta at Callaway Gardens. My parents and I went here years ago when I lived in Birmingham and we had a nice time, so Jason and I added to our trip. We were hoping to see the azaleas, but sadly most of the blooms were already done. We had a wonderful time nonetheless. We rented bikes, and being a weekday, we had the place to ourselves. We biked around for about 3 hours and only saw one other couple on the bike paths. Plus we had beautiful weather.
Jason had to do a little maintenance on his bike – I love the contrast in this picture of a beautiful flower and his dirty hand.
Even though this picture below was taken at the azalea bowl and there’s not many flowers, we really just enjoyed all the greenery – especially knowing our return to Colorado is a few weeks.
We wanted to give my dad an opportunity to go hiking and camping with us again (he loved the Grand Canyon when we did that a few years ago). We went to Amicolola Falls State Park in Georgia. We car camped one night and the following day we hiked about 5 miles to the Hike Inn. It’s a remote lodge that offers guest bunk beds and hot meals. We had a wonderful time – such a neat place!
We had beautiful weather the first day.
I was a little disappointed that there weren’t many flowers, or leaves for that matter, but it was still a fun hike and a great place to spend time with my dad.
We made another stop in Aiken after leaving Myrtle Beach. This was my third visit to Aiken in the last four months – it’s been great to visit so often. My brother recently put sod down in his backyard, so I had a nice morning playing with my nieces and nephews. Most of my visits have been over Christmas, so it was great to enjoy being outside with them. We even got to eat outside. What a fun day with family.
I am spoiled…I know this. We’ve spent the last six months avoiding the winter and visiting beautiful places from the west coast to the east coast. On our last day at the beach, we were reflecting on all that we’ve done and how for some it may be a lifetime of vacations.
It’s crazy to think we’ve visited all these places in the last six months. We have had quite a bit of work thrown in the mix and for the first part of our trip I was taking two classes online, but still working from all these locations, instead of at home has been quite a treat.
For some, this may be all the places they visit in their lifetime, no doubt many have less. It also seems a trip like this would be a once in a lifetime experience for anyone – to have months to travel. But, Jason and I manage to do this quite often. I’ve documented two other big trips on this blog, not as long, but summer 2008 and 2009 we visited wonderful destinations over an extended period of time.
In fact, just a few months after Jason and I started dating we had our first adventure together. Summer of 2001, we had all our belongs in storage and traveled through the west: Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, North Cascades NP, Seattle, and even took the Alaskan Marine Highway to Alaska’s inside passage. We’ve always had wanderlust and I’m so thankful I found a husband that shares my desire to explore.
After we got married, we bought a house, I feared that was the end of our extended vacations, but our wanderlust prevailed and we’ve have had great adventures over the last 5 years. Of course, being laid off twice from jobs has given me the time and our thrifty living has given us the money to travel over the years.
I have mixed feelings about returning home and going to school. I’m really excited about becoming a nurse, but also some what intimidated by the schedule, both while in school and while working. But, if the past has been any indication, we’ll find a way to continue exploring. Traveling or not, I’ve got a great partner to share life with.
After our cruise, we returned to Myrtle Beach where we started our winter at the beach. It was already getting hot in Florida (at least by our standards), but MB didn’t welcome us with beautiful weather. For the first five days we had cool, rainy weather. But, it did improve for a visit from my mom, who is on spring break.
We went for a nice walk on the beach and were able to sit on the beach for a while, though it was quite windy. We had a fun day of playing mini golf, going out to dinner, and to a movie. I’m glad she was able to have a little vacation to the beach on her spring break – and we enjoying having company. It can get lonely on the road…we hadn’t seen anyone we knew since late December.
A few more days at the beach for us before we pack our bags and start heading west.
