Hilton Head Island, SC - Woodbridge, VA - Saturday, February 27th

 

Saturday's travel
We woke up this morning, about 1/3 of the way home, and yet today we had another 1/3 of the trip to travel - Hilton Head Island, South Carolina to Woodbridge, VA, for 553 miles.

Breakfast in Hilton Head

Although we had a long day in the car ahead of us, we wanted to explore a little.  We choose to do this because we've never been to Hilton Head Island before, but also because we realized that this was the last opportunity to enjoy the warmth of the southern states.

We started out our day enjoying a breakfast outside on a beautiful warm morning.  Hilton Head is a very pretty South Carolina coastal town. My dad has a friend that lives nearby that has said that they have often seen alligators in the waterways near their house.  Can you imagine?!?!  Although we didn't see any real alligators, we at least saw a funny statue at a local park of a man going on a walk with an alligator.  I decided it would be funny to ride the alligator statue as though it were a horse.

Giddy-up Gator!

One of the more famous landmarks of Hilton Head Island is its lighthouse.  We decided to take a drive over to see the lighthouse.  Everyone in our family assumed that the light house was just going to be placed in a public park area.  We were surprised that the lighthouse is located within a gated community neighborhood.  
Hilton Head Island lighthouse

Just like many state parks, we had to pay an admission fee to enter the community, but the lighthouse itself is part of a neighborhood.  The houses there were very pretty and there were many trails for bike riding or hiking.  Another thing that was surprising was that we stumbled upon an old cemetery that was tucked away at a far end of the neighborhood near the lighthouse.  The cemetery was called Braddock's Point Cemetery and it contained the graves of slaves, but these graves were unmarked.  The oldest surviving headstones dated back to the Civil War.  Descendants of those already buried in this cemetery continue to use the graveyard to this day.  I saw tombstones as recent as 2017 and 2020.  What I found the most interesting were those tombstones that appeared to be handmade,

Braddock's Point Cemetery

Before leaving Hilton Head Island, our family took a little bit of time to soak in the sunshine and enjoy the waterfront views.  It's almost as if the pelicans lined up to say their farewells to us.  Speaking of pelicans.... did you know that a group of pelicans has more than one name? You can call them a "brief", a "pod", a "pouch", a "scoop" or a "squadron".

Hilton Head Island

Good bye pelican friends

My mom LOVES using an app call "Roadside America" so that we can see unusual things on our road trip travels.  200 miles down the road from Hilton Head, we made a quick roadside stop in Latta, South Carolina to see an early cotton press.  This cotton press is supposedly the oldest cotton press in existence.  It was HUGE and I can only imagine how difficult it was to use.

Early Cotton Press

Finally we ended our day's travel with patio dining for dinner in Smithfield, North Carolina and finally a stop for the night in Virginia.
Welcome to North Carolina
Dinner in North Carolina
Welcome to Virginia






















Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 22, 2021 at 7:15 AM

    Jonathan, It was really funny that you sat on the alligator statue. Some of your friends have also been to the Carolinas.
    Mrs. Drinan's class

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Moving Day" - Friday, February 19th

Image
Cudjoe Key to Pompano Beach Today was our "moving day".  We left the Florida Keys after school and drove 180 miles to Pompano Beach, Florida.  Although we had to check out of our vacation home at noon, we still had to figure out how to finish up distance learning for the day before starting our drive.  Luckily there was community center on the property where we stayed, so my mom and dad hooked up my sister and me so that we could finish the final two hours of our school day in Cudjoe Key.  Finish our school day before we leave the Keys Heading back north, off of the Keys, we all enjoyed the scenery of our ride.  Without a doubt, the best view of the drive is on the Seven Mile Bridge.  To be honest, it was sort of sad to say good-bye to this bridge, but we were also looking forward to our next stay - Pompano Beach. Seven Mile Bridge During our drive, we made a stop on Islamorada Key at a place called "Robbie's of Islamorada".  Robbie's is a waterfront watersp
Read more

Pompano Beach, FL - Monday, February 22nd - Thursday, February 25th

Image
  Our Florida "classroom" For the remainder of our time in Pompano Beach, we sort of had the same routine every day.  We decided to stay closer to our hotel to enjoy the rest of our time there and simply just enjoy the beach and the pool each day.  Of course, before we could enjoy that, my sister and I had a full day of distance learning (and my dad had a full dad of working remotely too). But once school was over for the day, we either went to the beach (which was just outside of our hotel) or we spent time at the hotel's pool.  Sand castles Hotel pool While at the beach, I either worked on sand castles or boogie boarded in the waves.  One day, however, my mom took me out on a jet ski and that was a lot of fun.  I have included a video of us leaving on the jet ski.  In the video, we are going very slow because my mom had to drive the jet ski through a "swim zone" first, but eventually, when we got further away from shore we were able to go pretty fast and it wa
Read more

Pompano Beach, Florida - Saturday, February 20th

Image
  A view of the Atlantic Ocean from our hotel room's balcony My mom always says that anywhere near the water is her happy place.  I have to admit, I can see why she says this.  Of course, being able to be in the warmth and sunshine right now isn't so bad either, especially when there is snow in Connecticut.  Since my mom needed to head out to do some grocery shopping for the week and also since we had done a ton of adventuring over the past few days, we decided that this day would be a perfect day to hang out and enjoy our hotel. While my mom went grocery shopping I was in the pool with my dad.  I stayed in the pool pretty much the entire day, with my mom and sister joining me later.   We could also see our hotel's pool from our balcony My mom got some prepared food, from Whole Foods for dinner that we ate in our room.  Dinner in our hotel room After dinner we went to the beach.  Yes, it was already dark outside, but that was part of the plan.  My mom packed some wiffle bal
Read more