SC adventures 4 and 5 and kind of 6 and 7

 

On March 7, Dave and I took a road trip to Florence to see their Little Theater's production of A Few Good Men.  Dave and I love going to the theater, to this was not a big chore.  We did, however, never think we would be going to a play in Florence.  This town, sorry to those who live there, was not on our bucket list, but I am so glad we went!

We started at the Pee Dee Farmer's Market.  This weekend wasn't the best weekend for a farmer's market, but we still were able to see some cool stores/stalls and even buy some wax melts.  Lunch was really yummy at an Hawaiian restaurant named Aloha Kitchen.  If you are in the area later in the year, I bet this farmer's market will have lots of great produce and flowers and other things to buy.

Our next stop was downtown where we would spend the rest of our time.  We had heard that their downtown had been revitalized.  It kind of seemed like it had been, but then lost some businesses.  There were lots of lawyer offices, but there were really only four stores in the area where we walked.  Ice cream, chocolate, books and a general store.  All the stores were great and we bought things at 3 of them.  We bought beautiful and yummy bon bons at ChocoBella; good ice cream at a very busy Smiling Scoops ice cream shop; and a book at an awesome book store called Jack's Books.  As previously stated, all of these stores were great!  But everything else we saw were restaurants and bars.     

There were posters advertising the play throughout town.  This was a cool shot as my face ended up in the head of the Marine!

One other place we were able to go to was the Florence County Museum.  Like a lot of the town, there were things not available to see.  This was due to renovations.  But the history of the Pee Dee area was interesting.  And the special exhibit, pictures of Civil Rights by photojournalist Cecil Williams, was moving and well presented.

Our choices for dinner were either Mexican, Mexican Sushi Fusion, or steak houses.  We picked Victor's Chophouse and were not disappointed!  We had a great dinner on the way to the play.

The play was a great production.  We tend to go to the Dock Street theater in downtown Charleston mainly and the bar is set high for theater productions.  This one may have been slightly not as well done as Dock Street, but we were not focused on that as we really liked the play and almost all the actors did an excellent job.  I would go back to that theater again if given the chance.  Now we need to watch the movie as we have never seen it!

   

In looking through our adventure cards, I realized that we did the John's Island card on December 31 without realizing it was a card.  This was our day adventure to Angel Oak and lunch at Freshfields.

And then in looking for future card choices, I realized that we have also done the two Murrell's Inlet cards by going to Brookgreen Gardens and Atalaya Castle a few years back when we camped at Huntington Beach State Park.

So as I figured, some of the cards we have already done because we like to visit places.  But also, the cards are doing what they are meant to do by sending us to places where we might not go otherwise.  

SC adventures

 

We had our 3rd adventure from our scratch off cards when we visited Camden the weekend of February 20-22, 2026.  This weekend was FCA family weekend and we wanted to go up and see Camden and what he is involved with.  He has been attending FCA this year and is going with them on a mission trip to  Florida over Spring Break.  

FCA Gala 

Our adventure card had us hike at Isaqueena Falls near Clemson.  It is a very short hike to an observation point, however, we took the unofficial trail to the bottom of the falls.  It involved scrambling and holding onto roots and trees, but it wasn't too hard or long.  

After the hike to the falls, we had a picnic and then went to see the Stumphouse Tunnel.  This is an unfinished railroad tunnel that was later used as a place for Clemson University to age their blue cheese.  Now it is just a cool tunnel to explore.

Our adventure weekend also included fixing Camden's tire....

exploring Pendleton...

and staying at the Liberty Hall Bed and Breakfast.  It was a great B&B and I would definitely stay there again.

So another successful adventure together with our scratch off cards!!  

SC Adventure #2

 

For Valentine's Day, I bought tickets for Dave and me to go on a ghost tour at the Old Charleston Jail.  The tour was through Bulldog tours and Jake, our guide, did a great job.  We didn't see any ghosts, even though our guide showed us pictures of ghostly activity, but we did hear a lot of creepy stories of people who had been incarcerated.  

This is a cage where they would put body parts of dead pirates to discourage piracy.  Too bad we couldn't stand in there for a picture!

Dave in front of what old caskets would look like.  

Our guide talking to us from a replicated jail cell.  One to three people might be in one of these cells.

In jail together!

They had to have wheelchairs for some inmates.  This chair wasn't original to the jail, but it does have a history of  moving on it's own

The building itself only has the first floor as the "jail".  It used to be an art school and now the top floors are renovated for offices and event space.  We went for a romantic Valentine's evening, but don't know if I would want to get married there!  The outside is really pretty though.

The courtyard.  I wonder if this is where the gallows used to be!

Our second adventure was one we had not done before, so that was nice.  The bonus with this card was to eat downtown.  We did skip that  as we have eaten downtown many times and with SEWE in town, most restaurants would probably be full.  But parking near the jail allowed us to walk to King St. easily and look around and get some chocolates!  It was a fun evening!  

 

Road trip to New Orleans

In 2015, Nathan's birthday present was to see the LSU-USC game in Columbia, but the 1000 year flood hit Columbia.  The game was moved to Baton Rouge and Nathan and I took a road trip to see it.  On the way, we visited New Orleans for about 30 minutes and I got a road trip shirt.  So I wore this shirt the day we left for Louisiana to run the half marathon!  

Showing off my shirt at our first Bu-cee's stop.  Clean bathrooms and chocolate covered caramels!

We left Charleston around 1:00.  As soon as we could get off work and grab lunch at CFA.  We made stops at Bu-cee's, but also at the state rest areas to get pictures in front of the state signs.  (All but GA. that is.)  The best stop was at the Florida welcome center because we got free OJ!  The lady giving out the samples was named Gail and she was super friendly!  She told us we needed to try the grapefruit juice first and then the OJ.  That grapefruit juice was extra tart!  But the OJ after was nice and sweet!

Florida dolphin

  

We drove off the highway into Tallahassee for dinner at a NOLA inspired restaurant called Harry's Seafood.  We probably should have just waited for New Orleans for NOLA food!

Pretty lights in Tallahassee

Our first night's stop was in Pensacola and it was nice that we got an extra hour to our day!

Friday was our Big Easy day!  But we had to get there.  We still had to drive through Alabama, Mississippi and then arrive in Louisiana.  

Alabama

Mississippi

Finally made it to Louisiana

 Our first stop in New Orleans was to drop our car and luggage off at the Royal Sonesta.  Caleb greeted us and helped us get everything arranged so that we could sightsee in NOLA.  

As we left our hotel, we heard jazz coming from a courtyard across the street.  It was super cool!

Our hotel was on Bourbon St.

Before we got on our hop on hop off tour bus, we went to Johnny's Po'boys for a tasty lunch!  First meal in NOLA was a success.  Chrissy and I got shrimp po'boys and Tara got oysters,

We got on the bus near the French Quarter.  The sights were super cool to see, especially the neighborhoods.  We got off a few times.  The first was at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.  I think we walked in on mass or a healing service.

Some of the sights we saw while on the tour bus....

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

Caesar's Superdome

Houses along the Mardi Gras parades route.  You can see beads in the trees where people on the floats throw them to people.  At this part of the parade, we were told it was very family friendly and they toss beads to everyone.  

More beads in trees

Let the good times roll

St. Louis Cathedral

At another stop we went into St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Irish church in NOLA.

Another stop was at the Mississippi River.

We also got off at Magazine St. to look in some shops.  We also went into a bakery, Haydel's, and tried to buy a slice of King Cake.  The lady there said they were sold out, however, she had some we could sample.  And it was really good!!  First time eating King Cake, which is really a cinnamon brioche bread with icing.  

We got off the tour bus for the last time at the French Quarter, near the market.  And at Cafe de Monde for beignets!  

We walked back to our hotel by way of the French Market where I got a Christmas ornament and some beads.  Then we walked through Jackson Park...

took an alley to get back to Bourbon St. and found a bookstore that was housed in William Faulkner's old house.  It was a really cool store and inspired me to read The Sound and the Fury.  (I managed to read the first, very confusing chapter and have quit!)  

We made made it back to Bourbon St. and it had changed a lot since when we left that morning.  There were lots of people getting their party started and it smelled of weed everywhere.  We also saw the National Guard, but that was a good thing.

It was time to check into the hotel and they gave us a room that opened onto the terrace around the courtyard.  It was very pretty.

Unfortunately, as we left the door open to our room, we realized the room was now smelling like weed!  So much for our idea of sitting outside later that evening!  

We didn't want to venture too far from the hotel for dinner because Bourbon St. was a little out of our comfort zone, and smelly!  (Although the tour guides kept telling us that most Mardi Gras parades were family friendly, they did say Bourbon St. was not so family friendly, and we can attest to that!)  But we did get a good meal of pasta at Mambo's.

Shrimp and crawfish alfredo.

After a good dinner, we headed out to Bourbon St. to walk back to the hotel.  We were surprised that the street was less scary after dark, although still smelled of weed!

 We decided to get out of the smell and head to the jazz lounge at the hotel.  What could be more New Orleans than listening to jazz?  Well we learned that another thing that is popular in NOLA is a burlesque show.  And we discovered what one was!  Let's just say we were very surprised and even though it smelled better, we still went to our room early!  

The next morning we had our cemetery tour.  It was super interesting and all the tombs were above ground due to lack of space in the city.  The protestant part of the cemetery was not above ground.  I guess they could fit the few protestants in the ground!  Nicolas Cage bought a tombstone there for when he dies.

Nicolas Cage's tomb

We found someone who escaped the cemetery!

We also went to St. Roch Cemetery.  Saint Roch is the saint of miraculous cures and inside this chapel are crutches and prosthetics that people have left there.  Unfortunately, the chapel was locked.  

The last thing we did on the way out of New Orleans was to stop at the King Cake Hub.  This is a place where many bakeries sell their King Cakes.  We bought one to have after the race and one for the Bible Study ladies in Charleston.

Our King Cake was a heathen one it turns out!  Instead of a baby, there was a creepy clown.  Who knew there was a difference!  Apparently there are a lot of things we did not know until our trip to the Big Easy!  We had a great time, but it was definitely an eye opening experience!  

Let the good times roll!!