April 27-28: Charleston, SC

We journeyed through the night until my tired alter ego monster came out and we found a Walmart parking lot to crash in (I believe in Florence, SC).

We arrived in Charleston just in time to catch the last hour of the farmer's market.

Upon wandering the city, we found it to be extremely aesthetically pleasing... however, also extremely expensive as well. Also, the sidewalks were extremely small. And the outdoor patios were extremely non-existent. So we had an extremely tired dog, and very few options available to us. It was too hot to leave him in the car, so we mostly wandered and took breaks in the above park. We researched on our dog friendly websites and found a deli in a strip mall where we could bring him, but it was an extremely underwhelming and overpriced experience.

But the buildings there were real purty! -->

Whilst we were wandering, we came upon the City Market. Lots of old slave mart memorabilia  including slave dolls. Also postcards of slaves. And food. And T-shirts. And things. Once again, the building itself is pretty nice.

More pictures around Charleston:

These two are creepy, no?

Walked along the ocean:

A very pretty place, great for picture taking. Wasn't as great for "doing things", at least in our current life situation. Not the best fit for us and our pooch. But hey, I'll take just nice to look at too -- at least for one or two days. When you're on a constant whirlwind adventure of all variety of places and experiences with the option to move along usually as soon as you feel like it, it matters not if you don't absolutely fit at a location.
But before we moved along, we did treat ourselves to the best brunch (on yelp anyhow) in the city! It was very good. Which is good, since it was a 45 minute wait.

I will leave you with the story that KG insisted I include... which isn't much of a story, really. Just that we needed to use our "traveloo" toilet in the van at night, and somehow the top half had most recently been attached to the bottom half backwards. In essence, we (not the dog creature) peed on the floor. KG refers to it as the vehicular Chernobyl.

That is all.


Alright, alright. I'll try to end it a tad more civilized. Here are pictures of our final parking spot in the city, next to a pink castle on a thundercloud-y day. A pretty spot .. and free!! Which was never easy there. Ta.

driving over the bridge out of town as the rainstorm sets in

April 23-26: Raleigh

My mother’s childhood best friend lives in Raleigh, NC. We had never met before, and it was a wonderful and surreal experience to connect for the first time. We arrived in the evening, and she had cooked us a delicious dinner in her beautiful home. It is always nice to be welcomed into a lovely home environment on the road. We talked into the night and the next day KG and I went to explore the city.

We drove around looking for parking and when we finally found a spot we paid witness to an unfortunate situation. We saw a man and woman walking toward us, the woman yelling “Get off! Get away from me, don’t touch me!” Etc, and after obscenities flung in both directions, he shoved her into the wall of the building hard before laughing and walking in the other direction. He knew we were walking toward them, and there was another guy behind them. It seemed as though he would have done worse otherwise. This was a scary dude. The guy who had been behind them walked past us and the gal, looking terrified… all he said as he quickly passed the three of us was, “Uh….. OK, then!” Angry to be in this current time and place. We approached the woman and asked if she was alright. She said she was. I said, “You know that guy?” “Yeah. I know him.” I responded, “He seems like a real a-hole.” “Yeah. He is.” We asked again if she was alright and turned to leave when she assured us she was. As we began to walk away, the man came back towards her and they started conversing again. We saw a cop car down the road, and figured we should alert them to the situation. We ran up to them and as my asthma set in I choked out, “Excuse me! Sirs! There’s a guy…. Roughin' up a gal… down the way.” We gave them the info and they said they’d “keep an eye on them.” We had to walk back towards the couple to get back in our car, since the situation made us uncomfortable leaving it in that spot. Unfortunate, as it was so hard to find... but better safe then vandalized.

Things got cheery again after we re-parked and walked to the Museum of natural sciences:

We wandered around the downtown area, got a beer from the old newspaper office of Raleigh Times, bought a vintage dress from a vintage/antique shop, and had good times all around while Yoshi got to enjoy the air conditioned house.

See the inch worm?

When we returned to the home, we talked with our new friend into the wee hours of the morning. The next day, we all went for a sunshine filled stroll before KG and I went on our first kayak excursion of the journey. It took us a while to find river access, but finally utilizing our beloved inflatable that has long been strapped to the roof was well worth it. We met a snake, turtles, an otter or muskrat and a beaver! There was only one mishap on the river... which (unsurprisingly) was related to my weak bladder. No, I did not urinate on myself. But I needed us to pull over, and there seemed to be no non-steep, muddy inclines. When we found "the spot", we were worried just beyond the trees there may be people's houses across the river. Not wanting them to see anything unsavory, KG kept telling me to go "further back, further back" up the steep muddy slope. Heeding his advice, yes. I did fall in the river.

Snake is in there somewhere

Beaver is in there somewhere

We were hoping to get to Charleston in time for the big weekly farmer's market the next morning, so after more socialization with our gracious host (and showers, of course).... we were on to the next destination.

PS: Ah yes, and at some point while we were staying at the Raleigh residence, we found this on Yoshi -- fully engorged evil #2: