Spring Travels

We had so much fun when Patty and David came down for a visit. We went to Montecello (brought the butter lamb with us), walked all over Richmond, ate a lot of delicious food, played music, and got to spend some quality time together. It went too fast!

A couple of weeks later it was time for our Spring break, and we drove south in search of warmer weather. We did find it for a couple of days. Our first stop was Congaree National Park, where we kayaked our brains out in the floodplain forests, and the trees were above and below us in the tangible and the reflective form. We could navigate right through them. It was so peaceful. We camped in the middle of the swamp on some raised ground and awoke in the wee hours of the night to an owl hooting right above us.

Next we went to the beautiful and romantic city of Charleston, where gorgeous homes and historic cobblestone streets treated us to its quaint beauty around every corner. We then drove to see my cousin Nadine, who turned out to be only 3 days away from the birth of her baby, and aunt Maryellen. It was so nice to see them and talk about bellies. Then we drove to the Francis Marion National Forest and went for a beautiful paddle with alligators sunning themselves on the riverbanks.

The next day we drove further south to Hunting Island State park, and by sheer luck we got the last camping spot in the place (in fact some unruly teens had been kicked out of it, otherwise, everything was reserved because apparently it was everyone's spring break). We spent the rest of the week there kayaking, sitting on the beach, hiking in the gorgeous forests full of Live Oaks, Loblolly Pines, Fan Palms, and Palmettos. Looked like Latin America. Totally beautiful.

I was very thankful to have the week off because I had time to reflect upon the very recent loss of my beloved grandmother, Jane Schlaffer, and it and gave me the chance to try to peacefully come to terms with it.

When we got back, Damien got to catch part of Richmond's punk rock bike festival fondly known as Slaughterama or "Evil Fool's Day", and reported some very wild scenes there. Check out the pages 64-67 at http://www.rvamag.com/shared/webRVAv3i12.pdf to see it for yourself.
Damien turned 31 on March 30th, and we celebrated with a romantic dinner back in Richmond.