Charleston: Hop & Jaunt’s Top Five Things To Do

Romantic, vibrant, and deeply historic, Charleston, South Carolina, was so much more than we expected. Though I’m a huge New Orleans fan with it’s architecture, culture, and it’s unique character I have to say that Charleston is now a formidable contender for a “unique city to visit” in the U.S.

The Customs House

St. Philip’s Church

If New Orleans is the slightly rowdy, fun loving, center of the party type of kid on the block, then Charleston would be it’s more mature and gentle older brother with a softer Southern accent.

We stayed in Charleston for about 5 days visiting my ever nomadic parents who had recently moved there. Here are the top 5 things we recommend to do while visiting Charleston!

1.) Walk, Walk, and Walk around the historic down town!

On the first day we took a long walk around the old neighborhoods in the downtown area. Spring is the perfect time of year to go, as all of the trees and flowers were in bloom and the meticulously maintained lawns of the giant historic homes glisten. I just love walking around unique neighborhoods and in this regard Charleston does not disappoint. Almost every other house is adorned with a plaque stating it’s role in the history and development of America. For such a young country it’s one of the few places you can go and say “ah, this house is 200 yrs old” “but this one is 348 yrs old” “George Washington slept here after his party at the Exchange Building.” The recent economic downturn might have something to do with the many “for sale” signs we saw out on the lawns. But our fantasy of picking up one of these “charming” ten bedroom historic houses was soon crushed by reality when the second Mazeratti was seen in the driveway…we might have a while to go before we could move into this neighborhood! But getting lost in this old world charm is free, so grab your walking stick and a camera!

A Rather Charming House

Another Rather Charming House

“The Marriage Compromise House” So called due to it’s two different styled front balconies that the each spouse wanted while building their new home

The Unique Charleston Style Homes are facing sideways with large porches in order to maximize getting air flow throughout the house

The best part of walking through the neighborhoods and it’s multitude of architectural styles is that most of the houses are still real homes, with families that maintain the buildings. For those curious to see how the better half lived in the past there are a few house museums you can tour in as well.

Find Out What Else To Do While In Charleston! (more…)

The Backyard Zoo: Mobile, Alabama

Roadside attractions and road-trips in America. The concept alone fills one’s imagination with nostalgic images of family road trips in station wagons, Route 66, and a whole assortment of 50s era postcards. I even get this image, and I really can’t be that nostalgic for an era that I was never alive in. But the icons and myths of America’s favorite pass-time is still alive and strong today, even if we mostly just drive on the interstate. John loves the idea of a road-trip, for him a dream trip would involve a classic car, a tear-drop camper and driving across the States stopping at all the classic spots. I love the image of such a trip, especially if we actually had a classic car or a cool camper, but the truth is I hate sitting in the car for more than an hour or two at a time. I don’t know if I’ve just become jaded from seeing so many places but for me the scene out of the car looks the same 99% of the time. Luckily I don’t get car sick so I always try to bring some “toys” with me to keep me occupied. If it’s a long trip my side of the car would feature books, sketch pads, camera, phone, and anything else that might distract me for a period of time.

However, since we are back in the USA for a period of time, I have decided to learn to love the road-trip. Specially since driving is still one of the easiest ways to maneuver around this giant country. In order to have a road-trip you really need a destination. But to have an even better road-trip you need some awesomely corny road-side attractions. These are harder to come by, so a little planning and research will go a long way to making your next road-trip a postcard worthy one. Check this website out for weird and bizarre things to see in your area: Roadside America. This is the site where I learned that in Gibsland LA, there is a museum and marker for where Bonnie and Clyde got ambushed and that in Fort Worth there is a tree full of Bicycles. Random? Yes, but the fun of looking for these odd-ball attractions can keep your road-trip entertaining and comment worthy!

(more…)

Sweet Home Alabama

Alyson and I are now in warm, sunny Andalusia, Alabama visiting my family. It is our first stop on our new life. The trip down was crazy. The day we were supposed to move was forecasted to have a terrible blizzard in Nebraska. The snow and cold rain would have made packing and moving miserable. We had two options:

1.) Wait out the blizzard and get a late start.
or 2.) Take what we can and get out early.

We decided on option 2. Early Saturday morning I woke up from my sleeping bag on the floor and went to pick up the U-Haul trailer. The sky was dark and cloudy with winds of 30-40 mph. Not a good day to move, but it was all the time we had. We were going to have to race the weather. The graphic blog “Escape in the Night” I posted previously is based on this quick move. We were trying to sneak out of the midwest before the blizzard caught us.

The U-Haul trailer was small. Only 4′x8′x 4′, but we packed every inch full. We had planned on taking all day Saturday to load the trailer, clean the apartment and take care of some other miscellaneous errands. Somethings never work out the way you plan though, so we had to improvise. Luckily our plans are very flexible now. While Alyson cleaned the apartment and threw away everything that wasn’t worth keeping, I single handedly loaded the U-Haul. Not such an easy task since we live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building with no elevator, automatically locking doors and the closest parking spot for the trailer was 40 feet from the front door. Not to mention the terrible weather. It wasn’t easy, but I guess the excitement of racing against the storm got me through it.

Our friend Azusa came over a little later that day to help. She was the first friend we made in Lincoln, and I think we will miss her the most. She made us some snacks to eat on the road. Azusa is a real sweet heart.

Around 1:30 that afternoon we finally finished. We said our goodbye’s with Azusa, and hit the road. The weather was coming any minute and we needed to get out quick.

Originally we had wanted to make the 1000 mile trip very slowly and stop to see some tourist trap attractions on the way down. The weather really rushed us out so we didn’t get a chance to do all the things we had wanted. We had nearly every kind of weather on our trip. We got out of Lincoln just before the snow. In Nebraska City, we had hail and tornado warnings. It rained on the long drive across Missouri, and extreme winds across the plains of Arkansas. The drive through Mississippi was warm and sunny, and later we had thick fog on a humid Alabama night.

We only made two stops on the trip down. We stayed overnight in Columbia, Missouri and ate our dinner of Onigiri that Azusa had made for us. Thanks again, Azusa.

And we also stopped in Tupelo, Mississippi to have dinner and see Elvis’s birthplace. Its definitely good to be back in the South. I’ve missed the warm weather and all the green and blue landscape. We will be here for a couple of weeks, and then its on to New Orleans.