Yeah...I don't even want to talk about football after this weekend. Ugly, ugly, ugly for both Auburn and Tennessee (although Tennessee held fast with Bama through the first half). Luckily, I had the foresight to avoid watching the Auburn/LSU game (don't worry - of course I will watch it on replay later this week because I have to watch them all no matter how ugly) and instead spent Saturday afternoon/evening on a sailboat in Charleston Harbor. I'd rather blog about that this week.
My sister had a veterinary conference in Charleston over the weekend, and her husband couldn't go with her, so luckily I got an invitation to tag along. I insisted on choosing our accommodations because Dara has a history of questionable lodging choices (more about that later), and we stayed at Wild Dunes (WILD DUNES!) on Isle of Palms. Have you heard the Duran Duran song "Wild Boys"? You know - "Wild boys (WILD BOYS!) never lose it....Wild boys (WILD BOYS!) never chose this way..." Well, we made up our own songs all weekend to that tune using "Wild Dunes (WILD DUNES!)," so it's pretty much a rule that you can't say "Wild Dunes" without immediately following up with "(WILD DUNES!)."
Anyway, Wild Dunes (WILD DUNES!) was awesome, and Isle of Palms is beautiful. Dara and I had not been to the Charleston area since we were approximately 5 and 7, respectively, and we immediately wondered why we hadn't gone back since then because (as we remember, anyway) we had a good time on that trip, and it's relatively close to home as far as beaches go. We got into town on Friday afternoon and went walking down the beach to check out all the cool, quintessential lowcountry houses. Unfortunately, there always seems to be one person that just doesn't "get" the feel of the neighborhood. Observe:
One of these things is completely different...
Anyway, Dara had to go to her CPE class Saturday morning, so I hung out on the beach and waited for her to get back. Of course, it was gameday (even if it was pretty much guaranteed to be an ugly gameday), so I was dressed out in Auburn gear and doing a little inspirational reading.
We stayed on the beach for a couple of hours after Dara got back; then we went in to get ready to go sailing late Saturday afternoon (conveniently leaving our room just after kickoff). I had gotten out of the shower and was getting ready to dry my hair in our bathroom when I started hearing what sounded like water hitting the ceiling. I told Dara, "Mark my words; our bathroom ceiling is going to fall in." Less than a minute later, water started dripping through the ceiling; and within a minute after that, water was dripping from ALL OVER the ceiling. You can kind of see the water droplets in the following picture:
I mentioned above that Dara has a history of questionable lodging choices. On our Montana trip, she and her husband got motel (not "hotel," but "motel") rooms almost every night so we didn't have to sleep with six people in the bus (that gets a little crowded), and apparently they stayed at complete roach motels every night. It's not that they don't have enough money for better hotels; they just choose not to spend much on lodging. I went to one of their motels with them one night and was literally scared for my life. There was a bullet hole in the window. Anyway, I tease her about that all the time now and insisted on picking our hotel for this trip. Of course, when the ceiling started leaking, she said, "Dammit, I never had this problem at the Motel 6!" Touche. As it turns out, the people in the room above ours overflowed their bathtub, which is why our ceiling started leaking. We had towels thrown all over the bathroom trying to contain the water, and we moved all of our stuff out of there quickly. The hotel's maintenance staff fixed the problem and had our bathroom re-cleaned promptly, so it wasn't that big a deal. Off we went to our sailboat.
We had a private sunset sail on the Cythera out of Charleston Harbor, and it was awesome. Here are a couple of pictures of our Captain, Barry, and the spinnaker (big, colorful sail):
On our way out of the harbor, a family in a powerboat passed us while heading in for the night, and one of the kids yelled out, "Look, Daddy, PIRATES!" Woo-hoo! He thought we were pirates! Success! We must've looked so cool. :-)
Dolphins were playing all around us - I never knew how common dolphin sightings are in the Charleston area. We had never seen them before, and it was so cool! They're kind of elusive and hard to photograph, but here's some of our best work:
And here's some of God's best work in the Charleston sunset. Wow.
More of His handiwork in the sunrise Sunday morning:
This was supposed to look like I was spinning the sun on my finger like a basketball, but it looks more like E.T. phoning home:
It's always hard to leave the beach, but it's easier to come home when home is this beautiful:
The gorge was really at its peak color period, and the pictures don't do it justice.
We had such a great trip and a great weekend!
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