EasternLoop2016 – Page 2

Harry Potter And Some Other Stuff

By Jennie Simpson | January 9, 2017

Hey Guys!! I have a confession to make. I pretty much planned this whole loop so we would get to Universal Studios before Christmas Break started for most of the country. So, yeah…I planned this year around Harry Potter. There…I said it…it’s out there. Now let’s move on.

I could do an entire post on the awesomeness of the Universal Studios Harry Potter sections of the park, but I won’t . I’ll try to keep my Potterhead geekiness to a respectful level. No promises though. I took hundreds of pictures…be warned.

Welcome to Harry Potterverse!

Officially known as Universal Studios.

It will always be Harry Potterverse to us though. We spent four very full days soaking in the magic of Diagon Alley and Hogsmead. We got there when they opened and didn’t leave until they closed. I might as well throw in a disclosure here…this post is not in order at all. I’ll be jumping back and forth between the two parks. The pic you see above is at the Dragon Challenge Ride on the Islands of Adventure side. Here’s a little tip…if you can find all four golden eggs on the ride, they’ll take you on a tour of the ride queue. Which for photo bugs like me is awesome because…there are no cameras or phones allowed on this ride. You go through a metal detector before you get to anything good.

The amount of detail that went into creating Diagon Alley and Hogsmead is astounding. They’ve really thought of even the smallest details. The pic above is of the Hogsmead main street.

Speaking of details…check out the dragon. Pretty cool, right?

If you stick around Diagon Alley long enough, you’ll get to see the dragon breathe fire!

And…as impressive as it is during the day…it’s even more so at night. You know he’s gonna flame up when he starts growling. Check out all of the people in the pic above just standing there watching. That was pretty common to see throughout the day. Everyone wants to see the dragon breathe fire.

One of the things I was looking forward to was trying the Butterbeer…in all its forms. How many ways can they make Butterbeer you ask! Well, there’s the regular cold soda, there’s the frozen (this one was my favorite), there’s the hot (this one tasted like butterscotch hot chocolate),

there’s the ice cream, there’s the fudge, and then there’s the creme de potte. Yes, we had them all! And yes, we had some of them daily. Yum!!

There are two Harry Potter themed restaurants. One in each park. You’ve got the Three Broomsticks on the Hogsmeade side and the Leaky Cauldron over on the Diagon Alley side. We ate at the Three Broomsticks first. It was good…portions were small…prices were pretty high. But you don’t eat there for the meal…not really. You go for the experience and that didn’t disappoint at all.

Again, the details and thought put into each building…each sign…it was pretty cool. Every day I noticed something different.

We ended up eating at the Leaky Cauldron twice. We liked the selection better there. The pics not the best, but it was dark outside which made it even darker than usual inside.

This was the bangers and mash at the Leaky Cauldron. Pretty good portion and really tasty! Not your usual park fare food. Out of everything I ate there, my favorite was the Fisherman’s Pie. The Dude and I both got one our last night there and we were both pleasantly surprised by how good it was!

This is the Leaky Cauldron’s menu. Pretty nice selection. I didn’t get a shot of the Three Broomstick’s menu. The two places offered different things.

And to wash it all down, why don’t you try a Dragon Scale or perhaps…

a Fishy Green Ale! Any guesses as to what it is?

We waited for the end of our first day to go to Ollivander’s to get our wands. If you’re lucky enough, Olivander will pick you to go through the choosing ceremony where your wand picks you…just like in the movie. Littlest was lucky. He was beyond thrilled!

Let’s talk wands. When you go to buy your wand, you have two choices in mechanics…interactive or not. The interactive wands allow you to do spells at special locations throughout both Hogsmead and Diagon Alley. If you get an interactive wand you also get a nifty little map that tells you where all of the spells are located throughout the two Harry Potter sections. Or does it? There might be a couple of hidden spells… **insert evil laugh here* Sorry. Ok, so besides the mechanics you’ve got tons of choices in style. There are character wands and then there are Ollivander’s specials. Good luck picking one out. It actually took me all four days to decide. I didn’t get my wand until the very last day right before we left. I ended up with a non-interactive wand. I felt like it was more solid. Any guesses as to which wand belongs to which nomad?

We made wand holsters so the boys wouldn’t have to keep holding on to their wands and their maps. It worked wonderfully.

You can probably guess what we did first on our second day.

Magic was of the highest priority.

And we weren’t the only ones trying to do it. We stood in line longer to do magic than we did for most rides.

The Hogwarts Express. If you get the park to park pass, you get to ride the Hogwarts Express in between the parks. This was kind of a must for me. I would suggest getting the park to park pass. We found ourselves jumping between the two parks several times a day.

Each train depot was different. Of course, there was platform 9¾ over on the Diagon Alley side

where you can watch people walk right into the wall between platforms 9 and 10.

Once you’re on the train you get to sit in a train compartment that looks pretty much like one from the movie. I loved the little extras as you went from park to park. I won’t ruin it for those of you who haven’t been yet.

The Gringotts Bank was super impressive. It really looked like they sucked it right out of the movie and plopped it down in the middle of Universal Studios.

They even had animatronic goblins.

There was a candy store in each park. Honeydukes over in Hogsmeade and then Sugarplums in Diagon Alley. You can get pretty much any candy you saw in the movie.

They even had chocolate cauldrons and pumpkin pastys!

But, if you want Nosebleed Nouguts, Puking Pastilles, or Fever Fudge you have to head over to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.

The Knight Bus was pretty cool. You can visit with Stan Shunpike and Dre Head near the front of the bus, but if you walk around to the back you can stick your head in and see the inside of the bus.

We did go to the other parts of the parks. I promise. We rode every ride…more than once.

The dinos over in the Jurassic area weren’t really impressed with our magic or our wands.

The Transformers ride was one of our favorites. It’s one that we would all ride. We rode this one each day we were there…some days we rode it more than once. We were impressed with how well it was put together and how seamlessly the 3D aspects of it flowed together.

The Men In Black ride was also one of our favorites. You know any time you get to shoot laser guns on a ride it’s going to be good!

This was my favorite coaster. The Hulk spits you out of that little tube over on the left of the picture going a million miles an hour (don’t quote me on that speed) then continues to take you through loops, and twists, and rolls. It’s so freaking awesome!

The whole park was all decked out for the holidays. We had the absolute best time and we’ve all been going through Harry Potter withdrawal.

Here are a few video snippets from our time at Potterverse and NASA.

We also made it to the Kennedy Space Center for a day of space nerdiness. You can see by what the boys are wearing in the picture we were still in the Harry Potter mood.

We took the bus tour where they drive you by the launch pads and tell you a little about each.

We watched the shows and perused the museums. It was all done very well.

My favorite part was seeing the actual Atlantis Shuttle.

I think I stood gawking at Atlantis for a good five to ten minutes. And then you can walk downstairs and check out the bottom of it and see all of the burns and marks it’s gotten from reentering Earth’s atmosphere.

There were some great interactive computer simulations. All of the boys took turns checking them out.

NASA was all decorated for the season too. Very pretty at night! We only spent one very long, very full day here, but it would have been better broken up into two days. We missed a couple of the shows because we ran out of time.

We took the next week to relax and catch up on school, work, and cleaning. We enjoyed not going anywhere or doing anything. Five very long, very exciting days wore all of us out!!

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

St. Augustine, FL

By Jennie Simpson | December 22, 2016

Hey Guys! We spent one week in the St. Augustine area of Florida.

This was our first stop in the state! Bring on the warm weather!

We had a ton of things on our to do list, but for some reason we had an off week. We only made it to two of those things and both of them were National Park Forts. The first one we made it to was Fort Matanzas National Monument. You can see it in the photo above. That’s about as close as we got to it. The Visitor Center was open and we were able to go through some of the Ranger Talks, but the dock over at the actual fort was damaged during Hurricane Mathew. So, that part of the Monument was closed.

The boys were able to work on the Junior Ranger badge and learned some handy knot tying skills.

There was also a musket demonstration.

The other Fort we went to was Castillo de San Marcos. This is probably in the second spot on our list of best forts.

Several of the rooms were decorated with things that would have been in them during the time the fort was being used.

There were secret rooms…

and some pretty cool doorways. Interesting shape, right? Makes you wonder what they were bringing in and out of that room that required a door in that shape.

Fort Castillo de San Marcos was a free roaming fort. We were allowed to look in all the nooks and crannies and take our time. It was wonderful.

We got there later in the afternoon and it was early evening by the time we were leaving. We could have stayed longer, but they were closing for a special ticketed event that night.

We stayed in a cute little RV Park while we were there. They did a wonderful job of decorating for Christmas. I loved the lights at night!

The RV Park also had wonderful view. This wasn’t too far from our front door for the week.

We were so bummed that we didn’t get to experience any more that St. Augustine had to offer. I’m sure we will go back sometime and hit all the neat things we missed.

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Brunswick, GA

By Jennie Simpson | December 14, 2016

The Brunswick area consists of a bunch of little islands all hooked together. I’d been looking forward to this stop for awhile.

One of the main reasons I scheduled this stop was to see the sea turtles. We went during the off season, but we found the Georgia Sea Turtle Center where we could learn all about sea turtles and even get to see some of them. The main focus of the GSTC is to rehabilitate the turtles and get them back into their natural habitat. They also take in any straggler hatchlings and keep them until they’re big enough to head out to sea the next year.

You can go in and look at the tanks with their patients. There are charts for each patient that tells why they’re there and the steps being taken to help them. We got there right before their last tour and got to see them feed the turtles!

We found another fort to mosey through. This one is Fort Frederica National Monument.

It was worth the trip just to see all of the old oaks and Spanish moss. The fort itself is mostly gone, but they’ve got a few foundations they’ve found and there are records that tell them where everything was and who owned what. We enjoyed walking through the grounds. I would definitely recommend it!

The Junior Ranger program here was one of the boys’ favorites so far. In the pic above you can see them with the bag that’s given out with the Junior Ranger booklets.

The bag contained various items and instruments used to complete the booklet.

We also got to play some pub games that would’ve been found during the 1700s. We’ve decided we need to make one of these.

The boys earned four badges and one patch. I somehow missed getting one of the badges in the picture. Of course, it was the coolest one…because it was a little different. I’ll try to get a picture of them together again and post it up on our Instagram.

We also went to Tidelands Nature Center where we got to touch an alligator.

The boys were impressed the set of chompers on this guy.

We also got to see this little stingray up close!

We found two very cool beaches! The first one is Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island. It was so fun to climb around on all of the driftwood. It was also a great picture place. We got some good family shots at this beach.

The other beach also happened to be on Jekyll Island, but for the life of me…I can’t remember the name of it. It was a great beach…not too many people there.

So…it doesn’t look like much. It’s called Brunswick Stew. I’ve seen it since Maine, but didn’t try it until North Carolina and I’ve been hooked ever since. I thought it only fitting that I had a bowl of Brunswick stew while in Brunswick. It starts with smoked meat. I’ve had chicken, pork, and beef…any and all combinations of the three. It always has corn and usually lima beans. From there it varies. The best I’ve had was from High Cotton in Kitty Hawk, NC. Hands down the best. I’m going to have to try to make my own version of Brunswick stew!

We stayed at a great little park called Blythe Island Regional Park. It was awesome! Nice big spot, pull through, full hookups…they even offered cable at no extra cost! We would totally stay there again. This park also had a healthy community of squirrels. And boy howdy…those squirrels loved to tease our cats!! It was extremely entertaining!

I even found a few pretties! Love these pink flowers with the Spanish moss and the oaks!

That’s all we had time to do. We could have spent at least another week just exploring all the different beaches and forts in the area!

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Savannah, GA

By Jennie Simpson | December 9, 2016

We spent a week in the Savannah area. When I planned our loop this year, I was disappointed that there weren’t a lot of hiking opportunities. We’ve spent most of our time during this loop exploring cities (big and small). Cities aren’t really our thing. We prefer the wilds. But, when you’re trying to see all fifty states…well, there are states known for their great hiking and there are states known for their history. I’ve come to realize that most of our loop for this year has been spent on learning history and going to cities because we felt we should see them. Savannah is one of those cities I felt we needed to see.

Savannah is known for its beautiful parks (all 22 of them) and its cobblestoned historic district.

We only went to two of the parks. They were both shaded with oak trees covered with Spanish moss. We, along with many other locals and tourists, enjoyed walking through them. Savannah is smaller than I’d thought it would be. It had that small town, homey feel where time seems to slow down and suddenly everyone is addressed as “honey” or “sweetie” and no one’s a stranger.

We found the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It was beautiful inside and out. One of the big touristy things to do in Savannah is take a carriage ride. We opted against it. I’m sure the history and info given during the tour is worth the price but we like to go at our own pace. I can’t be rushed when I’m taking pictures or we find something interesting we want to investigate.

We took a stroll down by the river where all of the shops are. I’d looked ahead of time and had two places I wanted to visit. Now, one of the questions we get asked all the time is about souvenirs. Do we get them? What do we get? Where do we keep them? How do we decide when to get one? We get a lot of questions about souvenirs. We don’t really get many. We simply don’t have room. And honestly, I’m more interested in food anyway. If I get something it’s more than likely going to be something I can eat. We do get a shot glass from each state and I pick up postcards from various places we go.

It may come as no surprise to y’all that one of the souvenirs I’d already decided I was going to get from Savannah was some pralines. They were soooo good! I’ll be making my own over the holiday season sometime. Jerl got something called a gopher. It reminded me of a Texas millionaire. It must have been good…his eyes kind of slid up to the back of his head and glazed over during his first bite. I, quite happily, stuck with my pralines.

We also hit up the Peanut Shop where we sampled all of the various flavors (there were soooo many flavors!) of peanuts before making our decision on which to buy. And we definitely bought some.

The best thing we did there was visit Fort Pulaski National Monument. The boys snagged another Junior Ranger badge here.

Fort Pulaski was damaged during hurricane Mathew so we couldn’t just wander around it. We had to stick with a guided tour. Y’all know how I feel about having to hurry up. I was at the end of the line trying my hardest to take my sweet little time without holding everyone else up. Fort Pulaski was great! Seriously, if you have the chance to go…do it. It’s been set up to represent what it would have looked like while it was occupied so there are several rooms with furnishings.

During one of the times the fort was in the hands of the Union, some of the soldiers decided to leave a little…graffiti. It’s still there.

While most of the fort has been reconstructed and restored, some of it is has been left in ruins.

The wall was left to show the damage a cannon could do. We would have liked to spend more time poking around, but we had to stick with the tour and the tour had to be out before the next one could go in.

Let’s talk food. I’d initially planned on eating at Lady & Sons…because…well…Paula Deen is the queen of southern comfort food, right? But, when I looked up the reviews and then the price. If I’m going to pay that much to eat, the reviews had better be outstanding and not just mediocre. So, we drove by it and waved at all the people inside eating what we can only assume to be an overpriced, ok meal designed to bring in all of the tourists. Sorry Paula.

We ended up going to a place the locals go. Sandfly BBQ. Everything we had was great and the price was very reasonable. Now, I will tell you, the meat was fantastic…the sides were super sweet and very salty. But the meat was spot on!

We enjoyed our time in Savannah!

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Charleston, SC

By Jennie Simpson | December 1, 2016

Hey Guys!! We spent two weeks in the Charleston, SC area!

One of our favorite things to do is go check out a beach in the area! We happened to make it to the Kiawah Beachwalker Park on the last warm day during our stay. It was a fantastic day with temps in the low 80s! We collect a little sand and some shells from each beach we visit.

We found our first sea star out in the wild although, I think it might have been…a little…dead. I’m hoping when the tide came back in it perked up and made a recovery.

I found one of the best shells I’ve found on a beach so far! Too bad is was already spoken for. We put this little guy back into the sand.

We stayed until the park started closing and it got a little too cool for our taste.

We visited Fort Moultrie. You might not recognize the name…Fort Moultrie is right across from its more famous counterpart, Fort Sumter. One of the coolest things we get to do is visit old Forts. We don’t always get a chance to see them all, but we try to hit at least one when they’re available. Some Forts are open for visitors to roam around on their own while others require you to sign up for a guided tour. We like them both…we like to take our time and look, but we also enjoy the knowledge the tour guides impart. Fort Moultrie is a free roaming Fort. There were tons of nooks and crannies we ventured into.

This is as close as we got to Fort Sumter. While it is a part of the National Park System, a private ferry ticket is required to reach it. We can’t always do everything in a city we want to. Since we’re not technically on vacation, we have to pick and choose keeping in mind the cities to come and what those offer, as well.

The biggest reason we didn’t spring for Fort Sumter is because I wanted to visit Boone Hall Plantation.

Boone Hall Plantation is one of America’s oldest working plantations. You’re looking at the Avenue of Oaks. I love the look of the giant oak trees with the Spanish moss! The trees were planted back in 1743 by Captain Thomas Boone. It took more than 200 years for the two rows of trees to meet overhead in the middle. You might recognize this Avenue of Oaks form the mini-series North & South or maybe from the movie The Notebook. Boone Hall Plantation has been in quite a few movies, shows, and print articles.

Boone Hall has quite the history and is part of the Underground Railroad. Our favorite experience at Boone Hall was the Gullah Culture presentation.

This surprised us. To be honest, we didn’t know what Gullah is.

This isn’t our video. I didn’t take one. I could just kick myself for not taking a video. But, this is the same woman we saw and she was really good. If you get to visit Boone Hall Plantation, don’t miss the Gullah Geechee presentation. Plan your day around it.

I’m going to add one more video. This one isn’t at Boone Hall Plantation, but this is a story she told us. Her name is Jackie Michael and she’s a retired schoolteacher turned Gullah Geechee story teller.

The sweetgrass baskets everyone loves comes from the Gullah culture. You can find them all over Charleston. We got to see them being made at a few different places. The picture above was taken at Boone Hall Plantation, but we also saw them at the Charleston City Market and there were some roadside stands as well.

This is the Charleston City Market and if you’re ever in the area you should definitely at least walk through it.

You’ll find some of the best souvenirs here. And food. They sell food. Souvenirs, sweets and BBQ…what more do you need?

There’s a lot of history in Charleston. There are several different tours you can go on. If history is your thing, I would definitely suggest a tour. This is the Old Slave Mart. I’m sure you can guess what happened here.

This is called Rainbow Row. You’ll see this on sooo many Charleston souvenirs. It does depict the quintessential Charleston. I love that the buildings are pretty pastel colors!

Another Charleston must see is the Pineapple Fountain. There were tons of people at this park…all taking photos. The park is gorgeous and right by the waterfront. We saw just as many locals enjoying the park as we did tourists.

Welcome to the land of cotton. We saw so many huge fields of cotton while we were in this area! It was pretty neat to see. The one in the photo above was one of the smaller fields.

Lets talk food. Guys, plan to splurge here. The food is ah-maze-ing. Amazing! This was one of my splurges…it’s a pimento cheese, fried green tomato, bacon, and fried egg sandwich on Texas toast. And please notice the pickled okra next to it. Have you ever seen anything more southern on a plate? It was fantastic!

The other foodie find was a place called Charleston Burger Co. It’s definitely splurge worthy, but they do offer gluten free buns for anyone interested. The Dude got The Killer Beehive burger…and yes, he ate it all!

Angel Oak is a live oak tree that is estimated to be anywhere between 400 and 600 years old. The state of South Carolina has it fenced off and has set hours to visit to try and keep vandals away from it.

The sheer size of this tree was unbelievable!

The last touristy thing we did was go to the Charleston Tea Plantation where we learned all about what goes into making the tea we drink. It was pretty cool and…it was free. Seriously. The tour and all the samples you want…free. It’s definitely worth a stop.

Are you ready for some pretties?

There were tons of pretties in the Charleston area!

Nope, I don’t know any of their names.

I could do an entire post just on the pretties of Charelston. I was in flower heaven!

We also saw more butterflies and honey bees than we have in a long time!

So, there you have it! Our two week stay in Charleston! We didn’t see even half of what there was to see!

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Atlanta, GA

By Jennie Simpson | November 23, 2016

We spent a week just south of Atlanta, GA.

We made it to the State Capitol Building. It was impressive!

Check out that golden dome with the Miss Freedom standing so proudly on top!

And since we’re talking about the dome…I’ll go ahead and show you the inside of it. Now, my favorite domes have stained glass or a mural on it, but this one with the windows all around it was very nice.

Georgia makes State Capitol Building number 31 for us. That’s a lot of SBCs! Some of my favorite things about SBCs (besides the dome) are the staircases. I’m not an architect. I don’t know anything about what style this is…I just know it’s pleasing to the eye. It’s nice and orderly. Oh! Check out the statue made of pink marble! This SBC had tons of pink marble that had been mined from Georgia. On the fourth floor there was a nice, small museum. We enjoyed this SCB.

Out of thirty one SBCs this was a first for us. We got to go into the Governor’s Office! One of the secretaries offered to take a photo of us behind the desk. She took three…this one was the best. It’s a little blurry, but that’s ok…we appreciated the offer!

The boys even got to hold this WWE belt. It was heavier than we thought it would be!

I have to mention how nice everyone that we came into contact with at the Georgia State Capitol Building was!

While we were in Atlanta, we stopped by The Varsity to grab lunch. The Varsity is the world’s largest drive-in. When we were there it was packed! The menu isn’t that big. They’ve got burgers, hotdogs, fries, and onion rings. Oh… and fried pies. Between the five of us we tried it all. The food was what you would expect. I enjoyed my chili dog with coleslaw on top of it and I really loved the onion rings! Now, would I go back? Um, probably not. lol! Once was kind of enough. Not because the food was super bad…it just wasn’t the best.

I know…it’s a metal fence. But, guys…it’s The Walking Dead metal fence! You’re looking at Alexandria…well, it’s actually in a town called Senoia…but still!! We couldn’t get any closer because all the roads were blocked and guarded because they were filming. Which kind of made it cooler for me. To know they were just…right…there…….filming!!! Sorry. Fan girl moment. I’m ok now.

We did actually get some hiking in this time! We love hiking and there hasn’t been as many opportunities to get some miles in during this year’s loop. We stopped by the High Falls State Park for a quick mile or so to see the falls.

Georgia has been in a pretty bad drought since June, so the falls weren’t full and rushing, but they were still enjoyable.

We found Covington, GA…you might recognize it as Mystic Falls from the show The Vampire Diaries. I didn’t realize how many shows/films are filmed in the Atlanta area. We didn’t bump into any of the stars, but it was neat to walk around a town I’d seen on a television show.

We even made it to another hike! This one was at the Arabia Mountain A.W.A.R.E. area.

We were rewarded with an awesome view! The weather was perfect for hiking while we were in the Atlanta area.

We found this street sign and I had to snap a pic. There’s a big Gone With The Wind theme in the area.

We went to the B.A.P.S. Shri Swaminarayan Mandir while we were in the Houston area and we’d learned that there are actually a few of them in the US. We made it to the one in Atlanta. It’s just as gorgeous! And just like the one in Houston, photography isn’t permitted inside or even close to the inside. If you ever find yourself near one of these go in. It’s truly breath taking. The amount of detail on all of the hand carved marble is astounding.

That’s it for the Atlanta area! We didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what there is to do here so I imagine we will have to visit again.

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Oh Carolina…

By Jennie Simpson | November 16, 2016

Hey Guys!! We spent a week in the Raleigh, NC area.

We didn’t do much.

We made it to the State Capitol Building.

Most of the North Carolina State Capitol Building is a museum. They’ve arranged rooms to resemble what they were in years past. The room above is the geology room. We love it when there’s a museum in the SCBs! We learn so much about the state through these museums.

Y’all know we love foodie spots. Let me introduce you to Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar. You can get burgers, sushi, and burger/sushi fusions!

There were so many options…you could eat there everyday for months and not get the same thing twice. We absolutely loved Cowfish!! The owner came out and talked with us while we were there and guys…he was so nice. Seriously. If there’s a Cowfish near you, go check it out!

We also spent a week in Columbia, SC.

We didn’t take a tour at the South Carolina State Capitol Building, but we did get to roam around. I thought the dome was pretty.

Most of the SCBs we’ve visited have a redish/pink color scheme in at least a few of the rooms, but both of the Carolina’s SBCs were more earthy tones with blue highlights. It was a nice change.

We made it to Congaree National Park. I’d been looking forward to this park since I’d done the initial planning for our whole nomadic fifty state tour. It stuck in my head because there was a caution that this park inhabits six venomous snakes and alligators. Six. Six venomous snakes all in one park. And then they add alligators on top of that!

No, I don’t like snakes. Not even a little, but I felt like we were be safe enough with the boardwalk trail. We got there the week after Hurricane Mathew mucked up our plans and sent us fleeing to Asheville. So…we were already irritated with Mathew. When we got to Congraee we learned Mathew wasn’t done messing with us. Nope. He’d blown through the park and messed up pretty much all of the trails. We got to walk a teeny tiny bit of the boardwalk trail. We were so bummed. I’d been looking forward to it for soooo long and then bam! A hurricane.

But it wasn’t a total loss. We found an all you can eat buffet at Little Pigs Barbecue. All. You. Can. Eat…BBQ!!! What?!?!

I counted four different kinds of pulled pork! There was also all the fixin’s! All of them. Oh, and by-the-way…in the Carolinas anytime you hear BBQ they mean pork. Always. It was soooo stinkin’ good! Little Pigs is a no frills kind of place, but that’s ok because it helps keep the cost down. When was the last time you’ve eaten at an all you can eat buffet for $10? That includes a drink. Yum-oh!

We have officially fallen in love with the Carolinas!

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

The Biltmore

By Jennie Simpson | November 8, 2016

Since Hurricane Mathew interrupted our time on the North Carolina coast, we headed to the Asheville area to escape the weather. Asheville is where you’ll find The Biltmore.

Built in 1895 by George Vanderbilt, The Biltmore was just one of the Vanderbilt family homes. It’s huge. Let me see if I can remember the details…thirty-three bedrooms, forty-three bathrooms, 250 rooms, and sixty-five fireplaces all add up to a grand total of about four acres of floor space.

We opted to take the ninety minute guided audio tour. We feel like audio tours really add to the experience. In the photo above, you can see the Winter Garden. The Winter Garden is actually inside the mansion. That’s a glass roof you’re looking at and what used to be a working fountain.

On one side of the massive banquet hall is this set of built in shelves with the organ loft. The organ actually works. In the basement, there’s a room that has the air pump for the organ. I love the shelves!

On the other side of the banquet hall is a wall of triple fireplaces. Because three is always better than one, right? This room was huge. The pictures can’t even begin to portray the true size of it. The ceiling in the banquet hall is seven stories high!

Here you can see the Breakfast Room where the Vanderbilt family ate lunch. Yep, you read that right. They named it The Breakfast Room, but they would eat lunch there. Maybe it was a really late breakfast…more like brunch?

The ceilings in The Biltmore were just as ornate and thought out as the rest of the rooms.

The Tapestry Gallery is more like a wide hallway. There are three tapestries hanging here that are a part of seven. Each tapestry depicted one of the Seven Virtues.

This fireplace was in the Tapestry Gallery. I love how ornate it is! Check out the turtles on the bottom of the lamps.

We’ve made it to my favorite room in the whole place. The Library.

I took more photos of the Library than any other room at The Biltmore. I mean…look at that fireplace! Can you imagine perusing the books to find that perfect read and curling up by the fireplace to have a quiet afternoon? Oh! See the big blue and white urn type thing? It once belonged to a Chinese Emperor about 500 years ago. He used it as a fish bowl.

This was George Vanderbilt’s bedroom. It’s huge! And I love all of the woodwork in it. All hand carved by super important artsy people. I don’t remember all of their names…there were so many different names said during this tour. Can you see the gold colored walls? That’s real gold. It’s gilded 24 Karat gold burlap.

All of the fireplaces were different. Different colors, different materials, different style. This one was in George Vanderbilt’s bedroom.

This sitting room joined the family bedrooms. There was a small table for food, a writing desk, and a game table. This is where the family would have breakfast while they planned the day’s events.

Edith Vanderbilt’s room was oval shaped and decorated in gold and purple. Edith made sure she knew all the names of everyone working at The Biltmore during a time when it was improper for the family to speak to the staff. She also made sure to send care baskets when children were born. Edith went so far as to start a trade-school that taught weaving and wood working so the servant’s children would be able to learn a craft or trade that they could use to earn a living.

The Biltmore was really built so the family could entertain guests. The third floor living hall was right outside all of the guest suites. The guests would wait to go down to breakfast here as they sat around and chatted.

I loved looking at all of the old family photographs. Notice the books against the wall? George Vanderbilt had a 23,000 volume collection of books. That alone makes me like him. I mean, anyone who takes the time to accumulate that many beloved books has to be good, right?

This is in one of the guest suites. I really enjoy the way they have the rooms set up. It’s like we’re getting to take a peak back in time. With the dress on the bed with the gloves over the footboard…it’s like catching a fleeting glimpse into their lives.

This is in the same guest suite. The vanity table all set up and waiting. This guest suite was just for single ladies. The single ladies and single gentlemen were kept in separate suits since it was inappropriate for them to sleep in the same area of the house.

Check out this chandelier. It’s three stories high with three chandeliers on it. Can you imagine trying to dust that thing?

In the basement you’ll find the recreation area. Complete with a bowling alley,

a 70,000 gallon heated swimming pool that they only kept filled for a few days at a time,

and a gymnasium because even back then being healthy was important.

They supplied private dressing rooms because no self-respecting lady of that time would be caught walking through the house in a “bathing costume”. There was a row for the women and a separate row (on the other side of the wall) for the men.

The library was my favorite room…the pastry kitchen is a close second. Imagine having an entire kitchen solely for the purpose of baking…

There would’ve been more than a dozen people in here working to prepare the meals for the Vanderbilt family and their guests. The copper pots hanging above the worktable are actually original.

Check out the mortar and pestle! Huge!

This was the servant’s dining room. The dining room maid would have served the servants three meals a day here.

There were sooo many pantry rooms. Each dedicated to different things. This one is mainly for the canned goods.

Most people have one room for the laundry. At The Biltmore, there was a sewing room, main laundry room, drying room,

and a dying room. Notice the box and bottles of dyes?

This was the smoking room. More books. The books were everywhere! It was a book lovers dream!

This pic gives you a good idea of the many different levels at The Biltmore.

This is the view the Vanderbilt Family and their guests enjoyed. George Vanderbilt and his architect used a ladder to determine what the best view would be before they began building.

We got to The Biltmore around 2’ish…we didn’t leave until around 8. There are so many things to look at.

We took a quick walk through some of the gardens, but we didn’t have time to look at everything.

Here are some of the pretties…

look how bright and vibrant they are!

I would love to see the gardens during each season.

There was a wine tasting included with the house ticket. If you know me, you know I’m not really into wine. The boys thought it was funny to watch my face as I tasted each wine.

The boys all got grape juice to try. They also had their fill of these pallet cleansing little biscuits that were sitting out.

We ended up getting three bottles of wine! lol! I found two white’s that I actually like.

When we left it was dark. There were several hummingbirds flitting between these big flowers and we stood there for a few minutes watching them. The picture’s not the best. It was dark and I only had my phone…but this little hummingbird decided to see what The Dude tasted like and flew down to lick his leg. It was pretty funny!

We had a great time exploring The Biltmore!

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

A Time Of Firsts

By Jennie Simpson | November 2, 2016

The plan was to stay a week on the outer banks of North Carolina enjoying the Kitty Hawk area. Mother Nature threw a monkey wrench in our plans though with Hurricane Mathew so we only stayed for three days. We crammed everything we could into those three days and in the process totally fell in love with the area.

My main reason for going to the area was to visit The Wright Brothers National Memorial. In the photo above you can see the original buildings the Wright Brothers lived and worked in while they were at Kill Devil Hills trying to get their contraption to fly. You can also see the Memorial up on the hill. This is the first and biggest memorial to be built for someone while they were still living.

Nope. It’s not the original, but it’s a copy right down to every detail, built the same way the Wright Brothers would have built theirs. The original was destroyed when a gust of wind caught it and threw it around before they could get it tied down after the fourth flight attempt.

You can see the stone markers signifying where each of the first three flights landed in the picture above. You can also see on the sign, a copy of the photo that was taken of that very first flight that lasted all of 12 seconds and went a grand total of 120 feet.

There’s a neat little area set up that shows what that first attempt looked like with the Wright Brothers and the few guys they had helping. Notice it’s on sand? That’s because when the Wright Brothers were there the area was more like a desert. Not much grass and no trees. Go look up a picture of it on the interwebs. You’ll be surprised at how different it looked back then.

On our first morning there, we got up to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic. It was pretty spectacular.

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It was an amazing way to start the day! We even spotted a pod of dolphins playing in the surf!

We made it to Roanoke Island where the first English Colony was formed and where the first English child (Virginia Dare) was born in the New World.

You might remember from your history class that the fate of the people of this colony is unknown. The only clue was the word “Croatoan” carved in a tree. Nope. It’s not the original tree, but it is a fun picture opportunity!

We only made it to one of the area’s lighthouses since our time was cut short, but it was a really neat lighthouse and it was one of the Visitor Center’s for the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. We didn’t make it all the way down to Cape Hatteras either…but, that’s ok. We’ll just have to go back and visit the area again.

After talking to our neighbors (hi neighbors!) we decided to go to Corolla Beach and try to find the wild horses. We didn’t see them, but we had fun driving on the beach!

We did take time to play on the beach. It was right outside our RV park. We could see it from our door and hear the waves at night. It was pretty fantastic! Littlest wanted to fly a kite on the beach so we went and found a kite. It wasn’t hard, they sold them everywhere. It was our first time flying a kite on the beach! You’ll notice we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We didn’t mind.

We spent the entire afternoon building sandcastles, playing in the waves, finding seashells and sea glass and just…relaxing. None of us wanted to leave.

We tried Duck Donuts for the first time. It won’t be our last. We’ve all declared Duck Donuts as our favorite donut place. You walk in and order your donut with the glaze/frosting you want, add whatever toppings you want, and top it off with the drizzle of your choice. And then you get to watch them pull your donut out of the fryer and make it so when you get it it’s still warm!! My mouth is watering just thinking about it!! We’ll be in Raleigh, NC next week…guess what donut place is there! Muuwaahahahaha…I’ll eat one for you.

We also got our very first taste of North Carolina BBQ. We’re fans. It’s quite possibly the best BBQ we’ve ever had…anywhere. We went to a place called High Cotton. Guys, we’ll go back to the Kitty Hawk area again just to eat there. It’s really that good. We got to chat with the owner while we were there and he’s the nicest guy. If you’re ever in the area, you have got to stop in and grab a meal. Then get one to go so you can have “leftovers” the next day!

That was all the time we had. The boys managed to earn three new Junior Ranger badges before we had to head inland. We weren’t sure what Hurricane Mathew was going to do and it’s better to play it safe in situations like that, but we’ll be back! We didn’t even scratch the surface of what there is to do there.

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Beach Bummer

By Jennie Simpson | October 25, 2016

Hey Guys!! So…we stayed a week in Virginia Beach. A whole week to soak up all of the…errr….rain? Yup, it rained pretty much the entire week we were there. But! The ~~show~~ trip must go on!

On the way to Virginia Beach we had a first for us. We drove the RV through a tunnel that went under the water!

It was kind of a long tunnel…and I’m not gonna lie…about half way through the tunnel I started worrying about what would happen if the tunnel sprung a leak. And then I started thinking about how if we were on the Walking Dead show, there would be tons of walkers in the tunnel. And right when panic started to make me get a little twitchy I saw the light at the end of the tunnel (literally) and we were exiting. I’m not sure I want to do another underwater tunnel with the RV again anytime soon.

You are looking at the only time we saw sun while in the VA Beach area. This is the Cape Henry lighthouse which is located on an active military base. I’m laughing as I write this because we didn’t realize we were going to an active base. Total planning fail on my part. So, when we pulled up and had to have our car searched and there were some pretty strict rules as to where we could and could not go/take pics…well, it was a new experience! And to be honest…we all thought it was pretty cool! Everyone we interacted with were very nice and polite and we never got the feeling that we were intruding or anything.

We stayed at a place called Holiday Tav-L-Park. This is what I thought we would end up getting. This is really a pretty basic kind of site.

This is what we got. This was our site. We laughed about the difference. Kind of funny what $30 more per night will get you…grass, concrete, and cable. This Rv park was huge! It had four pools, mini-golf, and various playgrounds. We would actually stay there again and if we ever make it back to the VA Beach area we probably will. The lack of grass didn’t bother us and we never watch cable anyway.

One of my HP friends lives in VA Beach and we got to meet up with her and her kiddos for dinner one night! *waves at friend* We had a great time meeting face-to-face for the first time while enjoying some tasty Mexican food! One of the neatest things about our #easternloop2016 has been seeing so many of my HP/FB friends. Our kiddos have been switching numbers and staying in touch too!

We did make it to the famous Neptune statue on VA Beach! The rain even held off long enough for us to snap a picture and take a look at the beach!

Virginia even gave us a rainbow on our last night there. We really enjoyed our time in Virginia and will visit the state again!

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop

#keepingitreal