What Is and What Is Not

It's been a whirlwind couple of days.  We left Charleston for the Atlantic on Tuesday.  We got out there and had 20 knots of wind right on the nose.  I looked at Ryan and asked him about this supposed weather window, 15-20 out of the South??  We slogged along for about an hour, with both kids clutching their tummies with nausea.  We looked for a river to tuck into, but depths were sketchy, so we turned around and went back to Charleston.  We were defeated and depressed.

Wednesday morning we got up at 5:00 to make a bridge opening down the ICW by 6:00, otherwise it would be closed until 9:00 a.m.  So we chugged down the ICW all freaking day and made it to Beaufort, SC (Bew - rhymes with pew - as opposed to Beaufort, NC which is bow-fort).  That's an important distinction, for some reason.  The ICW was very pretty along the way, but the heat was oppressive.  The kids were better, just a bit frustrated like we were.  We had a nice walk around Beaufort and even found a long-awaited barbecue joint.  It's a pretty little town with a beautiful waterfront walking park.  Yesterday we got up not as early and chugged down the ICW to Hilton Head Island.

Hilton Head is a playground for the rich.  I'm so pleased because my children do much better around spoiled, overly indulged children than they do "regular" children.  It's weird, I know.  And it's not like my kids aren't a bit spoiled and over indulged.  We are at the Harbor Town Marina right smack in the middle of a resort complex.  We got here around lunch and went out to celebrate.  Our spirits were back up!

The kids got to be crazy at the the Crazy Crab!

Afterwards we walked around, shopped, and let the kids get ice cream.  I took them to the playground while Ryan got to play a round of golf here (a famous golf course is here, not sure of the name).  Then we climbed 144 steps up the lighthouse to get a view of the harbor.  It was beautiful.  As the sun set, we played on the bow.  The lighthouse is in the background here.

It was a much needed, delightful day.  We did get some more good news yesterday, a real cold front is coming through, actually came through last night, and the winds are forecast to turn EAST!!  Woo hoo!  Today we are leaving around 11:00 a.m. and going offshore in an attempt to make St. Augustine.  It's only 100 miles, so that will be a quick overnight.  We should be there in the morning, IF all goes according to plan.  From there I don't know.  Our back up plan is to come back and slowly go down the ICW.  The ICW is becoming undesirable for many reasons, one is the huge (9ft) tides in Georgia and strong currents that always seem to be against us.

I'm starting to believe there's some sort of conspiracy to drive me mad.  Sleep deprivation slowly drives me insane.  I know this to be fact, I've had 2 kids.  Something usually wakes me an hour or two before dawn, then subsequent events keep me from going back to sleep.  It varies day to day what the something is.  I know it's not Ryan, it's not in his best interest for me to be psycho.  I don't think I'm all that interesting to the government, so it's not them either.  My only conclusion is aliens.  Time to call Mulder and Scully.  Last night it was a thunderstorm of epic proportions.  The lightning flashed in my eyes like a flashlight, reminding me of horror movies.  Then there was a dog barking incessantly, then finally Evan got up.  All this was before dawn.  Sheesh.  I gotta get myself together.  I cannot let these aliens get to me.