Winter 2009 Travels to Indiana, South Carolina, & a milestone reached

2008 ended with an unexpected Christmas trip to Bloomington, Indiana when Anne’s employer canceled all engineer vacations in expectation of a visit from the FDA (US Food & Drug Administration) for a big time audit. Elaine & I had a wonderful Christmas with Anne after a grueling drive on icy roads.

In January, Elaine & I flew to Savannah, Georgia, where Tom awaited us at the airport. While waiting for Tom to arrive, these rocking chairs gave us a restful pause.





Tom drove us to Hilton Head Island (HHI), South Carolina, where we stayed for three weeks. Tom stayed with us a couple of nights each week. Our hope was to get away from winter for a few weeks. Unfortunately, old man winter sent record cold weather to South Carolina for 2 of the 3 weeks. It was warmer in Kearney, Nebraska on 15 of the 21 nights that we were away.

For two weeks, the Marriott Surf Watch Resort was our luxurious residence near the beach. Walked the beach a few times and enjoyed the wildlife and bracing air.











HHI is famous as a destination for big time golfers and for the moneyed class. It is what is known as a barrier island; a sand dune which becomes covered in vegetation and takes the force of the ocean waves. It is sandy and flat for its 5 mile width and 12 mile length. Because of this characteristic of flat and small, it is an ideal place to ride bicycle, which we did for the whole 3 weeks. Never had a car, except when Tom was with us, and biked all about the area. We both had backpacks, which came in handy for grocery shopping and other purchases.



This vacation was unlike most of our other travels, as we had no agenda of things to see. Just got on the bikes and rode to various places. One especially scenic area was Shelter Cove, with its many yachts and famous statue of King Neptune.






Another interesting destination was a cemetery dating from Revolutionary War times. Several graves were from soldiers of that long ago struggle.




Low Country food was available at several restaurants and it was yummy. Here is a shrimp and rice dish being enjoyed by the travelers.





$Our final week was spent at The Village at Palmetto Dunes. Definitely not as upscale as the Marriott, but we actually liked it better. It was about a quarter mile from the beach and had salt-water channels with very large gar swimming about the channels. It is very popular with older travelers who come here every year. It was one of the first time-share resorts on the island.





I had mentioned the record cold weather. Well, it got so cold that the channels froze and killed many of the gar. There were icy patches on the bike path for 2 days and tha gar gave off an odor.

HHI is replete with bird life. Cormorants, heron, woodpeckers, pelicans, etc. It was too cold to see the prolific alligator population.











Came back to Nebraska refreshed and hoping for warm weather. No such luck. Of course, the weather forecast for HHI was for warm to hot the week after we left. Came home to hear tales of how nice the weather had been while we were away. Then winter came back to Nebraska and we endured it for many more weeks.

Elaine has taken up a new hobby, quilting. Here are some examples of her first year's enjoyment.













Nice, aren't they?

To conclude this slutigram, your author reached another milestone (or is it millstone?) in life. On March 10th, that dreaded 60th birthday arrived. To allay the pain, Elaine organized a party for me. About 60 (how nice) of my local friends turned up to console me. Looking at that recent photo, motivated me to lose some weight.