Charleston, South Carolina

We spent the majority of yesterday visiting the Charleston, South Carolina area. It is about a 2-2.5 hour drive from Savannah, and is actually an older city than Savannah.

We had scheduled ourselves for a tour of the historical district, and the tour guide was extremely knowledgable.

• Probably one of the most unexpected things that we learned about Charleston is that they are built on top of an earthquake fault, which is fairly active. That was a bit of a rude surprise.
• We went to Southend Brewery for lunch, which was not too bad. They were pretty busy, as well as the entire downtown for that matter as a result of this:

These are the Blue Angels. Who we weren't aware were in town until we spoke to the tour guide to schedule the tour.  They were scheduled to be there all weekend, and their show on Saturday was scheduled for 2 PM, which was the same time as our tour.

The tour guide really worked around the fact that they were buzzing the majority of the downtown area we were touring. Some of the things we saw:

This particular house was built in the early 18th century, and is one of the oldest dwellings in town.

This building is home to one of the oldest theaters in the United States, and was the first theater built specifically for live performances in the colonies.

Savannah still has a reasonably large street in their downtown area which is entirely cobblestone. Apparently it's not particularly pleasant for anyone but the people who live on the street.

This is the city hall building in Charleston.












Overall, the tour was very interesting, and ended up showing us some unusual places in Charleston. They have alleys, which are named and are considered to be similar to street in spite of their inability to fit a car down them. There are also numerous historic houses and buildings, many of which have been there for more than 200 years. We also nearly jumped out of our skins when the Blue Angels buzzed the downtown with what felt like a sonic boom, but must have been slightly lower than Mach due to the potential to break windows with the sound.

You could also see Fort Sumter, one of the starting sites of the Civil War, out on the islands in the distance from the coast in Charleston. It was a bit surprising that the Blue Angels show only lasted for about an hour, but they were definitely busy during that time. All in all a very fun day in town.

Weekend Thoughts for 4/10/10

Baseball season is about to complete its' first full week, and already I've seen a fair amount of it. Mostly on tv of course, but we have already attended a local game.

• Here in Savannah are the Single-A affiliate of the New York Mets, the Savannah Sand Gnats. Their opening night was on Thursday, which we went to. The stadium is a much older park, probably built sometime in the 40s or 50s if I were to guess. 
• The Sand Gnats won the game, although we left during a rain delay. We had known that there was a likelihood of rain, as there was a massive thunderstorm front that would be coming through the area sometime in the late evening.
• The rain was not a huge deal, as nearly the entire seating area has a full roof covering it, and we had chosen an excellent location to sit.
• The weather here, with the exception of that set of storms on Thursday night, has been clear and nice, with temps in the high 70s and low 80s pretty much every day.
• We made a trip out yesterday to the Strawberry Festival out at Ottawa Farms in nearby Bloomingdale. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite the entertainment we thought it would be. Shortly after we got there, the transformer powering nearly everything blew out, and the one thing we had really been looking forward to (strawberry ice cream) could not be dispensed unfortunately, since the machine had no power to give ice cream. 
• You could hear in the background the Civil War re-enacters, but they didn't really appear to have a set schedule as to when they were going to be doing things, so we didn't really see any of them.

We are also looking for older photos of the Savannah area for a project we're thinking of trying out. If you know where we can get some photos that are public domain, please let us know!

A Week in Savannah

I actually spent most of last week hanging out with my sister who was in for a visit, but we did see some new things. Some thoughts on things we saw:

• Five Guys Burgers are really, really good. They are all over the country, although it doesn't appear that there are any ones in California. It reminds me a lot of In-n-Out burger. Not quite the same, but very good. Their fries are actually a little bit better, and supposedly they have some seasoned fries that are also good.
• Wiley's Championship BBQ was listed as the top restaurant in all of the Savannah area. And they did not disappoint. The side dishes were not the best we've had, but the BBQ was definitely worth it. We will have to go back there again.
• During this week, President Obama made a day trip to the Savannah area. The biggest news to come out of the trip locally was the fact that he made an unexpected trip to Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding Room. Which apparently didn't really bode so well with the most famous culinary resident of Savannah, Paula Deen.
• Leopold's Ice Cream is downtown, and makes excellent sundaes and shakes. One of the owner's relatives is a movie director (Stratton Leopold), and the place is well decorated with memorabilia from some of the movies he's been a part of.

The town is gearing up for St. Patrick's Day, to the point where there are quite a few businesses in the downtown area that will be open only until 10 am to allow for the parade through downtown. The town will supposedly swell from its normal size of 300,000 towards 1 million. It is apparently the largest celebration outside of Mardi Gras all year long. It will be interesting to see how it goes. So far though, Savannah has definitely been the most interesting city to be sure.

Weekend Trip - Clarksville, TN

Since we are going to be leaving the Kentucky/Tennessee area sooner than we had hoped, we decided to do some semi-intense exploring. Over the remainder of this week, I'll be writing up our travels last weekend:

• Today's post: Clarksville, TN
• Coming soon: Nashville, TN
• Coming soon: Mammoth Caves, KY

Clarksville is home to Fort Campbell, which is home to the 101st Airborne Division. The road into town off Highway 24 runs parallel to the main edge of the base, and leads you past what seems to be an unending string of small strip malls. You see many half-vacant sorefronts and buildings. This road eventually leads into downtown Clarksville.

Downtown Clarksville is not a particularly large area, probably only encompassing a 4-6 square block radius at most. We stopped into a local brewpub to eat a snack and try their beer. They had a reasonable mix of brews, but nothing really that stood out as worthwhile of making the trip back to Clarksville. The food wasn't terrible either. All in all, a reasonable expectation of a brewpub. Probably wouldn't not go back there if we had to do it over again.

Walking around downtown Clarksville, we stopped into Blondie's Sandwich and Coffee Shop. It was a pretty standard coffee shop, except for one thing about the coffee cup itself. On the left side of the lid, is an open-close switch. For those of you who have seen that before, that's wonderful. But it was new to us, and we thought it was awesome.



The downtown area is a lot of brick buildings, some of which appear to be extremely old. A plaque near City hall said that the town was founded in 1785, making it almost 230 years young. Prior to leaving town, we drove past Austin Peay State University. Quite a bit more brick buildings, and we could clearly make out which ones appeared to be dormitories.

Weekend Thoughts for 1/17/10

Well, the weather has finally gotten better here in Kentucky. We've been experiencing "normal" weather for Kentucky for the majority of this week, getting temperatures up into the high 50s most days. Which has allowed us to venture out of our warm house a lot more than in previous weeks.

We attended our first Murray State basketball games on Thursday. That brought all sorts of entertainment:

• MSU games are only $7 for general admission seats, which are higher up but still probably within 100 feet of the court. Realistically, we can see everything involved in the game just fine.
• When I started looking for tickets, I checked online. Once I got to Ticketmaster's website, I stopped checking online. They wanted the same $7, along with a $3.50 per ticket convenience fee. And if I wanted to print them at home, it would cost another $2 per ticket. So for those keeping score at home, for a $7 ticket, and to use my own printer and ink to print them out, I could pay another $5.50. So I went over to the ticket office (about a 5 minute drive) and bought them in person instead.
• Murray State's mascot are the Racers, what with being in Kentucky. Which translates to a live version as a man in a horse costume. And also a man in an inflatable horse costume, with a jersey that says "Air Dunker". It was interesting to say the least.
• It was also $1 night at the game in this particular case - hot dogs, soda, candy, and popcorn all for a buck!
  
• They actually won both games (womens' and mens') pretty handily, which has apparently been the norm for the teams this season.

Some other thoughts from our travels this week:

• We went out to Land Between the Lakes this weekend, and you can read about this in my previous post.
• On our way back, we stopped at an EXCELLENT barbecue joint. Hutchens BBQ has been there since 1946, and serves some excellent barbecue. Their sauce is fair, but the ribs and brisket were both amazing. And it came with a trio of sides and a bread. Throw in a RC Cola for each of us, and Peach Cobbler for a total of $31 with tip!
• We're just now starting to get some rain here, which should also be nice. Frankly, I'm just happy that the humidity is going up again so we won't keep shocking each other due to the static electricity.
  

Weekend Thoughts for 1/9/2010

I had hoped to go out and explore Murray and its surrounding areas this week, since we're back from the holidays and there was not going to be any rain or snow until Thursday. Well, cold is officially a weather condition in my book now. All week, the temperature has not gone above 25 degrees, dropping below 10 on numerous occasions.

When we read that the average weather for Murray was going to be similar to California's for winter, we were looking forward to the fact that we weren't going to be in an area that was super cold, or that would get a ton of snow. This nice Arctic front has decided otherwise. On to some thoughts...

• I am amazed at how much money I save at Walmart. I've written before how I know understand why people like it so much, but it is still a surprise to me when I go shopping.
• I just finished reading a really good book about the history of In-n-Out Burger. An excellent read, both for the topic and in general. You can find it here. 
• It snowed here on Thursday, as a part of that wonderful Arctic front. We got about 1-2", at most. In Kentucky, this causes the cancellation of schools everywhere. And the ice related to it on the following day does the same thing. It was an interesting process to watch. But they were definitely ready for it. 
• RC Cola is much more popular down here than anywhere else I have ever lived. Which is wonderful. And Walmart had another version: Cherry RC. Which is also wonderful.
• We had Kentucky Fried Chicken a few days ago. Which tastes pretty much the same here in Kentucky that it does anywhere else we have been. And no, the sign does not say "Fried Chicken" outside the place.
  

Part of the way I've been staying busy since arriving in Kentucky is to write. Since there hasn't really been a whole lot to write about here yet due to this lovely weather, I've actually been writing a second blog about baseball. You can find it here if you're interested.

Our Time in South Haven

As our time in South Haven has drawn to a close, I thought it would be a good time to recap some of what we've seen and done here in Michigan.

Good food knows no single location.

• We found excellent Mexican food in Michigan, which I never would have expected.
• We also found some really good Chinese food in Mattawan, which was also a bit of a surprise.

Neither does poor food.

• We definitely found some "interesting" definitions of what passed for Chinese food.

We have really seen some of the small-town experience.

• High school football here is not only prevalent, but an experience which dominates the local towns.
• This was the first place we had lived where we had a really large group of trick-or-treaters.
• We saw some of the emptiest shops ever for a Black Friday. Whether or not it was related to the economy, or to it being Michigan remains to be seen.

Hitting a deer is apparently not as unusual of an occurrence as it should be.

• You would think that this would be a very unusual occurrence, since there are towns all over this area. Apparently not so much.
• Also it is amazing how much dead deer can really continue to smell. The car will still smell like it even now, almost 2 months later.

People are different elsewhere, but not in a good or bad way.

• We have met some of the nicest, most welcoming people we have ever seen.
• People are generally just expecting to be treated the way that they want to be treated.

So what have we learned so far?

• IT is truly amazing how much free time you have when you are not planning a wedding or a cross-country move.
• It is also amazing how little there can be to do in a town when you don't have a built-in social structure there.
• Travel is as interesting as the next place to explore.
• When we went exploring the areas around South Haven, we really enjoyed what we found.
• Once we had explored the majority of the areas within a reasonable distance, we quickly found ourselves borde and not really feeling too much adventure out of it.

I think that one of the biggest things we have learned is that we have lived in large cities for far too long at this point to be able to live in a small town for very long. Or at least a small town that is not very close to a larger city. I am hopeful that we will find out some more things when we get to Kentucky.

Weekend Thoughts for 11/8/09

We spent part of this weekend in Chicago, and we were very pleasantly surprised at the weather. It was in the mid to high 60's all weekend. All-in-all, a very good weekend.

The car is fine (so says the insurance guy anyway), and slowly starting to smell less like deer.

• Every time that we go to Mia Francesca's in Chicago, the food is amazing. And always somehow better than the previous time. And this trip was no different. We HIGHLY recommend this restaurant if you are in the area.
• For all the problems that they run into with public transit, Chicago's CTA does a very good job of getting people from point A to point B. It is efficient, clean, and runs very often. We simply parked our car when we arrived, and left it there until we were ready to leave town.
• Emilio's Tapas was also excellent. We were a bit concerned when we walked by the place prior to dinner, because the place was deserted. But the food was excellent, and was very busy by the time we had finished dining.
• Ann Sather makes really, really good breakfast. We didn't really need lunch as a result.
• I found out on Friday that apparently McDonald's is the place to hang out in the morning if you are a senior citizen. There is bottomless coffee which appears to be attracting them there. It was a larger gathering than any in town we had seen to that point.

Working on another post with an announcement that will hopefully be up tomorrow...




Apparently I missed out on my big break this week. 

Weekend Thoughts for 10/18/09

I came to the conclusion that on some assignments, there's simply not going to be enough things to write about on a daily basis. It hasn't been a very busy week, but I did notice quite a few things this week....

• Clementine's, one of the more popular restaurants here in South Haven, has some of the best onion rings around (or so I am told by people that know more about these things). They come stacked on a paper towel holder (with the stick in the middle), and come in either 6" or 1 foot size orders. Apparently they sold 6 miles worth last year. That's quite a lot of onion rings in 1 foot increments
• I went to the South Haven library's book sale on Thursday morning. Now, the library is interesting to begin with. When we drove into town, their marquee sign out front said "Get your banned books here." So I was not really surprised when I got to the library when it opened, and there were about 15 people waiting as well. The book sale had quite a few books I picked up, and I have plenty to read from now until we leave (and potentially more)
• We decided to venture out again in search of Chinese food, entirely due to a recommendation (and offer to go with) one of Brynn's co-workers. She was right! Excellent Chinese food in Mattawan (about 25 minutes east of Watervliet) at Chinn Chinn. Definitely a keeper, and we'll have to try to get back there again before we leave Michigan.
• We are definitely not in California anymore: On our way home on Friday night, we passed through the town of Paw-Paw, which is the county seat. In their downtown area (which seemed very nice as we passed through it) was an apartment for rent: 2 bedroom with electric and gas paid = $495 per month. Definitely not in California.
• The speed limits in the state of Illinois, for the most part, are 55 mph on the freeway. What the sign should probably say is SUGGESTED speed limit, 55 mph. At no point was there anyone I saw doing less than 65 mph, even with cops on the road. At one point, some genius in a van caught up with the cop, and was riding him in the hopes that he would get out of the way. After about a quarter of a mile, he finally gave up. I'm not sure what was going on, but even that seems ridiculous to me.
• I had been to Portillo's/Barnelli's before, but apparently had forgotten how good it was. They (in most locations) are a combination restaurant with two counters, one Italian food, and the other hot dogs. Brynn's favorite is the Peasant Pasta.
• We also stopped in at the outlets in Michigan City, Indiana today. Most notably missing from the photo on their front page would be the cooling tower that sits in the background of the shopping center. It is apparently not a nuclear reactor, so I guess that should make me feel a little better.
  

Wine Tasting in Southwest Michigan

This weekend is the first full weekend we have really had to just explore the area. All of the previous three, we have either been out of town, or had to do things to get situated here in South Haven. Brynn had mentioned that she really wanted to go wine tasting, so we decided that we would go ahead and explore the area.

There had been quite a few signs on the side of the road for different wineries, so I set out to find some information about the local wineries. Since wineries tend to rely on some form of marketing, we figured there would be a fair amount of information online. I was not disappointed.

After looking at the map, we decided to head for Baroda. Baroda is a small town about 30-40 minutes southeast of South Haven. We didn't have any specific wineries in mind to go to, but noticed that the map had about 4 or 5 of them in the area. So we plugged the downtown area of Baroda into the GPS, and figured we would find wineries in the GPS after we got there. We drove across some of the most scenic areas we have seen yet. Rolling hills, farm houses, it was all very pretty. Until we got to downtown Baroda.

Baroda, has been hit REALLY hard by the downturn in the economy. The downtown was only about 2 or 3 blocks long to start with, and in that space, was probably about 3 businesses that appeared to still be open. We quickly plugged in the wineries, and headed for the first one.

• Domaine Berrien: We were extremely surprised to find that the parking lot was almost completely full. The tasting room was no different. Not having seen very many people since we had gotten into town, this was more than a small shock.
• Lemon Creek Winery: As we drove up to this tasting room, the crowds were just as large. Apparently wine tasting is one of the most popular things to do in southwest Michigan.
  
• Our favorite, by far, was Round Barn Winery/Brewery/Distillery. We had tasted back at Free Run Cellars, which is owned by the same group, so we could try them for free. Great choice. Not only do they make a few solid wines, but they also make a very smooth vodka, and some very good beers as well.
  

We knew coming into our day that we would need to check our pre-conceived notions about wine if we were to enjoy this at all. We'd lived and worked in the Sonoma Valley, and drank more than our fair share of wine. That said, the wines we tried were fair, but not great overall. The scenery we saw while driving definitely made the trip that much better. We're looking forward to doing some more exploring soon.

Local Cuisine of South Haven

We've been here for 3 full weeks, and have had time to get a feel for our dining options here in Michigan.

• Italian, not surprisingly, is HUGE here. There are only about 40 or so places to get food here in South Haven (which includes places like McDonald's and Taco Bell), and around 10 of them are Italian restaurants. We ate at one of the Italian restaurants near our house, and it was excellent. We would definitely go back there again, and they also offer gelato as well!
• Feeling a bit more ambitious, we tried the only Mexican restaurant in town. We've lived in a few different areas where Mexican is one of the dominant cuisines, so we feel pretty good that we can tell good Mexican food from bad. This was really, really good Mexican food.
• After having such a good experience with the Mexican food, I figured it was time to try what passed for Chinese food. MISTAKE. It's a good thing we didn't try this before the Mexican food. It was, quite honestly, the worst Chinese food we have ever had. The only food that was tasty at all, unfortunately, was the fried foods. Ugh.
• We also had pizza this week, and could definitely tell we were near Chicago. On one side of the pizza, sausage and mushrooms. On the other, pepperoni and green olives, my wife's favorite. Throw in that the pizza was cut into squares rather than slices, and it definitely reminded me of my favorite pizzeria in Chicago.

I think what we've learned is that we need to remember where we are. Certain foods are just not very likely to be good in certain areas. We still will have to be ambitious from time to time, but also wary as well.