Vacation's over....

.... for now, anyway.  We've spent the last week catching up with everything here.  Even though it didn't rain while we were away, the grass was still growing. And growing. Plus the hay-guy came to cut and rake and bale, and now we have huge round hay-bales in our fields.  The weeds needed to be pulled, the grass needed to be mowed, and there's always the laundry, which never takes a vacation.

I've been reading some of the books I bought in the cities we visited........ I brought some books home for our friends who took care of our cats and the flowerbeds while we were gone.  It's hotter here than it was in Florida and South Carolina, but without the humidity of those two states, we're just feeling the heat now, not the soggy breathless air that we had in the southeast.

I was consistently awed by the live oak trees.... all of them dripping with Spanish moss. One street after the other, filled with these massive trees that have witnessed centuries of history.  There was one very special tree called The Angel Oak... the most massive tree I think we'd ever seen............ tucked away in a protected area because this particular tree is most likely the oldest in the east, maybe the oldest in the country.  We got to The Angel Oak after the park had closed for the day, but we were able to see the tree through the chain-link fence that's all around the park. 

The history of South Carolina is alive and well, and very much respected.  In the midst of a small shopping center with grocery stores and restaurants, there was a green island of grass which had been fenced-in and recently tended. Inside the fence were about a dozen very old tomb-stones.  My guess is that when they cleared that land for the stores and the parking lots, they discovered an old cemetery tucked into the middle of the woods.  The builders managed to carve out that green island of grave markers, fence them all in, and it became this very small and peaceful oasis of green in the middle of asphalt parking spaces.

We're still talking about "The Athens Restaurant" on James Island in South Carolina.  How I wish they were here in the Hill Country. It was like saying goodbye to family when we walked out the door for the last time.

I liked the no-littering signs in South Carolina.... they said "Take Pride -- Don't Litter."   And the signs work there... we saw very little tossed-out-of-the-car items along the roads.  That's the way it used to be here in Texas.... but I don't think the "Don't Mess With Texas" non-littering signs work anymore in this state.  Seems to me that more people are just littering more and more. (And litter is one thing that no one needs 'more' of.)

As always, our vacation was a very well-planned tour of the cities and towns we visited, with my husband doing the research and reservations before we left.  We always leave home with a calculated list of places to go, things to do...... there is never a "What do we do now?" moment.

And, as always... no matter where we go, it's great to be back home....... after a certain number of days, you get to miss your own bed...... and the cats........ But honestly, what I wouldn't do for another meal from "The Athens.................."