Days 8 and 9 - Hilton Head, SC

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Welcome to the South Carolina edition of our travel blog! We’ve been so busy having fun with Uncle Tom and Karen that no one has had the opportunity to write for a couple days.

Monday morning we woke up in our very nice hotel room in Atlanta (a two-room suite with living room and kitchen at Homewood Suites). Breakfast was complimentary so we headed down to see what they had to offer. Scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, grits and/or oatmeal, all kinds of bread and cereal, and even a waffle station!

Everyone loaded up on what they wanted for breakfast, and then we started packing back up for the long hike from Atlanta to Hilton Head in South Carolina.

The drive didn’t feature any stops other than gas or food/snacks, nothing to write home about (haha) this time. That’s the only drive that we didn’t make any interesting stops.

We arrived around 4pm at Moss Creek which is Uncle Tom and KK’s community in Hilton Head. Very close to Hilton Head National golf course which was designed by Gary Player. Hugs all around, it was so good to see them and be welcomed into their beautiful home right on the golf course.

We got the car unloaded and sat down to chat and catch up a bit. One of Diego’s main goals on this trip is to see an alligator in the wild, so we walked across the golf course to the creek on the other side of the fairway. We all looked but didn’t spot any big reptiles this time.

We had snacks at the bar top counter in the kitchen shortly after we arrived, including some incredible fresh-caught shrimp from Karen’s “guy” who has a street stand of fresh fish and veggies. We also had pepperoni, peppered salami w/mustard, and chips and salsa. All wonderful. 😊

Tom and Karen cooked up a delicious meal of steak, chicken, potato salad and a new recipe that Karen wanted to try which was utterly fabulous. It was a baked pineapple casserole with cheddar cheese and buttered Ritz crackers. You can’t imagine how good it was!

After dinner, Diego headed off for his bath and a little downtime before bed and the adults (including our recently graduated 18yo Livy) sat down in the living room to hang out and listen to music. It was so much fun, bossing Alexa around to find songs we wanted to hear and switching back and forth between YouTube and music DVD’s as everyone took a turn playing songs and live tracks. Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, Bob Jovi, and of course Queen at Wembley all made an appearance.

We wrapped up Day 1 in South Carolina around midnight and headed for bed in T&K’s beautifully appointed guest wing. They thought of everything, from whatever you can think of that you’d need in the bathroom to alarm clocks with USB chargers in the guest rooms. Just like being at home. <3

Woke up on Tuesday morning and Heather and I were the first ones out of bed (we’re early risers) we decided to make a store run to get my Cherry Coke Zero fix sorted out. I briefly glanced at Google Maps and eyeballed a Circle K that seemed to be right around the corner, so we set out for it. It’s worth mentioning at this point that Hilton Head is a bit quirky about the overall look of their community. They do not have street lights and they do not have the big gaudy signs that we have everywhere else letting you know exactly where the gas station or the McDonald’s or the WalMart are from 1000 feet away. Thus, I developed a tendency to realize I wanted to make a turn about half a second after it was too late to make the turn. This turned a five minute store run into a 45 minute mini-adventure around Hilton Head Island. It was interesting to see the dichotomy of living situations all bunched together. We saw many gated communities and several trailer parks in close proximity to each other with no middle ground...we didn’t see any “average middle-class” housing during our travels, it was one or the other. We also got an advance look at the location of our Tuesday night dinner spot!

After several miles of aimless wandering around trying to blunder my way into a gas station, I finally gave up and headed back to Moss Creek. Wouldn’t you know it...found the Circle K. As it turns out, you can get there without ever going onto the main road from the housing community. It’s about 1000 feet from the guard shack and took me 45 minutes to get us there. Oh well, it was fun.

Around 11am we set out for one of the highlights of the trip for the kids...the beach! Hilton Head has beautiful beaches and Uncle Tom and Karen very generously loaned us their beach chairs, a cooler and a basket of beach toys to play with. Uncle Tom also drove with us to make sure we found it okay, and helped us tremendously with the parking situation (no spots available at the lot so we left our car about a mile away and he ferried us back and forth.

We got ourselves all set up about 15 feet or so from the water and the kids and Heather headed right for the water to splash in the waves and get tossed around by the power of the water. I stayed on dry land, not wanting to get all sandy or salty. We quickly realized that the ride was slowly but surely coming in, and had to back up ten feet at least six times to avoid having our beach encampment soaked and floating away. Started out right by the water and ended up almost in the reeds!

We guessed that we would probably be at the beach for about 90 minutes before Diego and I started melting and really being “over it”. Thanks to a shaded beach chair for me and sand and water for Diego, we ended up staying for over three hours! We all got some sun, to say the least. Not too bad, but Karen’s cooking aloe spray with lidocaine was literally applied when we got back to Moss Creek 😉

Once everyone who went in the water had their showers, Uncle Tom took Heather and I to one of his favorite local spots (The Crazy Crab - home of nightly hermit crab races) for a couple drinks and some adult hangout time.

Once we arrived back at the house, it was time to head out for dinner at Karen’s Happy Place (Hudson’s Seafood House on the Dock). I can’t say enough good things about this restaurant. For starters, they have an outdoor bar right on the water, and you can sit and look out at the water. We saw dolphins playing, birds diving into the water to go fishing, boats passing by, and later on a beautiful sunset.

We were seated at an outdoor table after a brief wait, and ordered grilled oysters with Parmesan and garlic toast. So tasty! 18 oysters disappeared between five people very quickly...Diego opted for peeled shrimp as his appetizer.

And then...the dinner. Their food is SO GOOD. All fresh caught, they didn’t have any grouper available as it wasn’t biting this week (red snapper substituted for any grouper options on the menu). Uncle Tom ordered seafood pasta, Heather had salmon w/ broccoli, Livy and Karen ordered the special which was swordfish and sausage with sauce and veggies. I ordered the fried scallops which came with fries and broccoli, and Diego had the absolute ultimate crispy chicken sandwich. Off-menu but our server hooked him up! They used an entire piece of the chicken they use for chicken parm (huge) and put drool-worthy thick bacon on top. Just a fantastic meal, everyone was very happy with what they ordered.

After dinner we headed back to Moss Creek for a little hangout before bedtime. Everyone was tired and Diego and Heather headed off to bed early. Livy and I stayed up with Tom and Karen watching Criminal Minds (which is going in my DVR rotation when we get home) for a couple episodes before we all called it a night (not before Karen and I cracked into the Spring House salted caramel whiskey while Uncle Tom enjoyed a Fireball on the rocks. Nice nightcap before bed.

We absolutely loved Hilton Head and can’t thank Uncle Tom and KK for being wonderful hosts. They truly thought of everything a group of weary travelers could ever need or want and it was wonderful to spend some family time on the road.

Until next time! I’m writing this from 95 South on our way to Daytona Beach for a fun stop on the way to our final destination, a beautiful condo in Kissimmee where Mom and Dad will join us tomorrow. <3

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