Road Trip, Family Vacation, and Summer Camp - by Anna

     Guys, I'm home. It is the most amazing feeling. Reason why: I've been gone for the past month. (If you keep up with my other blog, you would know this.) We went on a very fun, long road trip around the country.

     First off, we drove to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That took about the first week and a half. The second week was family vacation in Myrtle Beach. My maternal grandparents get all of my mom's side of the family together every two years for about a week some place. This year was in Myrtle Beach. The next week was summer camp week. I went with my cousins church (in Florida) and that was a blast! Then this final week has been driving back home. And here we are!

     As I mentioned in the introduction, you probably know a lot more about this trip if you've been reading my other blog, so some of this might be review, but I am going to go a lot more in depth with less pictures (because pictures are a pain, lemme tell you). So! Let's go...

Road Trip: Part One

     We left June 20th at six in the morning, headed to Pheonix, where Dad was on a work trip.We picked him up around 1, and then it was a straight drive for El Paso, Texas. Fun thing, that's where I got my first peak of Mexico! Juarez, Mexico, to be exact. It's right beside El Paso.

     The 21st involved one of the big stops on the road trip: Carlsbad Caverns. It was very different from Mammoth Caves (which we visited it 2014), and I really liked it! So big and beautiful. A lot of driving this day, as well.

     June 22nd was Fredricksburg, Texas (which is a German settlement and had a lot of interesting history and cool places). Then to San Antonio to visit the Alamo! That's been an item on my bucket list for quite a while, and it was really cool. The fortress that the famous battle was in was a lot bigger than I had imagined it, so that was interesting. Also - I had my last In-n-Out until last Saturday.

     June 23rd was Waco day. If you watch HGTV, you probably know about the show Fixer Upper. We went to their Silos place in Waco, got some cupcakes at their stores, and took a few pictures. The place was packed. Then we went to the Texas Forestry Museum in Lufkin, Texas. That was really well done, super fun and interesting to walk through. They had an epic caboose in the back that we played in. I felt like a kid again. :)

     On the 24th, we went to the Cane River Creole National Historic Park (a mouthful, isn't it?). That was really interesting. Turns out that we know some people who go to our church whose ancestors used to live there or work there in some capacity. We also visited an estate outside of Natchez, Mississippi called Melrose. It was a beautiful house. And I got another interesting experience - I got bitten by fire ants. It was just great. (Note the sarcasm.)

     June 25th was Vicksburg. That was really cool. It was rainy and foggy, and everything was so green and beautiful. It was hard to picture a battle when everything was so calm and pretty. Did you know that they dug a lot of trenches at Vicksburg? It was kinda like one of the World Wars looking at the trench layouts and stuff (only a lot less of a 'dead man's land' kind of idea).

     On the 26th, we visited the site of yet another HGTV show called Home Town. It's a newer show, but it has a Fixer Upper feel to it. They're stationed in Laurel, Mississippi, and they own a little store with two other couples. We also visited Selma, where we went to a museum that talked about the Selma to Montgomery march and all the different things associated with that. It was fascinating. 

     June 27th was Montgomery, Alabama, where we toured Martin Luther's home while he was there. Then we went to the place where the Tuskegee Airmen trained, and that was also really cool. Finally, we went to Andersonville prison, which was a Confederate prison during the Civil War.

     June 28th was a lot of Georgia... We went to Hofwil-Broadfield in Georgia and then we went to a place (blanking on the name) where one of the first Georgia settlers lived. Learning more about Georgia's history was pretty interesting.

     On the 29th, we went to a tea plantation (the only working, commercial one in the U.S.), an archaeological dig of an old colonial town, and then we walked around downtown Charleston. The tea plantation was really interesting - probably in the top ten of places we visited on the trip.

     June 30th was Fort Sumter, which was really cool! It was a really big fort in it's heyday. We got to see the flag being raised over it, which was cool. It was raining a lot though, which made it kinda hard to walk around. Next we drove up to Florence, South Carolina. 

Family Vacation and Summer Camp

     Family vacation was from July 1st to July 7th. Lots of fun... If you want to know more about that and summer camp, read this life update post I did on my other blog.

     Summer camp was really great! If you want to listen to the sermons, this link has them. It has all the student ministries sermons on it, too, so the further you get from July 14th, the more you'll have to scroll through to get a look at all of them.

     Like I said in my other post, I'll probably be revisiting some of this stuff at some point in the future, but for now, that's all you're going to get! :)

Road Trip: Part Two

     I really don't remember a whole bunch about this half of the trip. I wasn't feeling too great, and it was really quick compared to our other half. Plus, I didn't write about it in my journal, so there goes any chance I have of remembering it at any point in the future. XD

     We did visit places like Tallgrass Prarie National Preserve, Ulysses S. Grant's home, Lincoln's home in Springfield, Bandelier National Monument, the Bradberry Science Museum, and other places. There were some interesting things I learned, despite not feeling very well. 

     And that brings to a close my little road trip summary! It's been a crazy (and fun) month, and I am so ready to get back into a rhythm. And see all my friends. The thought of going to church and being surrounded with faces I know is amazing right now. :)

     Then we start school in two (ish) weeks! (Internal freak out/so excited.) I'm ready, but I also wish we had a few more weeks of summer. By the time we start, I will be very much ready. I want something to do with myself. :)

      Well, I hope that was at least semi interesting, and I'll see you in three weeks! Don't forget to come back next week for another post... (Hopefully. This blog has been kinda run down the past few weeks. That's probably mostly my fault. I'm a bit of a taskmaster around here, and haven't been the past few weeks.)

~Anna