Return to the Tallulah Gorge
travel
Returning Home
We drove over the Lions Bridge one last time today heading home. That’s the only picture from the day.
That and K’s cute obsession with taking pictures of backflow preventers that are so different from what she’s used to working with Greenville Water. “Why are they all out out of the ground?” was a common question. No one in the car could answer.
St. Augustine 2024 Day 1
Morning
The shells on the beach just at the edge of the surf were visible for only a few moments before the white bubbles and turbulence hid them again.
In the brief time I could clearly see them in the shallow water, it was obvious most of the shells were only fragments, often smaller than the smallest coins, slivers well on their way to becoming grains of sand. Every now and then, a shard would catch my eye, and I would think, “I might try to grab that one” just before incoming wave hid them once again.
By then it was too late: once the water cleared up, the tide would have tkane the shard so far away from its original position that finding it was all but impossible. Another might catch my eye, but then the process would simply repeat itself.
To get a shell required calm and patience followed by a paradoxical ability to move quickly when needed. Hesitation meant the loss of the moment. In some ways, that’s a metaphor for live in general for many people. Everything is about getting the right moment, and when that fails, increased stress is the outcome.
Yet the older I get, the more I realize the error in living like that and the unnecessary stress it causes. Yes, I might not get that exact shell that I wanted, but there were plenty of other shells that were just as lovely, often more so.
Evening
In the evening, after we’d spent a few hours back at the Airbnb, after we’d spent some time downtown and had dinner, we headed back to the beach.
I took a few pictures:
and the Boy took a few pictures:
A short walk to end a lovely day.
And we got home, and I saw the fantastic news from the Tour de France: Mark Cavendish got his record-breaking 35th stage win, assuring him the historic title “The Greatest Sprinter of All Time!”
Almost as enjoyable as watching the win itself was seeing the other riders’ reaction to the amazing win.
Previous First Day
Tampa to St. Augustine via Gainesville
We left our lovely hotel room with an incredible view to head to St. Augustine for the second half of our Florida vacation. It’s the second time we’ve been to St. Augustine as a family, the third time for the kids and me. That is to say, we really like St. Augustine.
Along the way, we made perhaps the most important stop of the whole week: a few hours in Gainesville. What’s so special about Gainesville? Well, it has a fantastic Korean restaurant, as we discovered for lunch. And rocker Tom Petty is a Gainesville native. But neither of those was the real reason we went to Gainesville. Our primary motivation has to do with our daughter, who is going to college in about a year. Going to college in about a year. Her number one choice of colleges: University of Florida, which is located in — guess — Gainesville. She wants to study bio-engineering, and Florida University has one of the best programs in the nation for that.
So we stopped by for a tour of the university. I tried not to talk too much or take too many pictures. The Girl remained relatively quiet during the tour. But we came away with a positive impression: the parents are happy with some of the safety programs the university implements; the Girl is happy with the college as a whole, especially one of the enormous chemistry labs we got to take a peek at.
Afterward, we headed to St. Augustine and our lovely Airbnb spot: a bungalow in an absolutely beautiful part of town. Walk to the end of the street, and this is the street we see:
Yes, that’s a peacock taking a stroll down a Live-Oak-lined street. It’s positively bajkowy.
Lovely houses as well. And the peacock? They’re from Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, an ethnographic museum literally at the end of our street.
We weren’t planning on visiting any real attractions while in St. Augustine, but since it’s just down the road, we’re thinking we might. We’ll definitely visit the Cuban coffee cafe down the street.
A games night rounded out our evening: our Airbnb has several entertainment options, including a ping pong table. Poor K gets knocked around in board games, card games, and our front-yard badminton games, but she really knows how to play ping pong.
“Don’t worry,” she assured us, “I’ll take it easy on you.” And proceeded to trounce us all one after another, beer in hand.
St. Petersburg Day 2
St. Petersburg Day 1
Is this crazy
There is no way I am posting tonight — I prepared this last night because at the normal time I’d be getting something ready for this silly site, I’ll be somewhere in the midst of this insanity…
Hel
First Day 2024
Hilton Head Day 2
We’ve had that model plane for — I don’t even know how long. Over a year. Maybe more.
“At some point, we’ll put it together,” I assured E, and myself.
And so as we were packing for this end-of-the-year trip, we had the idea that we could take the model and put it together here, in Hilton Head. Most of it, though, the Boy did himself. I wanted to be involved, but I also wanted him to have the experience of assembling it alone. I helped when he requested it.
This morning, he finished it.
In the afternoon, a stop at Piggly Wiggly — they still exist!
And in the evening, a walk on the beach,
some time in the hot tub,
and games in the condo.
Hilton Head Day 1
We started the day with a long sleep — not a single alarm clock set in the entire condominium. None. Not a FitBit set to gently jingle one awake; not a phone set to start chirping, screaming, or whatever alarms various family members use to drag themselves out of bed. Nothing.
First up, a walk on the beach just beside our complex. It’s technically not on the ocean but rather on the sound that separates Hilton Head from St. Helena Island and Parris Island just to the northeast of us.
The plan was to have an afternoon walk on Hilton Head’s main beach in the afternoon after exploring the downtown area, but K so fell in love with the marshy beach that she wanted to return after a short walk on the main tourist beach.
But we’ll get to that later.
One of the things Hilton Head is famous for is its wealth, and there’s no lack of that around us. The house just to the south of our complex is a 10,000 square foot beast that is valued, according to Zillow, at $4.5 million. Probably someone’s second home at that.
This kind of conspicuous wealth — I just don’t understand it. It screams lack of confidence in one’s own being. The only way I can feel great about myself is by showing off how much wealth I have. That’s how I’ve already seen it.
But that was neither here nor there as the Boy explored the shoreline (with the Girl still asleep in the condo), discovering at least a dozen horseshoe crab shells.
The place we’re renting is in a somewhat-dated but still lovely complex that, according to one resident we spoke with, is 50% owned and 50% rented. There are tennis courts (used, as far as we can tell, primarily for pickleball), an outdoor pool, an indoor pool, a jacuzzi, a sauna — a regular spa.
There’s even an odd, enclosed but unheated porch area. Not sure how comfortable that might be in the heat of the summer, but in the winter, all one needs is a blanket or jacket and it’s fine out there.
After our post-walk coffee and cake, we went downtown to do a little shopping. Not what I love doing, but I made it through the whole afternoon without even a peep of protest at the suggestion, “Let’s go into this store!”
The Girl was shopping for a birthday present for one of her friends; K was shopping for a dress for the Girl.
In the end, they both walked away happy, and I even got something: a bottle of Ghost Pepper and garlic hot sauce, locally made.
“Is it hot?” the Boy asked after I sampled a bit in the store.
“It’s definitely warm.”
After shopping, it was time for lunch: Babcia’s first time having sushi. The meal came with miso soup — another first — which Babcia liked but suggested: “it could use some potatoes.”
After lunch, we headed to the main beach. At first, K was in love with it: “The changing rooms, the showers — so charming!” But the beach itself — nothing much, she proclaimed.
So in the end, we just headed back to our little beach to see the sunset colors.
Cracker Stop
On the way to Hilton Head this evening, we stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel. It’s not a place we ever go to on our own, but when someone from Poland is here—well, they have to try good old fashioned greens.
Warszawa Centralna
Looking at some old pictures, I found a shot of Warszawa Centralna train station from about 2002. It was an exterior night shot, and there was little indication of what the station looked like inside. What it looks like now is vaguely similar, but there have been so many renovations and little additions that it doesn’t look like the Warsawa Centralna I remember from the mid-90s.
So I turned to Google: “warszawa centralna lata 90.” Instantly, there popped up a picture that looked almost just like it did in the mid-90s. According to the credits, it’s from 1991, but the only real difference I see is in the ticket windows: the numbers were blue as I recall.
But that mass of people in front of the ticket window, those lines that were not lines, that bundle of confusion — that is identical. How many times did I stand there stressing about getting a ticket on time, stressing about getting a ticket with reserved seating (I rode back to Krakow many times on a “standing” ticket, which meant I had to try my best luck at finding an empty seat), stressing about whether I was actually in the line or not, and once, stressing about the amount of money I had (did I have enough to get me back to my humble village?) — just stressing.
Washington Return
D. C. Sightseeing
Washington Arrival
Isle of Palms 2023
My Evening…
Taking the Girl and her friend to a concert in Atlanta. Why? Good question. Mainly because I said I would…
Heading Out
Monday morning, K and I headed out for a bit of kayaking on the lake before the sun made it impossibly uncomfortable. The kids were (almost) all asleep, our hosts drinking coffee on the front porch, and my girl wanted to go kayaking. What else was there to do?
Departure
The raccoons have left, heading back to New Jersey to catch a flight Saturday back to Krakow.
It’s so very quiet…
