South Carolina (before the Total Eclipse)!

I already wrote about the day of the total eclipse and now I'll write about the rest of the weekend.

We got to our hotel in South Carolina late on Saturday night. We woke up the next morning and went to 1-hour of church in Gaffney, SC (the town we were staying in.) Then we visited the Battle of Kings Mountain Battlefield.

We ate lunch on a bench outside the visitor's center and then went in and watched a video about the battle.

The Battle of Kings Mountain was fought during the Revolutionary War and is on the border of South Carolina and North Carolina. The battle was the first major victory for the patriots and a turning point in the war.

There was a paved trail around the battlefield with markers along the way telling us things that happened at that spot. It was very interesting!

(And can I just say that I was really happy for the shady parts of the trail because it was super hot and humid that day?!)

President Hoover stood at this spot and addressed thousands of people in commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the battle.

This statue is in memory of the patriotic Americans who participated in the Battle of Kings Mountain (according to the sign in the picture below.)

Somewhere near this spot is where the battle was won!

This memorial was in commemoration of Colonel Patrick Ferguson. Although he was a British officer, he served with honor and distinction and was killed during the battle.

After the battlefield, we went to Kings Mountain State Park, which was right next to the battlefield.

The state park had a nice historic area we could walk around. They called it a living history area. Historians believe there might have been a farm here so they set up what life might have been like on the farm in the early 1800s.

A cotton mill.

The area was beautiful!

I really liked this living history area! I thought there would be people dressed in period costume but there weren't and that's okay.

After Kings Mountain State Park, it was time to head back to the town we were staying in and find a place to eat dinner. Before we ate, though, we had to stop at the Peachoid.

This was in the town we were staying in and both Heather and I thought it was pretty dang awesome! It was just so random and awesome!

Apparently the Peachoid won the Steel Tank of the Year in 1981. (Who knew they had such contests?! I know I didn't until I saw this sign.)

After the awesomeness of the Peachoid, we went back to our hotel and looked up places to eat nearby. We found this place within walking distance of our hotel and ate there!

I got chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and fried okra. I was trying to go as Southern as possible. ;)

Overall we had an awesome day in South Carolina and I learned a lot! And the next day was the total eclipse which I already wrote about in another blogpost.

Looking to the Sky!

Since seeing the solar eclipse in totality, I've become slightly obsessed with celestial events. :)

I've looked up when the next total solar eclipses will be and I keep on thinking that I might actually try to go to either the one on July 2, 2019 or December 4, 2020 both going through parts of Chile and Argentina. (The likelihood of that actually happening is very very slim but a girl can dream, right?) ;) But I will definitely be going to the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024 when it'll be visible on the North American continent again. :)

I'd also totally like to see a total lunar eclipse. Although the next total lunar eclipse is not too far in the future (January 31, 2018), I will not be making it to that one. This next total lunar eclipse will be visible in the Northwest USA and Canada as well as other parts of the world. I've found this awesome website that has some really good information about solar and lunar eclipses.
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/

This past Friday evening, I heard that it might be possible to see the Aurora Borealis in Virginia if you go far enough away from city lights. The night was clear but the moon was bright (which could make it harder to see the lights with the moon so bright). But at 11 pm that night, I decided to drive north to get away from the city lights and search for the Northern Lights. Alas I did not see them, but I did see a shooting star on my way home.

Although I've seen a few shooting stars before, I've never seen a meteor shower.  I would really like to see a meteor shower someday and I found out that the next one will be in the early morning of October 21 or 22 and I'm totally going to make sure I see it (as long as the weather allows).

Although I've always been at least a little interested in celestial events, it's never been to this extent before that I would go on a searching for the Aurora Borealis adventure or make sure I see a meteor shower.

I am so glad that I went to South Carolina to see the eclipse in totality and if anyone would like to join me on any of my future looking to the sky adventures, I'd be happy for you to join me! :)

Total Solar Eclipse!

This past weekend, I went to South Carolina to see the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21! And it was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had!!!

I made a weekend of it, but for now, I just want to talk about the day of the eclipse. (I'll write about the rest of the weekend in another blogpost.)

A friend from work, Heather, joined me on this adventure. We had talked about the night before where we wanted to see the eclipse and when we wanted to be there by. (Our hotel was not in the path of totality, so we had to drive about 50 miles to get into the path).

We woke up bright and early to give ourselves plenty of time to get to our chosen destination. Since we left before breakfast was available at our hotel, we looked up donut places in the city we were staying in. We found Sunny's Donuts just a couple of miles down the road and made that our breakfast that morning and can I just say how delicious my apple fritter was?! It was seriously so good! :)

Paris Mountain State Park just outside Greenville, South Carolina was our chosen place to watch the eclipse. We were worried about traffic getting into the path of totality as well as finding a good spot to watch the eclipse so we got there right when the park opened at 8. We got there and set up the blanket and chair that I had brought and then we had about 5 hours to kill.

Since we were in a state park, what else could we do but hike?! So hiking was what we did and it was awesome! It was beautiful! It was super hot and humid, but the scenery was amazing!

Lake Placid Trail. It was about a mile around and had pretty awesome scenery!

A dam at one end of Lake Placid! (When you see this picture of me, remember it was already hot and humid even though it was only about 8:30 in the morning.) ;)

Toward the end of the Lake Placid trail was a kind of rickety bridge and I decided I needed a picture of my feet on it. ;)

Mountain Creek Trail! There was an outdoor ampitheater along this trail and I thought it would be pretty cool to see a concert or something there.

Of course I had to get on stage and pretend I was performing. :)

I think this might be part of the Sulphur Springs trail but it might actually still be part of the Mountain Creek trail. I don't remember for sure. The Mountain Creek trail eventually turned into the Sulphur Springs trail. We hiked all of the Mountain Creek trail but not all of the Sulphur Springs one.

We hiked for about 3 hours and then we started walking back to the ballfield where we would watch the eclipse from and eat lunch and prepare for the eclipse to start. :)

Just seeing the partial eclipse was pretty dang cool. It was interesting to notice as the eclipse was getting closer and closer to totality, how the lighting changed around us (almost like a filter on my eyes or like I had sunglasses on when I didn't) as well as the temperature dropping. But it was also interesting to note how even when the eclipse got down to just a sliver or the diamond ring phase, how much light it still emitted.

Sometimes there were clouds that would come and cover the sun when it was still during partial and it would actually make it look really cool when we could still see the sun through the clouds. Even though the clouds made it look cool, we also worried a bit about the clouds being there during totality, but thankfully the sky was clear for that! :)

The total eclipse happened and it was amaaaazzzing! We could take off the eclipse glasses and look at the sun with our natural eyes without going blind. The moon (just for a moment) looked so big covering the sun except for the corona. The sky turned to dusk, I saw one star, the temperature dropped significantly.

People were cheering and clapping and I got goosebumps. I also had tears welling up in my eyes. I loved it all! It was so cool!

This picture was taken at 2:39 PM about a minute into totality!

We stayed at the park until the eclipse was officially over. It was pretty dang awesome!

On our way home, we hit traffic (which we were not surprised about). The gps took us on back roads for about 60 miles (because it was faster than getting on the freeway). I actually didn't mind seeing the countryside of South Carolina. It was beautiful!

Eventually we did have to get on the freeway, and it was really slow so we ended up stopping in Kannapolis, NC to sleep and let the traffic die down. We left early the next morning to drive the rest of the way home and thankfully had no problems with traffic.

The total eclipse is an experience I'll never forget! It was seriously so cool! If you ever get a chance to see a solar eclipse in totality, I highly recommend it. It was worth the time, money, traffic and heat and humidity to see it! :)

Shakespeare Theater!

Every year, my friend, Diana, organizes a group of her friends to carpool to Staunton, VA to see two shows at the Shakespeare theater located there. This year the two shows were Much Ado About Nothing and Loves Labours Lost.

Since I had seen Much Ado About Nothing on stage a few years ago, I decided to just go to Loves Labours Lost (the evening show).

I drove separately with my friend, Melinda. We stopped at the Shenandoah Heritage Market near Harrisonburg, VA on our way to Staunton. The market is fun to look around! It has different stores within the building. There is beautiful antique furniture, handmade Amish quilts and aprons and other such things, homemade jams, salsa, and syrups, kitchen items, antiques, fudge etc.  I may or may not have bought a few items there. :)

After the market, our next stop was the glass factory in Staunton. We were hoping to see some live glass blowing while there, but alas we were too late in the day for that. But we got to walk around and see all of the cool glass creations for sale. There were some pretty spectacular glass pieces!

After we were done with the glass factory, we found a used bookstore nearby and had fun browsing the books. Both of us probably bought something here. How could we not?! :)

Whenever Diana sets up this Staunton Saturday, we always have a picnic dinner at a park in Staunton in between shows. Melinda and I met them at the park and then it was time for the show.

I love this theater! I've gone to this gathering every year since I've moved here, so 7 times. It's awesome! The theater is small and cozy, the actors are amazing and talented, and the company is great!

Loves Labours Lost was entertaining. Sometimes I had a hard time understanding (basically Shakespeare in general is hard for me to understand sometimes), but overall I really liked it and laughed a lot!

Most of our group!

Thanks Diana for putting this together and thanks Melinda for carpooling with me!

Summer Happenings!

It's August already. How the heck did that happen?! Time seems to move so fast sometimes! Here are some happenings in my life this summer.

I called Lara up one Saturday morning to see if they were going on a hike that day. I was happy that they were and I joined them on their hike from Carderock to Great Falls and back (about 7 miles round trip). :) It was a beautiful day this day!

Back in 2010, I started making collages of the pictures I had from my semester at the BYU Jerusalem Center, but I didn't do anything with them. They just sat in my google photos and I never looked at them. That is until this summer when I finally decided to do something with the photos.

I used mixbook.com and put my already made collages plus a bunch of pictures I hadn't made into collages yet into a photobook. I am really pleased with the way the book turned out! It's good quality and I love having the book on the coffee table in my living room where I can look at it whenever I want (and I do look at it often). :)

I went to the County Fair at the beginning of the summer with two friends. What else do you do at a fair but eat lots of food?! :) I didn't know you could get different flavors of corn dogs but you can. I think this one was Wisconsin Cheddar and it was delicious!

I had an ice cream cone for dessert.

 And then later in the evening, I got funnel cake and a watermelon drink (drink not pictured)! :)

 Towards the end of the evening, they had fireworks. Overall, it was a pretty fun evening with lots of food, walking, music, and fireworks.

Kristina and Tom and kiddos came into town for a week! Kristina, Lara, and I hiked from Carderock to Great Falls and back the Saturday morning they were in town. It was good sister bonding time!

 My 12 and 14 year old nephews are taller than me! Crazy! :)

Whenever a sibling from out of town comes to visit, we usually try to have a family gathering with all of us in the area. There's always a lot of laughter and fun when we all get together. :)

In this picture, we're sad that the rest of our siblings nor our parents could join us. We had a hard time being serious for this photo. :)

I went to Wolf Trap with some friends from my ward to see a live production of The Little Mermaid. I wasn't sure how they were going to portray being under the water on the stage, but they actually did a really good job with that! It was a cute production!

Recently I've been wanting to try something new. I am not an artist in the least, but I had heard good things about paint nites and how you don't have to have painting or drawing experience to enjoy it. I decided that's the new thing I wanted to try!

I found a paint nite that I was interested in and invited some friends to join me! I loved the experience! The instructor was excellent and the atmosphere fun. Painting is kind of therapeutic and I definitely want to do it again. :)

Happy Independence Day!

I love Independence Day and today was a lovely and relaxing day!

I hung out with some friends!

And we saw an awesome fireworks show near my house!

And because I love this version of this song, I wanted to share it with you all!

Happy 4th of July!