hilton head - last round

The great thing about posting vacation pics on a blog instead of forcing people to view them in person is that you, gentle reader, can get away when you are over it. :) I'm reading a Terry Pratchett book right now in which he describes a demon-controlled underworld that no longer uses instruments of torture like red-hot pokers and flaying people and disemboweling as their hellish tortures.

Instead, for instance, they put you in a hotel in Wales on an endless rainy afternoon, before the bar has opened, one channel available on the television, and one book available -- a worn romance novel with half the pages missing -- and nowhere else to go except the one movie theater in town which is showing something in French with lots of umbrellas and subtitles. Or they put you in a lecture hall with a demon showing slides of his last vacation -- over and over again:

"- this is when we were in the Fifth Circle, only you can't see where we stayed, it was just off to the left there, and this is that funny couple we met, you'd never believe it, they lived on the Icy Plains of Doom just next door to -"

So, as your self-appointed torturer showing you vacation slides, I feel a bit better about myself in that you have the option to escape.

On that note, here's the last few pics I'm going to post. Hope you have enjoyed.

Oh, and in case you didn't read it here, this is the link to the Denver Post review I wrote on "The Skin of Our Teeth." Now, on with the torture:


There really is a (fuckin' huge) alligator in the center of this pic. We were driving by and had to stop, along with all the other idiot tourists and get a pic. One dumbass redneck kid from like Georgia or Florida tossed a rock or two at it from way too close. I was hoping to get an action shot, but no luck. :)


I totally had a shot of my brother and his son crashed out, but i made too much noise getting my camera.


My sister Jill and John Alex hiding behind her in Savannah.


John and Eric with some dead guy statue in one of those squares in Savannah.


Savannah's Cotton Exchange.


A cool t-shirt store in Hilton Head with parrots chilling out in one corner.







And, for once, I actually got a shot of John Alex smiling and not trying to hide from the camera. :)

Last but not least, here's the view from the condo balcony near evening, when the dolphin-watching boat would take tourists out. You could see dolphins surfacing near the boat right there, as if they were trained dogs or something.



Thanks for putting up with all this. :)

more hilton head pics

Here we go with the cemetery pics. I don't know what it is about old cemeteries that fascinates me so much, but I could have spent hours there. Except that the sun was high, and i wanted to get back to the condo to lay out by the pool. :) Here's a few:

I like the way the light filtered down through the trees on this one.

These two below are of the grave and memorial of James Johnston, the first newspaper publisher in Georgia, so I had to get a couple shots. As someone who valued the printed word, truth, and people having more information rather than less, I'm sure he'd be proud of how teachers in Georgia are still having to fight in order to teach evolution.




In this cemetery, they also have a number of tombstones strapped to the back wall with wire. I'm assuming they were stones that were knocked over, or moved, and therefore are on the wall in order to preserve some memory of the person, even though they don't really know anymore where the mortal remains are.




And a few more. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's not the big mausoleums of famous people that fascinate me most of all; it's these tiny stones that are so weather-beaten you can't even read them anymore that draw my interest. There are all sorts of little pockets and strange corners in the cemetery that house presumably the oldest graves there, and also perhaps the most humble and forgotten people. And while it's an admittedly morbid fascination, this preoccupation with death, and the physical remnants of the living corpus that are no doubt moldering worm food by now, it does have to make you wonder: how will I be remembered? What happens in the world after I'm gone? Anyhow:





I have a few more of us out along the riverwalk, and a couple of other random ones that I will post soon. Hope you enjoyed. :)

hilton head trip pics

Hey there.

I am currently as sick as I have ever been in my life, swear to god. I've been sleeping upwards of 15 hours a day, and I'm constantly either sweating or shivering or both, and I can feel my ribs on the verge of cracking from coughing so much. So I'm having some trouble motivating to write or post entries here. Forgiveness, please.

On the other hand, before this vile virus descended upon my humble head, I managed to figure out how to dump pictures off my new phone onto my computer (with Erica's help--thanks!)

So here's some of the pics from my trip last week to South Carolina with my sis, bro, sis-in-law and nephew.

Here's Jill on the beach, the first day we went down there. It was kinda windy that day, but fun nevertheless. You can see Eric and Val in the background on the right, I think looking for their son. :)

dude, where's the sun?

And here's Val and Eric, up close, and a pic of John Alex far far away. He was hilarious: like a seagull, he would pitter-patter away from the water as the waves rolled in, afraid to get his feet wet in the ocean. Now, in the pool he's a regular dolphin, but something about the ocean...



One day we went down to the lighthouse that is perched on the end of the island, and of course we picked the windiest day ever. It was still cool, though. There are these tiny, narrow stairs that flip back on themselves over and over as you walk up to the top. People back then must have been tiny; having dozens of super-sized modern Americans passing each other on the narrow stairs made for a tight squeeze. Also, I suppose they only had like, one guy going up and down, back when it was a working lighthouse.

I managed to stay out on the walkway outside the top just long enough to snap a couple of pics.



Now this, to me, is the shit. We went down to Savannah one day, and walked around seeing all the modern bars, lol, as well as the ancient cobblestone streets, and cool little squares that are built into the city's layout. Here's the pics I took of the 'Factor's Walk' that runs behind the businesses that line the river.

I was so excited by the old cobblestone street i ran up ahead and onto one of the bridges. :)

A couple more:



More to come...