Valentine's Day in Charleston, SC

Hey guys -

It's sad that this is my first blog post of 2018, but between me being sick and Glenn traveling a lot for work, we haven't been out and about too much. While I was on prednisone, I swapped my daily walk for a daily nap, and so have had nothing photo-worthy to share.

But, for Valentine's Day weekend, Glenn surprised me with a trip to Charleston. I had been there when I was a kid, and so had Glenn, but we didn't remember much.

It is a beautiful historic town with old houses, gas street lights and cobblestone streets. It's become much more commercialized than I remember too, though, with endless blocks of stores.

We stayed at the Francis Marion Hotel, which is right in the middle of the historic district.

Across the street, some 60,000 people had converged for their first event of the tourist season, SEWE, which stands for the Southeastern Wildlife Expo. This meant a lot of people who liked animals, or perhaps, liked to shoot animals.  There were a lot of folks in camo.

Anyway, the first night, we went to Hal's Chop House, a five star restaurant where we just walked in and lucked into two seats at the bar. Later, we were saying we could have probably sold them for $5000 a piece. We had steaks and were entertained by a piano and violin duo. The food was delicious!

Saturday, we walked through the historic district, got amazing massages at the hotel spa, and later took a horse-drawn carriage ride that was fun and educational. Sadly, it was cloudy and cool for most of the day, so our pics are less than vibrant. Oh well, folks. Luckily for you, this blog is free.

We walked to Rainbow Row, so named for the multi-colored houses.

We were told by the carriage driver that the houses were originally all crammed together like this (and delineated by paint color) so the British could pack as many people in as possible for more taxes. Unfortunately, later, when there were fires, this system ensured that everyone's house burned down more or less simultaneously, because there were no gaps to stop the fires from spreading.

Later, after the fires, people rebuilt their houses sideways on their lots to prevent this problem. For example:

Also, due to the hot summers and no AC, people built their porches to face South or West to catch any breezes coming off the water.

You'll see many of the porches have privacy doors on the side. They said that was because people dressed in heavy wool suits and dresses during the day, and when they came home, they would sit on the porch in cooler undergarments, and lock the privacy door if they were not properly attired for visitors.

Ok, so now, in no particular order, a bunch of pics.

Gas lanterns

The little front gardens and window boxes were so pretty. Often there were little "secret" gardens behind the homes.

Pretty sure this had been the Mayor's House

Gary, our Belgium Quarter Horse for the day, was not particular interested in being in our selfie.

This is the historic market (below), a building that goes on forever with stalls (similar to one in New Orleans) where people sell local crafts like sweetwater grass baskets, etc.

And, of course, no trip to Charleston would be complete without a stop at the Pounce Cat Cafe and Wine Bar, where you pay to pet kitty cats. Alas, we were there before they were open.

Saturday night, Glenn took me to a lovely restaurant called 82 Queen, where we ate outside under a giant magnolia tree.

The next day we flew back home.

Charleston was lovely. Unfortunately, Glenn had to start traveling again on Tuesday - heading to Atlanta first and then Richmond. I got a cold or something shortly after getting back home, but its been beautiful in Tampa - record highs around 85 degrees. Deuce and I have spent some time getting some sun.

So that's it for us. Hope you are all doing well and I hope to have more photo-worthy adventures soon!

One more post before the end of the year!

Hey Everybody -

I've been dismal at blogging this year, but here's hoping 2018 is a better year all the way around.

Anyway, we have not been on too many recent adventures, but we're having a nice, lazy New Year's weekend at home, and I figured I would report in.

Let's see - going back earlier in the month, we met up with Chad and Lisha for Sunday brunch at Parts of Paris and then walked down to the pier. We saw some manatees and a dolphin but I can't find any good pics to share of that, so here's us. It's hot.

Despite the summery temps, Glenn did a spectacular job setting up our outside Xmas lights and is the envy of the neighborhood.

And we got a live tree which we decorated, and temps even dipped down to the point of justifying a fire.

Sadly, we had to take the tree down early - a couple nights ago, as it was infested with baby praying mantises. I wish I was kidding. I don't mind a baby praying mantis, but I don't particularly want hundreds of them in my living room.

Anyway, before Christmas we went to my company's holiday party, which I have no pics of, but it was fine. Actually, our web designer, Eugene, illustrated our Roger West Christmas card this year, so here is that. (I'm the first person in the second row in case you couldn't tell.)

 We also went to a party at a friend's house who is also friends with Chad and Lisha.

Aren't we adorable? We had another fun night at their place recently (again no pics) and Glenn and Chad have been meeting up to play disc golf a few times.

Did I mention that Glenn has been off for weeks? He's turning into a hobo. He did, however, take an 18-mile bike ride the other day and saw a bunch of dolphins.

Meanwhile, while Glenn has more days off than he knows what to do with, I work for Mr. Scrooge, who only gave us Christmas day off and didn't even let us leave early the Friday before. Here's my car in the parking lot - I'm guessing other people got to leave early.

Anyway, we tried to recapture some Christmas spirit by going to A Victorian Christmas Stroll at Tampa's Henry Plant museum. The museum used to be the Tampa Hotel and is famous for its metal spires. It's a nice building but the stroll cost $15 a piece and we were in and out of there in about 10 minutes, so not really worth the cost of admission.

Still, however, are a few pics.

We also managed to get a walk in on Bayshore later, where Deuce agreed to pose by a sign (I was hiding in the back).

Last night, on my way home from work, I was treated to a beautiful sunset over the Courtney Campbell Causeway. I was not able to get a good pic, but one of my fellow commuters did and posted this online, so I'm stealing it.

Here's to a happy and healthy 2018!

Start Spreading the News...

Hey Guys -

Earlier this week, we had a whirlwind trip to NYC (planned by my amazing husband for my birthday!).

We flew in on Monday evening, checked in to the cute Blakely boutique hotel in Midtown Manhattan, and then walked to dinner at Maestro's Steakhouse (thanks Mom and Dad for funding the meal!). The food was amazing, and because our wine was delayed in getting to the table, they gave us a free shrimp cocktail that came in a glass and silver bowl packed in dry ice so it was smoking dramatically when they brought it to us.

Tuesday, we spent the morning exploring Central Park. It's really a beautiful oasis in the middle of the city.

The weather, as you can see, was beautiful, which was nice because there was a Tropical Storm sitting over Tampa - it rained every day we were gone.

Giant bubbles!

We walked around the lake, the Loeb Boat House, and then on to the reservoir. They were filming something here so made us go back the way we came.

After a long walk, we decided to have an early lunch at the iconic Tavern on the Green. This New York landmark opened in 1934, briefly closed in 2009, and then was completely restored and reopened.

I literally had the best lunch of my life here. They had a three-course special for NYC Restaurant Week. I got a refreshing watermelon salad, roasted salmon with lime butter sauce, and for dessert, strawberry cheesecake with a GLUTEN FREE lemon cookie crust. Wooo! (Don't judge...it was my birthday celebration!)

We took it easy for the rest of the afternoon, and then headed out to dinner on Broadway at a place we had been to before - Nizza, which has great gluten free Italian food. Then we headed to Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theater.

Guys, all I can say is the show totally lived up to the hype. Hands down the best show I've ever seen. It was smart, it was funny, it was emotional. I laughed and cried. The music was amazing. The fact that a lot of it was sort of done as a rap - spoken rhyme - actually made it easier to understand. The choreography was stunning. The whole thing was just WOW.

While the guy who played Hamilton was great, Glenn and I agreed that the guy who played Aaron Burr kinda stole the show.

Dad, Glenn was so glad that he read the book on Alexander Hamilton that you recommended. He truly had a crazy life story - it was hard to believe it was true, and they really covered most of it in the show.

So anyway, folks, that's it. The next morning we had a sickening and terrifying cab ride back to the shittiest airport on earth (LaGuardia) and headed home. I should mention that I got on the plane, fell asleep for an hour, and woke up to discover that we were still on the tarmac and hadn't taken off yet.

Booooo.

We're home now, and it is a beautiful sunny day in Tampa Bay. (Scorching hot with 1000% humidity, but who's complaining?) We're spending a relaxing day at home.

By the way - I did write a blog post for work about our Montana trip. It's probably repetitive for you guys, but if you'd like to see it, here you go:
https://www.rogerwest.com/strategy/take-a-hike/

Also, just for fun, here's a pic of Deucie hard at work at daycare:

At least for me, that should be it for traveling for a while, but we'll try to find more blog-worthy things to do around here. Love you guys!