We like Hilton Head, South Carolina. We really, really like it there. We told of our first visit in this post, from 2015, and though we didn’t post about it on this blog, we made our second visit to HHI during the second week of the Covid Pandemic. Back then, our goal was to get away from the insanity and form our plan to deal with the coming restrictions. This time, it was to get away to a familiar place that would have a variety of fun things for us all. The place was empty then, and we did not expect it to be so devoid of tourists this time around… and it wasn’t. But Hilton Head Island handles tourists well, and the way we travel, we keep to ourselves pretty well, too.
At 4:00am on Saturday morning we were off in our new Sienna (the old one met an unfortunate end a month prior). Nearly 13 hours later we arrived at our place.
We wanted warmer weather than what we’d’ve gotten at home, and this was the one thing that didn’t really deliver. We had some warm(er) days, but also some overcast days. The Gates Family knows how to handle overcast days. 🙂
Lincoln got some good tennis in at Van Der Meer Tennis Academy. He showed discipline getting to bed on time each evening then rising on time to get his day started. The high school tennis season started the following week, and he was happy to hit against some good competition in the lead-up.
Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge is one of my favorite places to watch birds. It’s just so reliable, where you’re guaranteed to see real beauty on display. The sky was grey that morning, but getting there early to watch all the birds wake up and get into their nest-building, mating, feeding, and other routines was so cool.
We stayed a little ways north of Coligny Beach and a block or so back from the water, so the kids could walk or bike very easily anytime they wanted to beach it.
Grandpa Dave and Grandma Laura brought their pickleball net, so we set up a court on our street, and also took it to Chaplain Community Park where the bounces were a little more true.
And when we weren’t playing pickleball, ping pong was the next logical thing to do as a group!
Part of the fun on a trip like this is the down-time and relaxing we can get in. Lydia spent some of the rainy time coloring, with everyone getting their choice of color combos.
There may have been one day we didn’t patronize the Piggly Wiggly, but we did a very good job of not leaving unused groceries behind. It’s not a huge grocery store, but they had everything we needed to make good meals for the week, and getting in and out of their parking lot was easy.
A family of five would blow through the wallet eating out with any degree of regularity on the island, so we limited our dining out to Skull Creek Boathouse. The big variety of their menu appealed to us, and we all found dishes we could get real excited about. 5⭐️, highly recommend! For a night of “dining” in, we ordered Fat Baby’s Pizza… yum!
Marshall is quite the traveler. For one, he’s very portable. And two, he’s hilarious. Aside from his horrible sleeping in Kansas, he’s so good-with-the-flow. And now he’s a real, live Salty Dog!
It was a loooong drive home, but our kids have matured so much in their travel tolerance. Jenn and I are very proud of them in this respect. They’re going to need travel tolerance because our next stop is Hawaii, followed by Utah on the return. In an odd way, then, it seems fitting to close this post with… “Aloha!”
#Gates50States 