it was the summer of accidental adventures

Last summer was great.  It was the Summer of Waterfalls.  And really, how can you top that?  

This summer I entertained lots of ideas.  The summer of treehouses.  The summer of beaches.  The summer of sitting around in your underwear and watching tv.  

Eventually the summer named itself.  This summer was the Summer of Accidental Adventures.  

What does this mean?  Simply put, it meant saying "Sure!" to almost everything.  Not sure you understand?  Here, let me explain in photos....

 Would you like to try on some of our masks for the parade down main street?  Sure.

 What about you young lady?  Sure.

 Can we rent a kayak and explore the inlet?  Sure.

 That was really fun, can we get our own kayak?  Sure.

 Admittedly, much of the summer was spent in the kayaks on Lake Greenwood.  Blue graduated into my single kayak and Violet and I took the new tandem.  One of the perks of accidental adventures is that there's no real planning involved.  We'd wake up, make waffles and while devouring them I'd ask the kids what they wanted to do that day.  If they said kayak, we'd tie the 'yaks down and drive to the lake.  If they said have a lazy day, we'd sit in our underwear all day.

 Of course every day can't be adventure day.  There were plenty of sculpture work days in the basement and those porch rails had not been painted in 5 years.  I suppose that was an adventure too, just not a particularly enjoyable one.

 And there were always cool new things to see on our adventures.  

 And when it's 500 degrees out, any sort of shade is a good place to relax.

 Little Miss Independence jumped at the chance to take Blue's paddle from him so she could "drive".  Blue would tie up to our boat and let us pull him.

 Fireworks?  Sure.

 Because who doesn't love sparklers?

 Ginger invited us up to Lake Lure one day to hang out.  Sure.

 The kids got to swim in the lake with Scarlett.

 They seemed to love it.

 Blue even had a quick nap.

 And who can complain when your view looks like this?

 The public sculpture project in Columbia was also an accidental adventure.  The kids had to tag along on our trips to take care of business there.  When we installed the anchor system, some punk kids came by and scratched their names in the concrete.  Vandals.

 Since we were in Columbia, we took a little hike along the river.

 Chick Fil A had their dress like a cow day.  You dress like a cow and you get free sandwiches.  We found this out at breakfast and the answer was, sure.  Our plans for the day included making cow shirts and horns.  Oh, and eating a free lunch.

 Some students invited us on a hike.  Sure.

 We went to Brevard and hit Moore Cove Falls.

 Then stopped by Looking Glass Falls.

 In the middle of our week in St. Augustine, we thought, why not drive to Orlando and check out Disney Springs?  Sure.

 And on the way home, you wanna stop by Savannah to walk around and eat lunch?  Sure.

 What's indoor rock climbing?  Can we do it?  Sure.

 jon was kind enough to let us use his lake place to launch the kayaks.

 We had a good day of paddling before being chased away by a storm.

 One afternoon we found a BBQ joint out in the middle of nowhere.  On the way home we saw a little parking area beside the river and we swerved in to check it out.  It turned out to be a very cool place.

 One of the best tasting accidental adventures was our discovery of organic and real fruit popsicles.  We first discovered them at The Hyppo in St. Augustine but we found one closer to home in Greenville called King of Pops.

 We had summer art hike after a lot of rain which made the stream crossings pretty wet.

 But it was a lot of fun.

 We stopped in Tryon to play piano with Nina Simone.  Blue showed her how to use the foot for that extra little something.

 Blue went to Sky Zone with a friend and told us how cool the ninja course was.

 So of course we had to check that out too.

 We ended the summer right before the kids went back to school with an impromptu trip to Charleston for the day.  

 We ate at Nicks BBQ and walked around a little.  When we came to St. Philip's I noticed a little sign that said to use the other door.  I took this as an invitation to go inside.  All my life I've taken photos of this church, the steeple and the graveyard but never once thought to go inside.  So we opened the huge door and walked in where we were greeted by the pastor.  He offered us water and let us look around while he attended to some things.  Photos do not do justice to the beautiful and historic interior space.  It really felt like church in there.  I recommend it.

After some afternoon beach time, we pulled up to the counter at Paige's Okra Grill and stuffed ourselves before officially ending our summer.

Maybe next summer will be the Summer of Eating Stuff.