Monday, August 27, 2012

Our Family Vacation

This summer we took the kids to Edisto Beach in South Carolina.  This is a small, non-commercialized, very family-friendly beach.  Seriously, there is only one grocery store, and it is a tiny Piggly Wiggly.

One of the days while we were there, we drove out to Botany Bay Plantation.  This is an amazing nature preserve consisting of about 4,600 acres of untouched land.

All of the following photos, I actually took with my "real" camera.  It is the only time I took it out of the bag the entire week we were there.


Live Oaks and Spanish Moss were very abundant:
live oaks and moss

Spanish Moss

At one point we stopped, and Jackson could not help himself from jumping out of the car and starting to climb...
jack in tree

One of the only remaining structures is the beautiful Ice House - a luxury for the plantation owners.  This building was insulated with saw dust.
Ice House

By far the most amazing part was being able to walk out to the private beach on this nature preserve.  It is actually against the law to take any shells or other artifacts from the beach.  I have never experienced anything like it.  It was like being on a deserted island.
walking out to beach

perspective dead tree down

dead landscape

There were shells everywhere. 
orange

jack hands shell

large oyster shell

Since you aren't allowed to take any shells, people have started hanging them on the trees like Christmas ornaments.
shell on tree

tree with shells 1

tree with shells

We really only had the opportunity to walk on the beach here since we didn't bring any of our gear with us, but it was very relaxing.
dad and jack

walking

dad and B

buckwheat

buckwheat dad

I am so thankful that our family was able to enjoy such a wonderful morning and experience such natural beauty.
walk back

4 comments:

Visit Sarasota said...

Looks like you guys had a blast. I can see tons of sea shells did you bring any back?

Jodee said...

Wow! So pretty!

Barrett said...

I would have a hard time not bringing some of those shells home!! Beautiful!!

Dawn Garlow said...

Your pictures are just fabulous of the spanish moss, the dead trees, shells, all of the pictures are great. I enjoyed looking at them. :) Glad you all had a good time on your "family vacay" week.

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