Weekend in the low country

It had been too long since I'd seen some of my college girlfriends, so we decided to meet in South Carolina for a fun weekend this summer.  After lots of back and forth over email, a date was picked and flights booked.  I was off to Bluffton, SC!  It was a great, fun, relaxing weekend catching up with old friends!

I flew down Friday afternoon, and Cara picked me up in her new ride.  After a 20 minute drive to Lindsay's from the airport with a crazy puppy in a crazy van (see below), we headed straight for Mexican and margaritas!

Mi Tierra in "downtown" Bluffton was perfect - we seem to always have Mexican when we're together - it was our go-to in college, and still is today!  Once we were full of chips, cheese dip and tacos, we wandered over to Corks, the local wine bar.  Very cute with a great wine list!  The atmosphere was very comfortable and chic - we sat at a table for a while and enjoyed a drink before we were tired and ready for bed.  It had been a long travel day for Cara and me, so we headed back to get to bed early. 


Saturday was a nice, warm sweltering hot day.  We lounged around for a few hours in the morning, talking, drinking iced coffee, looking at friends' pictures on Facebook and reading blogs.  We finally got moving and headed to the pool.  Lindsay's neighborhood has a wonderful pool and lazy river - it was so hot, we spent the whole time in the water!  Once we were hot enough and hungry, we headed back and took our time hours getting dressed for the evening.  

Picture from activerain.com

Before heading to Hilton Head for dinner, we stopped and did some outlet shopping at Ann Taylor Loft and Banana Republic.  Yes!  There's an Ann Taylor Loft OUTLET!  I got a bunch of things - I love outlet prices - 3 dresses, 2 shirts and a hot pair of white jeans.  I'm totally excited about my new things, and all for $170!  After we'd spent all of our money, we'd worked up an appetite so we headed to dinner. 


We went to the Skull Creek Boathouse - it was really great.  We sat at the outside bar for a bit, had a drink and enjoyed the scenery while we waiting for our table.  Cara had a sangria, Lindsay a strawberry margarita and I had a mojito.  Delicious!  We took some great pictures as the sun was going down, it was so beautiful. 

After soaking in the sunset, it was time for dinner.  We ordered several things and shared them.  Lindsay and I had a bottle of the J Winery Russian River Pinot Grigio - it was delicious - and Cara enjoyed some frozen margaritas.  We each had a salad to start.  Then we shared the we-peal-you-eat steamed shrimp - they were wonderful.  The Boathouse is also known for their adventurous sushi, so we ordered 2 rolls - the special with grilled mahi mahi and tuna and avocado was very good - the pieces were huge.  We also ordered the buffalo chicken one with bleu cheese and julienne celery.  It was like a chicken wing in sushi form!  Everything was delicious and I certainly recommend checking out the Boathouse if you're ever in HHI! 


Following dinner, we were on a mission: find a cute boy to take a picture with Cara, so she didn't have to photoshop one in... 

So back to Bluffton we went to the Old Town Distillery Dispensary.  They have Strongbow on tap, so Lindsay and I had one and toasted to our junior year winter term trip class when we went to London together.  We were sitting on the deck and these (very young) boys were playing cornhole.  And the hole of the board was lit up!  What a GREAT idea!  So we hopped off our perch and grabbed the other set and spent several hours working off dinner and playing cornhole! We found 1 boy, Josh, who humored us for a while and played...but soon got a little bored and wandered off... 


Once we'd had enough of the Distillery, we headed to Wild Wing, which was the location of the post wedding party when Lindsay got married in 2006.  

Being that it was almost closing time, there were only about 10 other people in the bar.  Cara was getting sleeping...so naturally we ordered her a Jagarbomb to get her going...being the lady that she is, she sipped it through a stirrer...  

Whatever, it worked, and she was shortly making requests of the DJ.  Several songs from our college days later, we said good bye to our new bartender friends and headed home.  Unfortunately we were unsuccessful in securing the photo of Cara and a cute boy mission, but we had a great time together!  
    

Sunday was a wonderfully lazy day.  We started the morning by testing out the Wing Flyers, which Cara is now selling.  They are basically a scooter with a stair-stepper to make it go.  It was much harder than it looked!  

Unlike a bike, this feels more like an elliptical motion, almost a backwards motion.  It's a little tricky at first, but after a few laps in the neighborhood, we got the hang of it.  Working up more of a sweat than we'd hoped for, we headed inside for some delicious stuffed French toast!

After breakfast, we went back to the outlets, this time stopping at JCrew, Polo, and Brooks Brothers.  Not wanting husband to feel forgotten, I picked up a couple of shirts and new ties for him.  After lunch we went back to the pool for some late afternoon time - Lindsay's husband Court and friends Joe and Jodi met us there!  It was great to spend time with Joe and Jodi since I hadn't seen them since Lindsay and Court's wedding - Joe and I were the Best Man/Maid of Honor!  We had a wonderful dinner back at the house that Court made - beer can chicken, ribs, and roasted eggplants and tomatoes.  It was delicious!  We played a new game, Apples to Apples, which was very fun!  We need to add that to our (very small) collection of games!

Monday morning we said good bye - Cara drove to Charlotte and I flew home to DC.  What a great weekend we had, sharing stories, talking about old times and looking forward to our futures together.  There's something about college girlfriends that is so special, and I'm blessed to have such wonderful ones in my life!