The first day of our vacation was easy and uneventful. We finished packing in the morning, and Georg showed Rob the garden while I cleaned the car. I even had time to do a little work!
Then we had brunch with Rob at Foster's before heading out. While we were there I saw my favorite customer from my days back at Ninth St Bakery. I'm amazed that he still remembered my name after all these years. (I still remembered his name too.)
We left at noon and made it to our first stop, Hardeeville SC, before 6. Hardeeville is a small town near the Georgia border. I don't know anything about it except there doesn't appear to be a Hardee's. Our hotel is a bit downmarket, but it has free wireless! Yay! I almost didn't even turn the computer on, because the list of amenities didn't mention net access. But Georg persuaded me that it was worth it to check, and he was right!
For dinner we picked a restaurant nearly at random from the phone book: Pepper's Porch in nearby Bluffton. (Which turns out to be a quaint tourist town right near Hilton Head, but we didn't know that until we got there.) It was about a half hour drive on gorgeous scenic low country roads. Lots of twisty live oaks covered with Spanish moss. The restaurant turned out to be excellent too. A bit noisy, but the food more than made up for it. I had shrimp and grits, and Georg had grouper stuffed with shrimp and crab. Both dishes were wonderful, and they also had possibly the best collards I've ever had. It was an auspicious start to our vacation.
All the way down we kept passing convoys of utility trucks going south. I guess they're heading to Florida in anticipation of the hurricane. It's heartening to know that there are teams ready to go when a hurricane happens. I just hope it doesn't happen anywhere near Mt. Dora! Actually I'm not worried about it. Mt. Dora is north of Orlando, and the landfall was much further south. Our art car event may get rained on, but nothing worse than that.
3 Comments
hilton head is totally touristy, but there are some damn good restaurants in the area . . . i ate really, really well on my family vacation this year. :)
Is that where you were? I noticed that in the local phone book, about 95% of the restaurants are in Hilton Head. That was about another 10 miles further than Bluffton and we didn't want to drive that far.
yup! we used to go there every summer when i was a kid, and this was my first time back in i think eight years. some of the restaurants might have been worth the extra ten miles--we went to a few really good (but expensive!) places b/c we were celebrating my parents' 30th anniversary.