The Gooden Family 2007 Beach Vacation was a much needed and a much appreciated escape. We were able to get the rental car, a cool green Kia Sportage, about an hour early. This was a good thing, as packing it was a bit interesting. Unfortunately it's nearly impossible for me to pack lightly. I don't waste space with girly stuff, but I make sure we, as a family, have every single possible thing we could need. Chris, who's normally a really good packer, just couldn't get it to fit...even with trying to rig something on the rack on top. It didn't help that he'd not eaten and was getting a bit cranky. So I quickly gave him food & drink and told him to go away and sit in the woods. After some genius rearranging and strategic thinking, like utilizing the empty cooler with all the drinks, utilizing the hidden compartment by the sparetire well for the bottled water & using the empty space under the seats, I got her all packed up AND we could see out the back window. I was proud.

After a few final things we were officially on the road about 2:30. It was a beautiful road ahead.


It's interesting to note that we fought Devynne for this picture. She was ecstatic about leaving, but she wanted nothing to do with the camera. By the end of the vacation she had taken over 300 pictures of herself.

We drove to Knoxville, TN and had dinner at Cracker Barrell. This is where I had to put my foot down. Logan had ordered a root beer, which came in a glass bottle. I asked the waitress if they recycled, inwhich she said she didn't think so, so I declared the glass bottle and the boxes Logan's cereal came in were going with us. Chris tried to retort that this was our vacation and we weren't carrying trash, at which point I let him have it. 1st, it's not trash. That's the main problem with our country. Everything is seen as trash, easily disposed of so as to not cause any inconvenience. I'm determined to not fall into this wasteful category. I don't mind a little inconvenience when I know I'm doing the right thing. After some further discussion I convinced him and he agreed we have to recycle while on our trip. From that point on we had no further issues about general recycling and made 2 trips to their local center while we were at the beach. It took out about 20 mins total from our entire trip and we left there knowing we didn't help contribute to the appalling trash situation on the coast. Now cans....that's another story.

After a good night's rest we woke up rather early and made our way to IHOP for breakfast. I tried a spinach-mushroom crepe that was sooooooooo yummy. We got back on the road and made our way further south into North Carolina to the mountains.

Needless to say, I was in an awesome mood. I love the mountains and literally get flutters in my stomach when I see them. I got the giggles at this point...

Logan had been in video game world for a bit, but quickly got into mountain mode once we hit the foothills...

We stopped at a rest area to find the best route to go UP.

Upon reaching the top we stopped at most overlooks to take in the views and play with the camera... Although I was too enthralled with the view to cooperate at first.

Some of my favorite various shots....

A conversation about brothers not pushing sisters who are scared of heights off of mountains...

After 3 hours we made our back down and continued on our way to South Carolina. After Logan got his fill of tunnels, they both passed out for a while...

The rest of the drive was really boring. No mountains, nothing cool. Just a long ass road in the swamps of South Carolina. But after 4-5 hours we finally - finally made it to our hotel in Pawleys Island. We ran in and dropped off a few things and immediately got back into the car to check out the beach. I hadn't even got my seatbelt off and the kids were already barefoot and halfway down to the water.

5 seconds later Devynne was already begging to jump in, in her clothes. Chris, being a California boy, was definitely glad to have his toes in the sand again.

We stayed for about an hour before the long day caught up with us. We made our way back to the hotel and got a much needed night's rest.

Day 3...