Spring Break 2016: Palmetto Bluff

Now that Miss L is in Kindergarten, our opportunities for vacations only fall into four categories: long holiday weekends, Christmas break, Spring break and summer. Suddenly the options aren’t so limitless, and the airfare rates are just plain diabolical! But we decided that we’d kick off her first official school year with a Spring Break full of memories… so we headed to the east coast for quite the excursion!

We started our trip near Bluffton, South Carolina (via Savannnah/Hilton Head International airport) to spend a weekend with friends who’d left Sacramento for the slow and easy Southern resort life.

After a LONG redeye flight (with zero Z’s thanks to a St. Patrick’s Day reveler in the row in front of us) from the west coast, we left the airport and headed straight out for some true Southern comfort: BBQ! Our friends wasted no time in showing off their favorite barbeque spot in town, “Choo Choo BBQ Xpress” which we soon realized was worth every ounce of their praise.

We called in an order of 3 racks of ribs, and what we started devouring after we arrived was barely short of rib perfection. Sure, we’ve got all kinds of farmers market delights in California, but we just don’t have any sort of rib perfection like that. And this family loves us some pig.

Miss L went to town and almost finished her full portion as well… along with cornbread and hush puppies and lemonade.

I’m pretty certain that meal served as the perfect post-redeye hangover cure… because after that we were ready to go and play and see everything that we had in store for us!

We headed back to their house in Palmetto Bluff, which is a beautiful resort community south of Hilton Head, and changed into our swim suits for an afternoon out on the water. We took out the South Carolina versions of our tandem kayak into the May River and floated around for a couple of hours.

That’s when we also got the chance to beach our kayaks on the May River Sandbar and magically watch it disappear before our eyes as high tide rolled in! (See the video that someone else made of this magical little treat!)

We finished up the afternoon with some time swimming in the beautiful riverside pool, and then lazily made our way back to the house to fully collapse at the end of our first day of vacation!

Our next full day was all about exploring! We borrowed bikes from the resort (they’ve got just about everything available to guests for the low price of free!) and headed for a grand circle tour of all of Palmetto Bluff.

We took a break to watch some croquet…

… and also to play in this epic treehouse and zip down the zipline!

After our adventure, we (I mean Miss L) snacked on dozens of Bluffton oysters and pounds of fresh shrimp that we picked up from the Bluffton Oyster Company earlier in the morning… then it was off to dinner at the Canoe Club!

The weather had been threatening all day with thunderstorms, but luckily for us they just never seemed to show up where we were. So while we were a little hesitant to sit out on the porch for dinner, it ended up being the perfect place to end our short but very sweet trip to South Carolina.

I mean… sitting out over that nice view, enjoying martini named, “The Grace” while looking out on its namesake (The Grace is that pretty wooden boat)… not too shabby of a night at all!

 

We finished up a delicious dinner, then watched the sunset before heading over to the Montage Palmetto Bluff Inn for some s’mores.  Because who doesn’t want to end the night with an epic bonfire and melty marshmallows?!?

And there it was! Not just one… but TWO huge bonfires out in front of the Inn. And inside… all of the accoutrements needed for a perfect s’mores night: long bamboo sticks, unlimited marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey bars!

And with that… our two very full days in South Carolina came to a close… and we were off to drive 500 hours the following day to our next destination: Williamsburg, Virginia!