Ohio State Fair

Dierks and Miranda put on an amazing show!!!  Miranda was so sweet to meet again and I got to see my fellow Dierks fan club members!  Woohooo!  Tomorrow we will return to Canada!!  For a few hours anyway....

Anderson, South Carolina

Hey it is Jen! After Charleston we headed to Anderson to visit my friend Ryan and his fiancee Ashley. It was a nice visit. Ryan took us around Clemson University. It was great because their school colours are ORANGE and purple, so I was excited to see orange everywhere. Returning back to Ryan's we got to meet his dog, Louie...very cute and cuddly! The next day Ryan had to go to work so the ladies spent the day together in Anderson and Greenville. We went to a Japanese restaurant and that was a cool experience. It was a great being able to visit a friend that I have known since kindergarten. 

Charleston Downtown

We didn't get a chance to spend an abundance of time here, but these shots show just how beautiful downtown Charleston is.  This is definitely somewhere I would like to come back to and spend more time looking around....

Boone Hall Plantation

This plantation is still a working farm.  They grow produce mostly although they do still have some cotton and pecan trees.  The cotton crop was damaged by the arrival of the Boll Weevil in the 1920s.  Instead Pecan's became the main cash crop but more than one hurricane took down the Pecan groves, most recently Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  The house that stands now was built in the 1930s by a Canadian using bricks made years prior in the slave-run brickyards.  The Notebook used this plantation as a filming location.

Besides the house there was an extensive gardens and preserved brick slave cottages.  The most famous aspect of the plantation is said to be the Avenue of Oaks.  Large, old live Oak trees line the long drive and reach across to create a canopy over the lane.  Spanish moss hangs from the branches.  We were also privileged to hear a presentation on the 'Gullah' language developed from English and the rhythm of the African languages belonging to the slaves brought from West Africa.  

Hampton Plantation

Yes, I know we've been lax in keeping you updated on what we've been doing the last few days.....we've been too busy for the internet!  

So here is an update!

On our way from Myrtle Beach to Charleston I saw a sign for a plantation that was open for tours so we stopped.  What we learned was why none of the families spent the summer in the stately mansions.....HEAT and BUGS!!  Thankfully the park ranger at the Hampton Plantation had some bug spray to share (which Jen finished off with her second application! LOL!).  The Hampton Plantation was an indigo and rice plantation and the interior of the home was stripped to show how the house was modified from a modest 6 room farm house to a 12 room mansion that hosted the first President of the United States.  

Myrtle Beach Photos....

We ARE Still Alive!

We are safely in our hotel in Huntington WV.  It was a long drive today.....left at 10am and got here at about 5pm.  But we made it!  Off to the Ohio State Fair tomorrow!  

(A Little Too Much) Fun in the Sun!!!

We had a beautiful day for the beach today in Myrtle Beach!!  We went and got some boogie boards and some little beach chairs and parked right on the beach for most of the day!  I now have a nice tan......then there's my roommate the LOBSTER!!!!  Jen managed to get herself quite burnt.  And she has some pretty odd tan lines to boot!  

We tried to gather some shells as the tide was receding but the waves kicked our butts a couple of times!  They knock you for a loop!  Tomorrow we head to Charleston!

Hollywood Location Tour

My inner Dawson's Creek geek was mostly satisfied today by our Hollywood Location Walk.  It would have been more so only if the entire tour were about that show!  We saw several locations used in that series, as well as One Tree Hill which is currently still filming in Wilmington and several movies which very few us seemed to have seen.....  Apparently the very same tour two weeks prior stumbled upon Chad Michael Murray filming One Tree Hill next the the haunted Bulluck Hospital (more on that when I post about the ghost tour....)

The first photo above is the Realto Theatre where Dawson, Jen, Pacey and Joey all went to watch a movie Jen's first night in town.  This was the exterior they used and there used to be the facade of a ticket booth and entrance.  The interior was somewhere else.  

The second photo is the building owned by the producers of both One Tree Hill and Dawson's Creek.  The top floor is set up as offices and was the set for Pacey's job in the financial world.  The bottom floor used to house Karen's Cafe from One Tree Hill but now house's Brooke's Clothes Over Bro's clothing store set.

Photo #3 is the exterior of the federal courthouse in Wilmington and was the setting for Matlock.  It was also used in One Tree Hill and was the exterior setting for Jack and Joey's date to the museum on Dawson's Creek.

Photos #4 and #5 are of the exterior and still unchanged location for Hell's Kitchen where Joey worked in the final season of Dawson's Creek.  The place was sold once the show wrapped and the owners have not changed a thing.  Joey's row boat is even said to be displayed inside.  

The sixth photo above is the exterior for Leery's Fresh Fish, Dawson's family's restaurant.

Photo number 7 is the starting point on the Cape Fear River for the yacht race between Dawson and Pacey from season 3.  The rest of the race was filmed at Wrightsville Beach.

Photo #8 is the Ice House that Pacey purchased and ran in the series finale.  The original Ice House run by the Potters and burned down by Joey's Dad was leveled and is now just an empty lot.

Photo #9 is Joey's wall!!!  The wall Pacey rented for Joey to paint her mural on after the one she painted at school was defaced by Drew Valentine.

Photo #10 is the warehouse Mitch Leery purchased from teacher Tamara Jacob's during his split from Dawson's mom Gail.