Charleston Weekend Recap

Hello!  I'm back after a 4th of July weekend hiatus!  When the hubby got his July schedule, we realized right away he had ZERO weekends off for the month of July, so we were going to have to get a little creative with face time if we wanted to see each other much this month.  He suggested I come to Charleston, West Virginia for the 4th, which is where he is based for his current airline and has a little hole in the wall "crash pad" which is basically a teeny tiny studio apartment in the middle of nowhere outside Charleston.  It even has a murphy bed that pulls down from the wall!  My first (and only) apartment that I lived in by myself in Dublin, Ohio had the same thing!  Greg had to work some this weekend, but Sunday and Monday he just had single round-trips to DC, so we figured he'd still have a lot of time to hang out, and I could see his other "home", and explore the area a little bit with him, so I decided I would go ahead and drive out there. 
Greg didn't finish his day til almost midnight on Saturday night, so I hung out in Charlotte most of the day on Saturday.  I actually tried a short run Saturday morning, and my knee/leg didn't seem to like it too much :(  I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about my knee.
I met some friends for lunch at The Philospher's Stone, which is DOG FRIENDLY, so Clyde got to come too!  We had a nice late lunch outside and chatted for a good while.  Clyde and my friend Chloe's dog, Lacey played around.

Chloe holding Clyde.

My friend Gibson with his scary mustache he grew for a "mustachio bashio" he was attending later that night.

Me and Sarah.  She was being a little goofy... :)

Once back at the hacienda, I packed up the car, and Clyde and I hit the road for Charleston around 6pm.

 
The trip was a longish 4+ hours.  It's very pretty and scenic, but very mountainous and the roads are really hilly and wind-y, so it's a lot of concentration on that drive!

 
I arrived at Greg's nest around 10:30ish and Greg got in around midnight to find Clyde and I all settled in.  It was quite cozy to have the whole family in that tiny studio for the weekend!    

Here's Clyde trying out the Murphy Bed!

Sunday morning we got up and had some oatmeal and coffee at the apartment.  Greg had his trip in the middle of the day, so I dropped him at the airport at around 11:30am, then Clyde and I headed into downtown Charleston to scope it out.

(the capitol building through my bug stained windshield!)

I found a good spot to park, and Clyde and I took a little walk around the city.  The area we were in was actually pretty cute.  There were a bunch of restaurants and bars and some little parks and the streets were tree-lined. 

Not much was open though, I guess because it was Sunday and a holiday, but it looks like it'd be fun on a Friday or Saturday night. We walked down to the river that borders the city, and saw where they were setting up for the 4th of July festivities, which we would be coming back for that evening.  There was an amphitheater right on the water and some beer/food stands were getting set up. 

We looped around and back to the car.  I drove through the city to explore it a little more and then we headed back to Greg's pad for some lunch.  I had made a batch of roasted red pepper and artichoke heart hummus for us at home and brought it for the trip, along with flat bread, carrots, and red peppers.  I had that for lunch. 

I also had a handful of my hubby's dry roasted peanuts...

I then felt like relaxing and having a little lazy time, so I watched Mama Mia on Netflix on my laptop and read Eat Pray Love for while.  It was actually really nice to have some downtime to do stuff like that.  At home, I'm constantly distracted by TIVO or the Internet, and Greg's place in WV is very bare bones- no internet or TV!
I then went back to the airport to get Greg.

He suggested we check out nearby Kanawha State Forest as a possible spot to go hiking/picnicking on Monday.  The forest was really out of the way (it was a lot further out than Greg thought it would be), but very pretty.  We took Clyde on a short walk on a trail that looped around. 

Notice Greg still in his pilot uniform, minus the epaulets, tie, and wings ;) 

We got a quick dinner at Fazoli's, which is one of Greg's favorite "fast food" places, which we don't have in Charlotte.  We split a sundried tomato tortellini and veggie sandwich, with a side salad.  I wasn't as into it as Greg, but it was decent.
We changed and headed back to downtown Charleston for the 4th festivities and fireworks.  We found a nice spot of grass to park out chairs at, and enjoyed the people watching and listening to the orchestra play.

There were a ton of boats out on the river.  We ended up bringing Clyde, even though we weren't sure how he'd do with the fireworks.  We figured if we had to, we'd just high tail out of there if he started to freak out.  He was a REALLY good boy.

People were stopping and fawning over him left and right, and during the actual fireworks he sat on Greg's lap and was very chill.  Such a good boy!  The fireworks were really good.  There were a few I actually hadn't seen before- even in DC! 

My tour of the city earlier that day had enabled me to know a great place for us to park.  We were out of the city in no time after the fireworks ended, which was great.  I hate waiting in traffic to get out after big events.

Monday morning we got up and stuck a plan we had to hit up Panera for breakfast and pick up a sandwich for our picnic at the Kanawha State Forest.  We got to Panera a little late though (hey, I'm on vacation, we slept in!) and had to settle for bagels and coffee for breakfast. 

We got a turkey sandwich to supplement the hummus and carrots and threw everything in the cooler for later.  At the forest, we drive til we found a good spot. 

We took Clyde on a wooded walk through the woods.  He LOVED it!  Greg and I had sprayed ourselves with OFF! before heading into the forest, but those woods were no match for the bugs.  Both of us were swatting ourselves the whole hour we were in there!  We finally gave up and ended up eating our picnic lunch in the car so we would not become the bugs lunch!

We headed back to the shoe box apartment, and then Greg got ready for another round-trip that afternoon.  I had brought some books and movies with me, and also the Jillian Michaels workout video, No More Trouble Zones.  I was inspired by Caitlin's review of it, and saw it while milling around in Wal-Mart the other day while my oil was being changed and bought it on an impulse.  Since my knee is all jacked up, I'm trying to think of other things I can do to exercise, so I figured this might be an alternative.  After Greg left for his trip, I popped NMTZ into my laptop and got going.  I really liked it.  I bunch of the video involved squats or lunges that did kind of bother the knee so I did a few of them, but once I could tell it was something that was going to aggravate my injury I let up and did just the weight part (I used two big cans of baked beans Greg had in his cabinets as my weights!) and didn't push on the legs.  There was also a good portion of abs stuff, which I've been wanting to do more of, so I was glad to get in some ab work.  I can definitely feel the work-out in my muscles today, so I think it was good and will be doing it again :)  After my work-out, I watched Twilight (I gotta get geared up for Eclipse, which I'm planning on going to see later in the week!!), and then packed up the car and went to go pick up Greg. 
Clyde sat in a suitcase so I wouldn't forget him...

We decided I'd pick him after his trip and then drive back to Charlotte together.  It was so nice to have company on the way back.  I drove the first couple hours and then let him take over for the last couple, so I could sleep since I had work today.  We didn't get home til after 1am, but I still made it into work on time! 
All in all, it was a pretty fun little weekend get away.  Charleston wasn't the most exciting place I've ever been, but I was really happy to be able to spend almost the whole weekend with Greg and Clyde and I know it meant a lot to him that I came there to be with him and hang out.  Plus, now I have a visual on where he is when he calls me from his home away from home :).