Utah, Rubber Duck Drop, Kayaking and The Citadel

I made a whiplash trip back to Utah for some important family events, and got to meet this cute, little guy (6-month-old nephew from my husband's family)...

I also got to spend some quality time with this cute, little girl (niece from my side)...

Oh, quick side step back to Charleston for a second- this is a cool tree- it's called the Angel Oak. It's supposed to be something like 1,500 years old. The branches are super long and have grown underground (as you see here), and are supported in some places by wires and posts. Crazy.

Ok, back to Utah- I helped my sister prep, cook and bake for a large family gathering that was celebrating her baby daughter. Hence- the girly, purple cupcakes with baby booties on them.

After those festivities we over, we went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. Now, those of you in Utah, I highly recommend you go to this museum. It is awesome! They have an amazing collection of fossils and all kinds of stuff. I was pretty impressed.

They had plenty of cool, interactive stuff for the kids. Here is my nephew in this section where there's running water and sand in these stone troughs, along with plastic dinosaurs and shrubbery, and you can build canyons, or islands, and see the effect water has on earth. So you can mimic a flash flood and watch it bury the dinosaurs in it's path, and then watch the same water uncover the dinosaurs again- it shows the kids how some dinosaurs could have died, and how some are found by erosion.

I also got to go on an awesome hike in the mountains with my sister (see below).

Ok, now I'm back in Charleston, and I have a question for you- have you ever seen 30,000 rubber ducks dropped from a bridge into a river? Well, I have.

This was the Charleston Duck Race, organized by the Rotary Clubs in the Charleston area. They dropped 30,000 rubber ducks from this bridge over the Wando River next to Daniel Island- the ducks then made their way (slowly, but surely) down the river in a nice and orderly fashion to the finish line (they are helped along by official boats in the river so they don't go astray). As a rotary member, you can "adopt a duck," and if it's lucky enough to be one of the first 20 ducks to reach the finish line, you get a cash prize.

If you are REALLY feeling lucky, you could enter into a contract that your specific duck would be the tenth duck, or fifth duck in, or whatever, and if you were right, you win a million dollars. Gosh, what are the odds of THAT happening?? What people will do for a charity fundraiser... here's a pic of the ducks reaching the finish line.

Following the ducks through the race... there was a lot of build up for the duck drop from the bridge (I have to admit, I was pretty excited), but once those ducks got in the river, it was kind of an anti-climatic experience. It probably took the ducks about 10-15 minutes to finish the race.

Switching gears now to our next adventure- the kayak tour:

We went on a 3-hour kayak tour on Folly Creek. It's right off the ocean, so during the low tide, a lot of marine animals come up this creek to feed and hang out away from the rough ocean waters. We were about 20-30 feet from dolphins at one point! It got pretty tiring about halfway through (kayaking is no easy feat), but we made it, and had a great time.

There were tons of oysters all over the place. Our guide told us that oysters are the "kidneys" of the ocean, and that they help filter the water- so the condition of the oysters are a good indication of how the ecosystem is doing. We also saw a lot of marshes, plough mud (really nutrient rich, DEEP, soft, mud), birds, fish, etc. The fish would jump two feet out of the water at times! It was amazing to watch. Our guide told us that the water is so murky because of the amount of nutrients in it, which draws the smaller fish, then bigger fish, and bigger fish, and finally, dolphins!

Here's my hubby by an oyster pile. When we were getting out of the water at the end of our tour, we watched as a fisherman on the pier pulled a pink stingray out of the water! That was crazy to see, and definitely a "man, I'm not in Utah anymore" moment. Switching now to my Citadel campus visit:

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I went and checked out The Citadel campus the other day. The Citadel is the Military College of South Carolina. It was founded in 1842. They have undergraduate and graduate programs, and the school is held in high regard here in the South.

The campus is well kept and gorgeous. All of the buildings look very stately and white, and have a "castle" look to them. That's the only word I can think of to describe them. Here's the entrance to the campus.