Chasing Life

 Day: 7 South Carolina, Georgia, Florida This morning we went to the beach. There was a pier further down the beach that we walked under. On the way, we found lots of shells and washed-up sea urchins. It was very cold, and not a swimming sort of day. We then drove to Charleston. We had booked a tour of Fort Sumter and while waiting we played at a park nearby. At the appointed time, we arrived at the ferry and boarded. A volunteer asked us if we wanted to be Junior Rangers and we all said yes as we had done this in the past at other national parks and monuments. From the ferry, we saw the Navy Destroyer USS Laffey and Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown. The Yorktown was bigger than the Ark we had seen earlier! The harbor has a pod of 105 dolphins and we saw a few swimming in front of the boat and around the harbor. The volunteer talked about the history of the harbor and pointed out a few other smaller forts. Once we got to Fort Sumter, we listen to a ranger talk, were showed fingerprints in

 Day: 6 North Carolina, South Carolina This morning we went to see our friends one more time and then drove. We stopped at a public beach access in South Carolina. It had a small pier/jetty that we walked on and got our shoes soaked and full of sand. It split the beach in half one side being deep and rough(the side that splashed us) and the other was sand with a small channel by the wall(that we may have stepped in while jumping away from the deep side). We found some cool shells and watched surfers out in the water. After getting back in the car, we drove to our hotel. We were on the sixth floor facing the ocean and the hotel had a beach in front of it. The beach was beautiful, though it was a little weird to be wearing jackets.

Day: 5 North Carolina This morning, after getting packed up, we headed for Blowing Rock. (the actual rock, not the town) But it was closed, due to the weather. Which was understandable, as our car was completely iced-over when we woke up and it was raining the whole morning. So, we decided to head back down the mountain, to go see one of my mom's friends. We were going to go through Boone, but we chose to go the safer (and slower) way, through Charlotte, so we wouldn't slide off the mountain if there was ice. We drove for about 4 hours and finally arrived in Fayetteville. We checked into our hotel and went to go meet our friends. -The Nystroms

 Day 4: Tennesse, North Carolina Today was a little unexpected. We started driving this morning, with the Blue Ridge Parkway set on our map. Instead of taking the highway,(and faster route) we decided to take the scenic route, through the mountains. On our way there we drove through Sevierville, which happened to be the hometown of Dolly Parton. After that, we went through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which was amazing! The views were incredible! Once we left the park, we were planning on driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway... But it was closed, due to snow and ice. So we had to change our plan, luckily we had already seen some beautiful mountain views. The main stops that we really wanted to see, were Chimney Rock, Blowing Rock, and some waterfalls, Soco falls and Linville falls. So, we had to go the long way. We found a way to see all of the stops, without going on the parkway, Chimney Rock was breathtaking! We had to take an elevator up 26 levels to get to the top. Both