I’ve been in South Carolina visiting my cousin Nikole for the past couple days, and she’s been kind enough to show me some old-fashioned Southern hospitality!
Me and my cuz!
And after driving all the way up to see her, what was the first thing she did? Gave me a chance to stretch my legs, and everything else, with some hot yoga! Now, if you’ve ever done yoga before, you know it can be challenging and intense. Hot yoga is that cranked up to 11.
It destroyed me.
Seriously, the guy who was teaching us was insane. 10 minutes into the hour and a half long class, my arms were hurting more than they have in years. I have no idea what the temperature was in the room, but it was difficult to breathe. I was dripping in sweat within 15 minutes – and that’s pretty much holding static poses.
I’ve decided to do it again in Seattle. They say insanity is contagious.
I didn’t have any problems sleeping afterward, I can tell you that. Anyway, the next day was the 4th of July, so I enjoyed a relaxing morning and slept in a bit. After lazing around for the morning, we decided to grab lunch, and quickly realized that everything was pretty much closed, so we enjoyed a quick sub at Firehouse. I was hoping for something more local, but on the 4th, options are limited.
We took a quick detour after that to stop in and see my grandmother. At 91, she still seems pretty spry!
MaMa and Me
And boy, was she glad to see me! She really needed some furniture moved.
Oh, and she was happy to hear how I was doing!
After taking a little bit of time to discuss how the trip was going, and moving some furniture, she shooed us away so we could head to a 4th of July party. Some friends of Nikole have a wonderful piece of property on Lake Murray and they were kind enough to let us drop in on their Carolina Boil. I had never even heard of a Carolina Boil, but it was delicious.
Take the first letter of every ingredient, and what does it spell? Delicious! Or SCHPCAL, depending on your mastery of the English language.
Shrimp, Crab, Hot Sausage, Potatoes, Corn, Artichokes, and even a Lobster Tail.
All in the pot. It turned out wonderful, and the hot sausage added a nice kick of flavor to everything. We finished it up with Key Lime cake (another new one), blueberry crunch (made by Nikole), and some delicious brownies.
I was also introduced to Bocce Ball. If you’ve never played Bocce Ball, the rules a fairly simple (at least in our variant): Two teams of two play. One team throws the small ball (called the jack) some distance away, and both teams compete to ‘bowl’ their four balls as close as possible to the jack. The team with the closest ball scores a point. It is possible to score multiple points by getting multiple balls closer to the jack than the other team. For example: the red team has two balls 1 and 1.5 meters away, and the green team has a ball 2 meters away, then the red team would get 2 points. Seems like another fun game to add to an outdoor picnic with horseshoes and cornhole.
All in all, it was a rather pleasant night, despite the rain earlier in the day. Plenty of people were setting off fireworks around the lake, so we had quite a show all around us. I hope everyone had as good a 4th as I did!
Next, I’m off to North Carolina to see my grandparents and appreciate the Appalachians!
