Girls Weekend Journal

  Thursday, Oct 19 It has arrived.  Our least favorite day of Girls Weekend.  The last day.  The day we go to the airport and go our separate ways and back to our regular lives.  Which, mind you, aren't bad, just not the blissful hang out time we enjoy on our trips.  Journaling, researching, learning about new things and places, even learning new things about subjects we thought we knew well (example: tea!) Fortunately, Kathi had booked herself on a one way flight home, because she never heard anything back from Orbitz who had somewhat led her to believe that they would contact her within 24 hours of her call to them with some sort of resolution.  Both our flights leave around 3 pm and since we did most of our packing last night, we have time to check out at 10 am and get that last cemetery in. We took all our bags downstairs and I hung out with them while Kathi went to get the car.  She pulled up in front of the hotel and we loaded everything in....

Wednesday, October 18, 2023 Ahhhhhhh. Finally, a “normal” Girls Weekend morning. We woke up at about 7, but I went back to bed for a bit just because I could! For those of you who are new to the Girls Weekend travelogue, a “normal” GW morning is pouring coffee, maybe grabbing a yogurt, and sitting down with a laptop to either journal or plan something or just look stuff up because we are complete nerds and love looking stuff up. And that’s exactly what we did. Somewhere around 10AM, Lori went to make us some cheesy scrambled eggs, which we usually have at least four or five times on these trips. It was a joyous, “slow” morning. Eventually we showered and dressed and set out to explore. We had two items on our agenda today: to visit some cemeteries, which we both enjoy investigating, and to walk the pathway and street loop that Stephanie had suggested to us a few days before. We left the condo around 1:00pm. Our first stop was the great little coffee shop we discovered the night before,...

  Tuesday, Oct 17, 2023 We awoke to yet another beautiful morning here in Charleston, South Carolina.  This is a good thing because we are going to start the day with a Black History walking tour, aptly named Frankly Charleston because the guide's name is Frank, this morning at 10 am. Rico, Mari, and Amara are joining us once again.  Kathi has been over the moon at this time that she has had to spend with all of them, particularly Amara since this is the first time that she has actually met her. After having our morning cup of coffee, showering and dressing, we headed out and walked to the visitor's center where we were to meet our tour guide as well as Rico and family. It was a bit chilly still, so we tried to stay on the sunny side of the street when possible.  Once everyone taking the tour arrived, Frank began his talk about the history of Charleston from the perspective of a Black American. The untold story.  The story of how Charleston was built by black sl...

Monday, October 16, 2023 This morning we were once again up early to write. We’re really trying to get a journal entry out every day, but (and this is totally our fault) these things take forever to write! Every year we learn something about how we want these trips to evolve. This year we clearly miss our “slow” mornings of coffee, journaling, listening to music, and just hanging out together before needing to shower and dress for the day’s activity. We have decided that from now on, perhaps two or three early starts are enough, and other than that, we can just leave at (or after!) noon to get where we need to be. Today we ended up having to hustle a bit, make lunches for everybody (us as well as the Vidot family), and fly out the door. We had made arrangements to meet Rico, Mari, and Amara at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens at 10AM. Both parties were a bit late—Lori and I ran into a bit of traffic, and Rico and Mari were on toddler time  . Lori and I got there first, sorted out th...

  Sunday, October 15 After a good night's sleep, we both woke up around 7:30 this morning to get ready for today's adventure.  No leisurely morning so far for us on this trip!!  Kathi and Eric are charter members of the new International African American Museum and received two free tickets to use during its first year.  Kathi has been talking about this museum and her excitement about visiting it since last year when South Carolina became our destination.  So after our morning coffee, a round of cheesy scrambled eggs, we showered, dressed and headed out the door to walk to the museum.  As always, God blessed us with a beautiful day and our not quite a mile walk to the museum was very nice. I, shamefully, did not realize the role that Charleston played in the history of slavery in our country.  Kathi had told me that something like 40-50% of black Americans can trace their family history back to Charleston because this is where the  almost half th...

Saturday, October 14, 2023 This morning we were up at 7:30 and journaling a bit before starting to get ready to leave, when I got a phone call from Rico, Ridley’s brother and my ex-stepson, whom I adore. Rico, his wife Mari, and their beautiful daughter Amara live about three hours from Charleston. I have never met Amara, although Rico, Mari and I all consider her to be my grandbaby. She is now three and calls me Grammi, and they were scheduled to come to Charleston for a couple of days so I could meet her. Rico called to let me know that Mari’s mother had COVID, Amara was with her all night Wednesday, and Amara has not been feeling great. They suspected she might also have COVID, and they had canceled their hotel reservation. I was devastated. I have been trying to see this little angel for so long and the stars just have not aligned. Before he hung up, I was already planning to buy a plane ticket and just go visit them before the year was out. Today we were scheduled to visit the Cha...