Beating up the 'Noles

Last weekend John and I took one of our first road trips from our new home in Charleston. We love weekend road trips and have several close-to-Charleston getaway spots on our list for this year (including Harry Potter world!!) We didn't do much sightseeing this time though because this trip was all about SOONER FOOTBALL!

We hadn't been to an OU football game since the 2009 season. When we lived in Oklahoma, we went to every game. So this long hiatus has been hard (especially on John). So when the Sooners traveled to Tallahassee to play FSU, we couldn't miss our only opportunity this year to yell "BOOMER SOONER!" in person.

After staying the night with John's cousin Jerry in Jacksonville, we headed into Tallahassee early Saturday morning so we could be at Game Day.

We're coming...to your city! (John's fav show)

Though you see a lot of crimson in this picture, don't be fooled. There were very few Sooner fans at Game Day and we were outnumbered by the 'Noles, who you can see were also excited to be there (cell phone pic!)

After sticking around to watch Corso pick the Sooners to win (yeah!), we headed over to the OU camp, the parking lot of the convention center, where Sooner tailgates and RVs were plentiful. We joined in on Chesapeake's tailgate, where they had three large screen TVs showing other games and were giving away free food and drinks (Thanks Chesapeake!)

We spent most of the afternoon there meeting other East Coast Sooner fans who were just as excited as we were to be there. Even the band stopped by the play "Boomer Sooner!"

So good to see the Pride of Oklahoma again :)

And we met Sooner, who also stopped by the tailgate.

Kendall and Blake, our friends from Birmingham who also went to OU, made the trip for the FSU game, too. We had a great time hanging out with them again at the Chesapeake tailgate!

Me and John outside the stadium heading into the game.

All the crimson and garnet makes it hard to tell who are Sooner fans and who are Seminole fans.

FSU's famous Osceola and his fiery spear during pre-game.

After a mix of anxiously biting my nails and victory dancing with the big Sooner fan sitting next to me, the Sooners (barley) pulled out the win! Phew! Sure glad we didn't have to hang our heads on the 7 hour drive home the next day.

There's only 1 Oklahoma!

(John loves the Sooners so much, he let the sun paint his face crimson)

Charleston is born!

A few weekends ago, my friend Connie and I visited with a couple Indians and pilgrims about the origins of Charleston (originally called Charles Towne.)

Our new friends. They were very stoic.

The pilgrims (they prefer to be called "settlers") told us how they sailed here from England and built Charles Towne in 1670 as the first settlement in South Carolina. On the way here, they stopped for a mini vacay in Barbados and decided to model their town after their new favorite getaway. Even though they both have palm trees and humid weather, turns outs Charles Towne was not as sweet as Barbados. Literally. Their attempt at cashing in on sugar cane crop failed, so they just cut down a bunch of trees and sold barrels instead.

The Indians (they prefer "Native Americans"), didn't say much besides they tried to play nice and the pilgrims enslaved them. Figures.

After our chat, our new friends gave Connie a house...

And put me in the stocks....

Figures.

Then we all made up and played a nice game of 17th century bowling....

Strike!

Okay, I digress. Connie and I actually learned and saw all this on our visit to Charles Towne Landing, a park on the original site of the English Settlement. Though the history museum and the little replica village were fun, our favorite attraction was the replica boat, the Adventure.

Ships ahoy, matey!

The Adventure was used by the settlers, not pirates unfortunately, for sailing around and trading their awesome barrels.

Later while wondering around the park, we found this cute little plantation house. We forgot to stop and read the plaque, so we don't know much about it besides it was locked and we couldn't go in.

The park also has an Animal Forest, where you can see many of the animals native to South Carolina when the settlers first arrived here.

One of these animals was the buffalo. Looks like home to me!