Gone to Carolina...

This past weekend was spent in Charleston, SC aka my favorite city in the whole country. I took off work Friday and after a few delays got in to town late Thursday evening. Stepping out of the airport, seeing palm  trees and feeling the warm breeze,  it just felt tropical (compared to Maryland) and I was instantly in vacation mode. I was staying with my old college roommate and we had so many fun plans for my all too short visit. I had been to Charleston a few times before for fraternity formals and other weekend trips so this time I just got to be a local. 

On Friday we spent a couple hours at my friend's nanny job where we walked around in the prettiest little neighborhood in Mt. Pleasant- my goal was to spend as much time outside in the Carolina sun as possible this weekend.  Afterwards we headed to happy hour at O-Ku on King Street for sushi and sangria and then back to her adorable house with the best porch to relax.

Porch sitting with a grapefruit flavored cocktail in my hand, and hot rollers in my hair, getting ready for a night out is probably one of my favorite things I've decided.

Saturday we slept in a bit and then headed to an easy brunch out at the Glass Onion where I finally got the huge yummy buttery biscuit I didn't know I was missing. After brunch we continued on down the road, shaded with trees and Spanish moss, to Wadmalaw, SC  to visit the Firefly Distillery.

The distillery is located on a vineyard and is just down the road from the only tea plantation in America. Our visit happened to fall on the same day as Winestock Music Festival so there was a ton going on around the property-a gourmet Popsicle stand (I had the salted watermelon flavor), live music, and food trucks. 
We mostly explored the property (where I managed to get 100 mosquito bites) and then visited the Firefly tasting room where I purchased something yummy in a mason jar to bring back north with me. We also ended up on the Charleston Scene website which I thought was pretty cool- for only being in town two days we were quite social. 

That evening we had tickets to the Needtobreathe concert at the Charleston Performing Arts Center. Let me rephrase that... we had the BEST tickets to the BEST concert I will ever see in my whole life forever and ever amen. Somehow, miraculously we ended up with front row seats- literally a foot away from my favorite band!

There is something amazingly wonderful about concerts where you can sing every word to every song. They also sang a really great song off of their new album still in the works called the Difference Makers and it is going to be yet another amazing record.
 And at the end of the concert Bear, the lead singer, grabbed my hand and gave me his guitar pick. A few minutes later a roadie came out and gave me Bear's email address. I basically swooned. Of course Bear's married so I'm not sure what that's about but I definitely emailed him! Oh, and I also got a drum stick. BEST CONCERT EVER!!

It was hard to come down from all that concert adrenaline so we slept in a bit the next day. We then had to scramble to throw together tailgate necessities: publix subs, and Lily Pulitzer cups for cocktails, before heading into "plantation county" to Hyde Park Polo Club. We spent my last afternoon in town watching polo, stomping on the divots and playing corn hole.  

 It was such a fun weekend and so hard to get on the airplane back to D.C. We had perfect weather and a perfectly full weekend that made me miss South Carolina so much more than I already do. Guess it's not too soon to start planning another trip back down there.