Our Girl Scout Trip to Savannah + Charleston

This past March, my family and I went on a road trip with our Girl Scout troop. We went to Savannah GA, to learn about the Girl Scout founder: Juliette Gordon Low. We visited to her birth house and the nearby neighborhood, which was beautiful. She is truly inspiring, so I recommend reading more about her here: http://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/history/low_biography/

(View the entire gallery of photos here.)

We drove up to Georgia on Friday afternoon and spent the night there. We got up early to visit the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace in Savannah. First, was a scavenger hunt, then a picnic lunch at a park and a trip to the local popular ice cream shop.

One activity Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace provided for the girls was a scavenger hunt around two neighboring parks. As part of that, the girls were supposed to run around the Tomo Chi Chi rock three times screaming, “Whatcha doin’ Tomo Chi Chi?” Then, they were supposed to write down ‘what it said.’ (Get it? I didn’t.) They did this about 30 times before a smart mom told us to write down on the paper “what it said.” Oh… Dang riddles.

After that, the girls did some crafts back at the birthplace and the adults + boys walked around the town. And enjoyed a delicious and refreshing adult beverage. Ryan is holding the magic key he found. In case you were wondering.

(The boys did a lot of waiting around for the girls on Saturday. That’s Ryan playing on his dad’s phone.)

In the late afternoon, we drove on to Charleston, South Carolina, where we found our 5-star hotel: The USS Yorktown.

It was REALLY cold at night – they had the A/C set to about 65 degrees and I neglected to bring blankies. Isabel is sleeping with a jacket on, and one of my t-shirts as a sleeping bag over her legs.

We woke up very early after a rough night on barely-beds to go to Fort Sumter. The girls and other boy/girl scouts got to participate in raising the flags.

The flag Girl Scout Troop 252 raised.

I love this photo of Ryan & Rene.

Ryan enjoyed reading the signs. I’m really surprised that you can’t see mosquitoes in this pictures. They were huge and lethal!

Yes, cannons ARE perfectly acceptable photo props.

Back on the ship – it was really windy on the flight deck!

My friend, Gehisa, had this cool idea of shooting down a fuel injection tube thingy, but wasn’t QUITE tall enough to execute it. This is her son.

Fort Moultrie was much less exciting than Fort Sumter, but I did see this wall and immediately want to play with it. (And the kids got their Junior Ranger badges there.)

This trip reminded me how much you can do in a weekend, if you set out to do it (and have a DVD player in the van – with many sets of headphones). I’m hoping for more road trips this year.