090606 MWR+ Audubon and Buccaneer Restaurant

After classes on June06 Shane and I took off to see the Audobon. This hot, mosquito-rich swamp was actually beautiful! I waited too long to write about it, but got a TON of pictures. We think we saw the mud kicked up from the underbelly of an alligator (since they don't really just pop up so you can see them, and we didn't really have time to stalk him thoroughly.) I did get photos of a swimming turtle, tons of awesome looking tree "knees", and various growing things (It's not a TUMAH)! We didn't see any snakes, but we DID come out a heck of a lot more bit up than we thought. Most of the bites didn't even show up til the next day, and we were iiiiitchy! Totally worth it. I added a new Owl to my collection in the gift shop: Beidler, named after the swamp we were in (Francis Beidler). Will get a picture up at some point.

We cruised back to town, and not having time for the aircraft carrier (sneef) we lazed around a bit until we decided to hit up the Market before dinner. Parking was unbeLIEVABLY bad. We were given a parking ticket to a lot that was full (wow, that guy was paying attention yes?) We did find a parking garage and wandered around for an hour. It was so fun (I love wandering!) Hubby bought me a beautiful purple dress (which I wore the very next day), and I bought a purple shell night-light (we'd been looking for one.) The rest of the Market was just a plethora of small shops and tables, I think there was a craft fair going on.

I saw many horse-drawn buggies, and got to pet one of the horses. He was HUGE, and I didn't know their ears were so hard! (Have pic!) It also turned out that our restaurant was in the same area. I talked him into letting us go to a Pirate themed place called the Buccaneer. He was worried that it might be Jack-Sparrow cheesey, but on the coast where Blackbeard's ship crashed I expect QUALITY! And we got it! (TONS of pictures here too.) The dinner was fabulous. The portions were very small, but in retrospect, perfectly filling. I had a pineapple rum drink, and buzzed around a little bit as we read the histories for the artifacts on the wall and took tons of photos. *They DID have one period item, that wasn't really piratey either: a 1500s German Broadsword. The thing was longer than I am tall!

We took our full bellies on a walk back around the market, hitting up a bookstore on the way back We drove back to the hotel and I was absolutely exhausted! I hadn't been so happily tired in such a long time!

That's the down and dirty for the day. The rest of the retreat was more classes (yay!) and a not-bad drive home to rescue the puppy from HER vacation in the mud, and get ready for our dual weeks of classtime hell :P