Photo Friday!

You may know, I went on a road trip last week, down to Mississippi to see my little sister.  Today, for your viewing pleasure, are a few pictures from my trip.

Turns out driving to Mississippi takes a LONG TIME.  Which is not bad because it allows time for photo ops.  I thought it was important to document (twice) what this looked like, in case my loyal readers ever wondered, "Gee, I wonder what Jill looks like when she's driving?  Also, while somewhere in Eastern Mississippi, the most glorious thing happened. My odometer hit the magic number 123456 (see bottom left), and I captured it on iphone.  You can be jealous of that.

A theme of my trip seemed to be giant things.  First, I saw one of the WORLD's LARGEST CHAIRS (top left...that's a minivan parked underneath it).  Then, when Mandy and I drove to the beach one day, I saw a giant boot (not pictured), a giant paint can (not pictured) and this giant watermelon (bottom).  After driving past so many awesome giant things without stopping, I just had to pull off for photo of the watermelon.  And on the way home, stopped for lunch, I saw this giant cow. It was kismet.

My trip was a great time with family.  I got to see my parents on the way up (that's dad on the far right). He really likes this very berry green tea that you can only get in the Carolinas at certain stores.  So since he hasn't been up in awhile, I brought him a stash. And Mandy took me to the school where she teaches (top left) when she is not enjoying spring break with her sister.  We also ventured to Brent's Drugstore/Diner, which was featured in the movie The Help (bottom left). I had an amazing peanut butter/banana sandwich.

On my last day  there, we went on adventure. We tracked down this abandoned town that Mandy had heard about. It was a thriving Mississippi river port in the early 1800s. Now it is nearly deserted, with just  a few remaining buildings. Do you know why the people left? The river MOVED.  It moved more than two miles, leaving this small town in the middle of nowhere. You can't even see the river or hear it from the town now. This flabbergasted me.  What about you?

We also excursioned to these ruins of a plantation house from the 1800s.  It was built just before the Civil War, had 23 rooms and survived because the Union used it as a hospital.  Then in the 1890s someone left a burning cigar on the 2nd story porch and the whole place burned down. All that is left are the columns and a bit of ironwork.  It also used to be near the river before that river just up and moved.  It was beautiful.

So that was my (first) spring break!  I wanted to share with you some of my adventures!