battle in the upstate

"the upstate" is what native south carolinians call the northwestern corner of the state. while duff's mom was in town, we took a road trip to chesnee, south carolina, the site of cowpens national battlefield (two stamps on the national park passport, according to duff). cowpens was the site of a one-hour revolutionary war battle, and we sat through a 12-minute presentation featuring little blinking lights as stand-ins for soldiers.

there's a large monument to the soldiers involved in the battle in front of the visitor's center. as you can see, i balanced myself carefully on an informative sign so as not to spill my frosty beverage while the picture was being taken.






on the way out, f-stop, fresh from a rather wild adventure in turks and caicos, insisted we stop for a couple more photos:




i'm not sure what my next adventure will be, though duff has said something about needing a personal trainer to help her get ready for the big hike. why do i get the feeling i'm being drafted for the job?

we're rich!

as you can see, my friend packer and i have made it back safely from our weeklong cruise. not only did we take a ton of pictures, but we were also able to bring back these lempiras from honduras. i wonder how many of those potentially $350 million winning lottery tickets we could buy if we exchanged these at the bank.....