God's Provision ~ Our Vacation Part 3!

Well, it has certainly taken me enough time to post the last of our vacation installment!  But, if you have read earlier blog posts, you will understand the delay!  Our last stop was a leadership retreat with the leaders in my husband's battalion.  The idea was to break away and reunite with family after a long deployment.  It was a great time and this one was also in South Carolina at a wonderful place called "Middleton Place."  This place dates back before the American Revolution and has so much history to offer.  We actually stayed there at the inn, but there are regular tours of the grounds that go on almost daily.  So, it was a real treat to be able to walk the grounds anytime we wanted and then go back and rest our tired bones at the lovely inn.  The picture above is an example of the rooms.  They are so unique looking.  They are surrounded by windows that can be shut with wooden blinds, but can be kept open to look out on the beautiful water that runs through the property and the gorgeous sunsets in the evening.

This is another one of the rooms.  The bottom half of this building was a lounge where you could buy sandwiches and snacks and in the winter could sit by a wood burning fireplace.  Just beautiful.  The children really enjoyed coming out in the evening and watching the huge dragonflies and bats that would come out.  They also had a wide open area just to run and get all that energy out of them before bed!

I have so many pictures of this place that I could show you.  It was just breathtaking.  We ended up staying on site here all three days, only going out to get a healthy dinner at Jason's Deli.  We could have stayed much longer!

God's beautiful wildlife could be seen everywhere.  There were swans, egrets, turtles, etc.  They had a barnyard there with animals and a beautiful garden.  There were wonderful walkways between trees and azalea bushes.  It is definitely worth seeing.  We could not have afforded the Inn if it had not been paid for, but hope to at least get back to tour the grounds again.  For those of you that homeschool...it would be a great field trip!  I could go into all the history of it, but that would take far too much blogging right now!

Sunning under a tree...an alligator.  The turtles certainly do get closer than I ever would!

Look how big the trunk of this tree is!  Amazing!

This is one of the limbs that has some help from a steel pole.

There were acres and acres of grounds like this.  The children had a great time.

This is one of the beautiful historic buildings on the site.

These were called the butterfly lakes because they were divided like the two separate wings of the butterfly.

One side of the butterfly lakes.

Looking on the other side of the lakes.

This is just one of the beautiful views across the many lakes there.  We had a wonderful time and we were so thankful to the Lord for providing us with a fantastic vacation!