This entry will start off on a sad note – unfortunately Moti, the wonderful Siamese pictured above), passed away since we brought him over to the east coast. He lived a majestic 18yrs and we loved him the entire time (or in my case, since the first day I met him). While we’re sad, we’re not surprised and it was a mercy in the last months to know he wouldn’t suffer daily with increasingly aggressive health issues in his old age. We love you Moti, and forever will.

On a lighter note, Archie has adapted phenomenally to life on the east coast – I guess it helps that he can’t really tell the difference between Rachel and Karen with enough food in his bowl… We enjoyed all of our time in Hilton Head (and Charleston + Savannah!), but the collage below shows that the most important highlight of the two weeks we spent here was the Archie + Rachel time.

Hilton Head was a nice reprieve from van-living across the US – we had a consistent bed for more than 3 nights, we could unpack more than 3 pairs of underwear, and more importantly we cook in a kitchen where we had enough time to memorize where all the measuring cups were…

Sam and Karen were wonderful hosts and showed us around the tropical paradise that is HHI, plus the relatively nearby cities of Charleston and Savannah. As a brief but not exhaustive overview, we really enjoyed:

• Riding bikes around the 20mi round trip in Port Royal
• Brews at Shellring Ale Works (great sours!)
• A big tree I guess?
• Some of the best brisket outside of TX borders
• and a very disappointing Old Fashioned, presented in a very fancy way at the Baobab Lounge in Savannah

There’s a good many more restaurants, shops and booze-houses we checked out along the way, but some were so good we forgot to take pictures to document the occasion… that and we may want to keep the crowds down for when we go back next time!

Of course no trip to the Moore’s is complete without baking – not only consuming a healthy amount of the Great British Bake Off given the premiering season, but also baking some delicious things ourselves. You can see a snapshot of the excellent breads, cakes and pies that graced the oven during the last two weeks (not pictured is the 24+hr apple dehydration to get a pound of dried apples, which were promptly rehydrated for the stack cake…) I also added some flair to the kitchen myself, deep frying some chicken for a nice dinner – I don’t have proof that this effort led to anything other than a burned-down kitchen and some sub-par Chik-fil-a tenders, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say that fried chicken was the bomb.