Charleston, Too

Just thought I'd do an update while we still had WiFi. On Saturday, we decided to drive into town and do the laundry and run some errands. Since McKenzie had been so good and had not gotten to go anywhere special for a while, we decided to take her with us and after the chores, headed out to the Charleston Tea Plantation. It is America's only Tea Garden and there are hundreds of thousands of tea bushes that stretch as far as your eye can see. We took a tour and learned all about picking, drying and packaging tea. McKenzie especially liked the Peach flavored tea leaves, so naturally we had to buy some to bring back to the fifthwheel. She also loves rocking on the porch in the rockers. On our way back to the trailer, we found a "You pick'em farm" for strawberries and picked several pounds of delicious, sweet berries. It is almost the end of the season and we wanted to make sure we got some before they were gone.

On Sunday we did some chores around the trailer and decided to clip McKenzie's coat as there are quite a few ticks and fleas around this part of the country. Since she was clipped to the skin and would get sunburned easily, she is sporting her new Harley Davidson shirt which is black with a pink bone trimmed in rhinestones with "Harley Davidson" in the middle of the bone. She thinks she looks pretty stylish in her shirt that her Daddy bought for her while we were in Savannah. In the evening we went over to Shirley and George's rig for some grilled hamburgers and fried onion rings. They were delicious!!

Monday we all headed out to Charleston again to visit the Fort Sumter National Monument. You have to take a boat out to the island the fort is on and while on the boat, we passed one of the "tall ships" that had been in port over the weekend. This one has been painted as a "pirate ship" and is being used in a new reality TV series about pirates that is supposed to be aired sometime toward the end of May.

Fort Sumter was the place where the Civil War began. South Carolina had seceded from the Union, yet Union forces still occupied Fort Sumter at the entrance of Charleston Harbor. The South demanded that Fort Sumter be vacated. The North refused. On April 12, 1861, from nearby Fort Johnson, South Carolina troops of the Confederacy fired on the Fort - the start of a two-day bombardment that resulted in the surrender of the fort by Union troops. With the North's withdrawal, the South held the Fort until it was evacuated on February 17, 1865. During that time, the Fort experienced one of the longest sieges in modern warfare - for almost two years, 46,000 shells, estimated at over 7 million pounds of metal, were fired at the Fort. The monument today bears only a slight resemblance to the original appearance. The original fort was over 50 feet tall with five foot thick brick walls but was reduced to rubble by the Civil War.

Tomorrow we will have a "road trip" day (McKenzie's favorite words next to "popcorn"). We are headed to Myrtle Beach and will make a stop first at the Camping World to get a new awning installed. We forgot that you can't leave your awning up and level during a rain - it ends up bending the awning tube. Once that is done, we'll meet up with George and Shirley again and spend a few days camped on the beach. The weather has been great - in the 50's during the night and around 80 during the day. For our Houston friends and family - NO HUMIDITY!!!

Don't know when we will have WiFi again, but as soon as we can, we'll continue to update this site so you can hopefully learn a little history that you didn't already know, and travel with us enjoying the sites of our wonderful country. Until next time, take care and hugs to everyone!

Savannah and Charleston

We arrived at Savannah Thursday, May 10th and stayed at Skidaway Island State Park. It was a beautiful area and close to the city. On Friday, George's sister Martha and his brother-in-law, Red, arrived to spend the weekend enjoying Savannah with us. George, Shirley, Red, Martha, George and myself all had lunch at Paula Deen's Restaurant. We had waited in line to get a lunch reservation. We got an extra treat, when Paula, herself, showed up. She is just as sweet in person as she is on the Food Network TV. We women had to have our picture taken with her!

On Friday we all took a trolley tour around Savannah and learned a little about the history of the city. It was interesting to note that when Sherman marched through the south burning the cities, the city fathers of Savannah rode out and agreed that they would surrender without a fight if he'd agree not to burn the city. He agreed and Savannah was saved from being burnt to the ground as some other cities were. James Oglethorpe created Savannah with 21 historic district squares which are park-like and filled with huge live oaks draped with Spanish moss and vibrant azaleas. The squares are surrounded by splendid old homes and churches, such as the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist which is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Georgia.

After spending a restful weekend and saying goodby to Martha and Red, we went on an excursion out to Fort Pulaski. Construction began on this fort in 1829 and required $1 million, 25 million bricks, and 18 years to finish. The fort was set up to protect the harbor of Savannah. The fort was considered invincible,with a moat encircling it, complete with alligators. Unfortunately, the builders of the fort did not take into account the new "rifled cannons" of the Union army. After 5,000 shots and 30 actual hours of battle, Col. Charles H. Olmstead surrendered. Today you can still see the marks from the cannons on the walls.

Before leaving the Savannah area, we headed over to Hilton Head and spent some time on the beach. The water was much warmer than it had been a week or two ago and George had a thought that just flitted through his head about throwing me into the water. Luckily, he decided not to do that!

We are currently in Charleston, South Carolina. We spent a whole day just walking thru the market area and historic district. It is a bit more subdued than Savannah and not nearly as busy. George, Shirley, and I decided to take a plantation tour and visited the Middleton Place House. The original house was a three building residence of the distinguished Middleton family with dates to the early 1700s. It, and the 200 acres surrounding it were part of a dowry brought by Mary Williams to her marrieage to Henry Middleton in 1741. Henry began improving the property by creating beautiful gardens filled with camellias, azaleas, lakes,and a reflection pool. The plantation was supported by rice farming. Union troops set fire to the home in 1865 burning the house and the north addition beyond repair. The less damaged south addition was restored in 1869-1870 and continued to be the family's residence. We spent all day walking the grounds and it was really beautiful, restful and certainly made you realize how difficult life was back during those times.

On Friday, all four of us went back to downtown Charleston and spent the day looking at the "Tall Ships" that had arrived in the port. We enjoyed being able to go on board these ships and we all decided that we like having our four wheels planted firmly on the ground instead of bobbing around in the ocean.

The weekend will be "down-time" for all of us. Yes, we do have to still do those mundane things such as laundry, shopping, etc. We have thoroughly enjoyed our trip thus far and will be leaving Charleston on Tuesday to head up to Myrtle Beach. We have campsites on the beach and will spend a few days there, just relaxing and soaking up some sun and surf. We're thinking of all of you and wish you were here to experience all this wonderful history with us. Take care and God bless.

Movin' On

We stayed at the SKP Park in Summerdale, Alabama while George and Shirley went to get their motorhome air conditioning fixed and we agreed to meet them on Monday at Brunswick, Georgia which is the coastal region of the state. Thursday we drove over to Gulf Shores. The beaches are so white they look like sugar.

On the Friday before we left Alabama, George and Jerry (whom we met at the SKP park) decided to run another electrical outlet in the bedroom of our fifthwheel so Jan could set up the printer and computer in there instead of working on the kitchen table. They worked most of the day and created a really neat workspace.

Now I don't have to drag the printer out from under the sofa every time I want to print something. I think I'm regressing. Okay, back to Saturday, when we actually left Summerdale. We slowly made our trek into Florida on route 90. During the day we found an deserted old gas station that had a cover over where the gas pumps used to be and pulled the trailer under the cover, got out our chairs and watched the traffic go by for several hours. We had decided to boondock for that night instead of staying in a campground. Our destination was the Wal-mart parking lot at Quincy, Florida. By the way, the GPS works great as long as you keep an eye out for those low underpasses! We spent the night in Wal-Mart. I'm sure you've all seen motorhomes or RVs parked in the parking lot of Wal-Marts and/or Sams and wondered what they were doing there - well, they were spending the night! We're very thankful that those stores offer an option for us RVers who don't want to spend $25-30 a night just to sleep.

Sunday, we started out with our destination to be Waycross, Georgia. Once again we found a small city park in the little town of Boston, Georgia and spent some time just sitting out, reading, having lunch and killing time. McKenzie agrees that "Life is good"! That night we stayed in the

parking lot of an Elks Club. The weather was very cool, about 58 degrees so it didn't matter that we didn't have any hookups.

Monday, we arrived at a Passport America park in Brunswick, Georgia. Passport America, for those of you who are not RVers, is a club that you can join and it allows you to stay at parks that participate in its programs for half price. Anyway, we had made reservations to stay until Thursday, when we will head out for Savannah. George and Shirley caught up with us here. We had a potluck dinner of grilled chicken, steamed vegetables, a great wine and enjoyed catching up with each other. On Tuesday, we all decided to head out to St. Simon's Island and to visit Fort Frederica which was an 18th century British Fort and Town. It was established in 1736 and the fort guarded Georgia's southern frontier. At it's peak, it had approximately 70 houses inside the dusty streets of the fort. It is best remembered for repulsing a Spanish invasion in 1742, but despite this success, the town and fort ended in ruin and disappeared after the conclusion of the war when the garrison was disbanded. We all decided that wearing all these heavy clothes would have been a real problem. Guess you can tell from the picture, who wears

Jan & George at Fort Frederica

the pants in this family!!!!

After the fort, we visited the St. Simon's Island Lighthouse which has 129 circular steps to the top. It is one of only five that exist in Georgia and still serves as a navigation aid to ships with its beam that casts a light 23 miles out to sea. While there, George and I decided to take advantage of walking down into the Atlantic Ocean, but very quickly decided the frigid temperature was a bit much for us Texans!

We had a wonderful lunch at Barbara Jean's. The specialties were coconut shrimp, "she-crab" soup, and crab cakes. We all ordered something different and taste tested everything! When we left, we were all so full, we had to walk around the town for a bit before heading back to the campground. Tomorrow will be a planning day for where we will go and what we will do once we leave Savannah. We're staying at a State park while there so I'm sure we won't have any WiFi , but I'll update again as soon as I can. Until then, remember that we constantly think of all of you and hope you enjoy traveling the country with us. Hugs to everyone!!

Summerdale, AL

We've been taking it easy while we were here at the SKP park in Summerdale, Alabama. We got in last Friday and will probably be leaving either this Sunday or Monday. Our friends, George and Shirley are having air conditioning problems and have an appointment in Pennsacola to have it fixed tomorrow (Thursday), so we'll just play it by ear.

McKenzie is really enjoying sitting out in her own lounge chair during the early mornings and evenings. She likes to watch all the beautiful birds - doves, blue jays, etc. and especially is interested in the blackbirds that are constantly fighting with each other. She says, "This is the life".

On Tuesday, May 1st, we decided to drive over to Pennsacola and attend the National Museum of Naval Aviation. Shirley and I weren't too excited about seeing airplanes but after we visited and had a two hour tour, we were definitely impressed and both of us learned quite a lot. By the time we left, I think we were all on overload. This museum is on the naval station in Pennsacola and it is free to spend as much time as you like looking around it. We will definitely have to go back at some point as we only saw about half of it this trip. It is also home to the Blue Angels flight team who practices there.

The second picture is of a plane that is used in the Snoopy cartoons named the Sopwith Camel. You usually see Snoopy flying it with his white silk scarf trailing behind. We learned that the reason the pilots wore the silk scarves were 1) to protect their neck from their wool uniforms, 2) to wipe their goggles, and 3) to pull up over their nose and mouth to prevent the smell of the fuel from choking them as it blew back into the cockpit.

The third picture shows some of the Blue Angel planes and then there are some general pictures of the museum itself. If you ever get to Pennsacola, it is definitely worth a trip out to the base to see it.

Afterwards, we headed over the a RV dealer who carried Newmar motorhomes and fifthwheels. After looking at several, George, Shirley, George and I all decided that they were way too expensive for what you get, so we'll all keep looking!

We're going to be losing our wifi after Friday, so I may not be posting for a while. We are due in Savannah on May 10th and if we can get Wifi somewhere, I may have time for an update, otherwise it will have to be later in the month. Hope you enjoy travelling with us - hugs to all of you.