A Touch of the Old South in Charleston

Yesterday was a nice day.  The weather was much cooler.  In fact, the sun didn't come out till around 2 so it was almost cool enough to wear a sweater in the morning.  Very nice for a change and that also meant my energy level was up. 

Charleston street

Downtown home

So...we went to downtown Charleston early, before most of the tourists showed up.  Parking was easy and free since it was Sunday.  Lots of history and fancy old mansions downtown.  I was hoping to take the homes and gardens tour, but it was sold out for several days and I didn't want to go bad enough to hang around a couple extra days.  As much as I am enjoying the trip, home sounds pretty good too.  As fancy as the downtown is, I wandered around some of the streets off the main drag, and there was definably a lot less money.  I guess that's true of a lot of cities.  Look at LA.

We then headed to the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.  I believe they said it was 500 some acres.  It was large and every bit was spectacularly landscaped.  Old grown too. Lots of photographers there.  I enjoyed chatting with several of them.   I even got a couple pictures I want to work on when I got home. They had a hedge maze like in those old movies and books.  Had to wander around in it. It's harder than you think to find your way to the middle. Fun though.

Plantation home

From there is was on to the Swamp Gardens, attached to the plantation, but with a separate fee.  Not as many pictures, but lots of herons nesting and a bunch of alligators.  One big guy was right off the path.  We were warned before getting to him, so Cash wasn't lunch.  A kid held Cash for me a safe distance away while I went up and took the gators picture. 

All in all a nice day. 

Hilton Head to Charleston

This is the main business district.

The title pretty much sums up the day.  I said good bye (again) to Cara, and off Cash and I  went to check out Hilton Head Island.  What a place!  Talk about money.  It looked as if the whole island and the several miles before you got to the actual island, had been professionally landscaped.  I've never seen so many golf courses.  It was difficult to find a place to eat lunch.  I finally figure out the stores and restaurants were all hidden behind the trees lining the blvd. 

And the shopping mall

And the signs for the stores were very discrete.  Reminded me a bit of the Laguna Niguel area at home, only much more.  I noticed Del Web is setting up a new Sun City there to add to all the other retirement communities in the area.  Before we got to Hilton Head, I drove through several areas around Savannah besides the downtown district.  It's a very pretty city everywhere.  All those trees and a large variety of homes.  Some of the areas have new housing tracts like we do.  Kind of sad though.  They look so bare and are without the character of the older areas.

Then the heat got to me, not to mention Cash, and we just drove on into Charleston.  Set up camp around 4, took a shower, dinner, short walk and have been catching up on computer stuff.  The weather is much cooler here so I like it.  Should sleep good tonight.

Savannah

Left the hotel this morning.  It seemed really strange not having to pack up the trailer.  I'm getting pretty darn good at backing that thing up by the way.  I've backed into a couple tight places with little problem.  I'm very proud of myself on that one. 

Here they call it marshland

Heading toward Savannah, I took the side roads to the side road.  There is a large diversity in housing styles in this part of the country.  Pure hovels next to some nice middle class homes with a few mansions thrown in here and there.  I want to check the housing around the Savannah area and see if the have any track type homes.  I was in the country mostly.

The plantation house

I stumbled on an old rice plantation that had been turned into a state park.  What a gorgeous place.  The grounds were amazing with huge old oak trees dripping with spanish moss.  The house itself wasn't as impossing as I would have thought, though for it's day it probably was.  Finally got some pictures to work on at home.

After that very pretty drive, I hooked up with Cara again at the KOA in Savannah.  I joined her downtown and we, including Cash, walked around for the afternoon.  Even went pee in the police station.  A beautiful city.  Not very crowded or touristy.  Everyone was moving slow since the heat showed up this afternoon.  Very much the picture I had in my head of the old south.

It Had to Happen

Lighthouse at St Augustine

The day started off very nice.  It was nice and cool last night so I slept well.  Then I said good-bye to St. Augustine and Cara and started off up the A1A again.  Such a pretty drive.  Lots of state parks, nice homes, beaches, trees.  I stopped a lot to look at most of the parks and turnoffs.  Ended up on a ferry across the St. John river which took me by surprise.  But a nice surprise.

Amelia Island

Soon enough, I crossed into Georgia. 

I was taking the side road rather than the interstate when the truck started acting weird.  I pulled over to check it out, and sure enough.....a flat tire.  There was a huge piece of metal in it.  Of course, I had no phone reception there.  I tried leaving in the metal and using the fix-a-flat.  Nothing.  I pulled out the metal and tried another can of fix-a flat.  Nothing.  Still no phone reception.  I ended up flagging down a car and a nice southern gentleman stopped and let me use his phone which had reception (Verizon by the way).  After a fair amount of runaround with AAA because of which state I was in, they said they'd send a man out right away.  A while later, a cab pulled up.  Turned out to be the AAA guy on his way home from the airport who moonlights for AAA.  He brought out his rubbermaid tub of tools from the trunk, and put a temporary patch in the tire that would get me back to civilization where I could get it fixed. I went to the RV park/hotel he recommended, rented a room rather than an rv space, dropped off the trailer, and drove to the tire shop. I needed a new tire.  After eating at a great BBQ place, I'm back in the room.  The whole thing turned out to be a fun, if a bit trying, experience.  Through it, I met and chatted with several really interesting local people.  And got some good advise on where to stay and some things to see in DC when I get there.  I'll try to head to Savannah again tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed.

St. Augustine

We spent the morning like this

4/5      Got up this morning and decided to hang around Dayton Beach and let the storm pass.  It was kind of fun when it hit.  Lots of thunder, lighting and pouring rain.  We even had tornado alerts.  I spent most of the morning hunkered down in the trailer. 

When the rain lightened up, Cash and I took a drive around town.  With the bad weather, we had the town and beaches to ourselves.  Surprisingly, the surf looked better than I had seen it.   It's true here I guess that the wind and rain make for cleaner surf.  Trouble was, it was barely ankle  high.  My new friend and neighbor, Cara, had decided to stay also.  She had a lunch date with a friend from town.  Later in the afternoon, I had found out about a dog beach, so we took the dogs down for a good run.  Dinner and wine and hanging out finished off the night.

4/6      Since Cara and I were both heading to St Augustine, we agreed to meet up at the KOA there.  It's only an hour away, but I managed to wander around for a couple hours.  I took the A1A up with a couple side trips.  Again, beautiful, big homes along the way.  Very pretty, scenic drive with lots of trees draped with Spanish moss.  I also talked to a fisherman who gave me a lesson on the catching, handling, and sexing of blue crabs.  After we got the rigs set up, we left the dogs at home and headed into town and did the walk around the historic district.  I bought a couple souvenirs.  Then dinner again, more wine, and we built a fire.  It was a very pleasant day with wonderful weather.  It's not nearly as hot as it has been and the nights cool off nicely.  Sleeping has been much more comfortable. 

I'm off to Savannah and Cara is headed up that way but she is checking out the civil war sites, so our paths are no longer going the same way.  It's been fun though, and I'm sure once she gets back to LA will do lunch.

Daytona Beach

Typical beach scene along the central coast

As I left Fort Pierce this morning, I was hoping for some surf.  But no such luck.  There is a storm coming in tonight which they say should bring some surf with it.  I have a hard time adjusting to the idea that a thunder storm is good for the surf.  At home that means it will be horrible.  At least it wasn't quite so hot earlier today.  As I was driving there was an almost cool breeze coming through the window.  But, of course, it got hotter as the day wore on.  We drove along the A1A, which is on the outer part of the intercoastal waterway, now that we are out of the really crowded areas.  A good portion of it was very pretty with large homes and beautiful landscaping.  Very lush and gorgeous. 

It's that white spot in the middle

As went through Cape Canaveral, I saw the shuttle launch site from a distance, but didn't bother to go do the tour since I had done that several years ago when we went for the Atlas launch. Around 4 we pulled into another KOA in Daytona Beach.  The woman in the office gave me the campsite next to another single lady my age from Los Angeles that was also traveling alone with her dog.  We hit it off pretty well so we had a couple glasses of wine then went out to dinner.  She was a very interesting lady and it was nice to have some company for dinner and drinks for a change.  Of course, the dogs weren't too happy about it since they had to stay home alone.

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

4/2     I said good bye to Key West in the morning.  On the way back up the keys, I debated what to do.  A lot of this trip reminds me of a kid in a candy store.  There is so much to choose from that it becomes hard to choose.  It's just not possible to see and do everything.  At times it becomes impossible to make a decision so I just keep moving. 


I did finally make one good decision though.  There were several swim with the dolphin places.  I checked with one and the price was way too high and I didn't know what to do with Cash, so I kept going.  By the time I got back to Key Largo I had decided what the hell, and went in an signed up.  I ended up taking Cash to a dog groomer and he got a bath while I was doing the dolphin thing.  It all couldn't have worked out better.  And I had the best time ever with the dolphins.  There was a group of people there who were also going to swim, but one of them was only watching, so he was kind enough to take massive pictures of me and my dolphins.  Just the most fun I've had in years.  I'm not sure why I never got around to scuba diving.  I'll still have to work on the why not of that.

After that, I kept going and ended up at Everglades National Park.  Down at the Flamingo area.  Camped near some people who spend their summers in the Outer Banks so they gave me some real good ideas of what to see when I get there.

4/3     Spent some time driving around the everglades and seeing what I could, given the heat and bugs.  Hardly any people there.  The season is definitely over.  It too was not what I expected.  I think it's mostly because it is the dry season.  Many more trees than I thought.  Interesting place.

Cute sign.  Show how flat the everglades are.

 Then I went to Miami.  It was the most horrible thing I've done yet.  There were several things going on in town that made the traffic CRAWL.  And it was HOT.  And the air in the truck doesn't work.  So I went to Miami Beach which was even worse.  I thought you could drive down the road and see the beach on one side and the high rise hotels on the other.....wrong.  You can't even see the beach and you are stuck between the tall buildings with no air moving.  And massive people, and no place to park the truck and trailer.  Not even a place to pull over. And traveling about 2 miles an hour.  Eventually I gave up and got on the interstate to cool off.  By now I'm getting really tired and crabby.  I kept looking over toward the beach, and all you can see is a line of high rises for miles and miles.  Way past Ft. Lauderdale.  I didn't even take any pictures.  So I said "uncle" and drove on north to a KOA in Fort Pierce.  The weather here is much better.  Tonight is actually pleasant.  Even as bad as today in Miami was, I still ran into a lot of nice, friendly people.  The people I've met are the best part of the trip.