skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Magnolia Plantation is known for it's beautiful gardens, approximately 30 acres of them. The same family has been in charge of the gardens since before the Civil War. Then they did the work as slaves. Today, they are employees. We spent the afternoon today touring the gardens and the plantation house.
The gardens have been designed to have blooms all year long. Even though we are here in between the spring blooms, like azaleas, and the summer blooms, there was still a lot of color to be seen.
The house is the third one to be built here by the Drayton family. The first one was built before the Revolutionary War. It burned accidentally. The second house was a casualty of the Civil War. Although the current house is not as grand as the earlier ones, the 18th and 19th century furniture was pretty impressive. There were also many nature illustrations by John James Audebon, who was a close friend of the Drayton family. A lot of these illustrations were done while he was a guest at the plantation.
An added treat was that, as we toured the grounds, we could see some of the acrobatic flying by the Air Force Thunderbirds. They were performing in an air show at the nearby Charleston A.F. Base. It reminded us of a time, more than 20 years ago, when the Halter family saw the Thunderbirds at Mount Rushmore. We happened to be there when they were taking some promotional films and pictures with the famous sculpture as the background.
The trolley tour we took when we first got to Savannah worked out so well that we decided to do something similar here in Charleston. We signed up for a 90 minute tour on a small bus and saw a lot of Charleston and learned new things about the city's history.
One part of our tour took us by the beautiful campus of the College of Charleston. The girl-boy ratio there is 6-1. Did my high school guidance counselor tell me about this place? Noooo! Not to mention that the coeds aren't bundled up in winter clothes for 75% of the school year. But it was the destiny of this farm boy to meet a painted woman from the big city and live happily ever after.
Our bus driver also took us right through the campus of The Citadel. The cadets were going to class in their neatly pressed uniforms. It was an impressive sight. We were told that, upon graduation, a cadet can join any branch of the service as an officer, but they are not required to do so. About 30% of the graduates choose to join the military. Later, when we got back downtown, we saw cadets again. They were doing running along the sidewalks, all dressed the same, in what I would call "old school" gym
clothes. Matching blue tee shirts and shorts with white belts on the shorts. Our bus driver told us that the courtyard pattern shown in the picture was done to make sure that all graduates were NASCAR fans.
As we often do, we got hungry. (It was 3:00, a long time from breakfast) We found a Mexican restaurant with the unlikely name of Juanita Greenberg's. The food was great and we indulged ourselves with dessert from a gourmet cupcake store that was just down the street. Dinner tonight will be popcorn and water. Then we headed home to Wickett, who had spent the afternoon in the air conditioned comfort of the motorhome. Poor dog.
The plan for tomorrow is to visit Magnolia Plantation, which is about 10 miles from us. Pictures will follow.
Hollywood, SC that is. We arrived at Lake Aire RV Park and Campground this afternoon. This is our home for the next eight days. There is a nice pool and a lake for fishing. We are about six miles from Charleston. Now we have to decide what places we want to visit. It's not going to be easy because there are many interesting places that are close by. A day or two of just enjoying the RV park is a strong possibility too. Since I had no luck fishing in Savannah, maybe I'll do better here.
Well, Sue is officially retired. Even though she quit working when I retired in 2004, she was too young to collect retirement herself. That changed on her last birthday in March, so her first pension benefit payment showed up in our checking account today. That makes it official. An added bonus is that she has her own medical coverage now which is much cheaper than having coverage as a spouse on my account. Today's payment was for April. There will be another on May 1st and each month thereafter.
To celebrate her retirement and our last night in Savannah, Sue took me out for dinner at The Pirate's House. The building was constructed in the early 1700's and was used, you guessed it, by pirates. The infamous Captain Flint died on the upper floor of this building as he exclaimed, " Darby, bring the ale aft". Many have supposedly seen his ghost in the rooms of the house (I suspect after too many tankards of Chatham Artillery Punch, a potent local drink). We both had the filet mignon and it was very good.
Savannah has been great, but we are both looking forward to traveling to Charleston, SC tomorrow. Among other things, we plan to visit some of the plantations in the Charleston area. There aren't any good examples of plantations here in Savannah. Thanks, General Sherman.
An update on my mom's recovery from her broken hip: The operation on Tuesday went well and she was up for limited physical therapy today. Now it's a matter of working through the rehab so that she has good flexibility in the hip. I talked to her twice today and she sounds feisty and in good spirits. That's a positive sign.
Our destination on Monday was the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. We were impressed. For those of you who have been to the Wright-Patterson Museum near Dayton, this one is right up there, although a bit smaller. This was the unit that flew missions from England during WWII. At first with just bombers, and later with added fighter escorts. They have really put together memorabilia, AV displays and full-sized planes to show you the major contributions made by the "Eighth" to the war effort. The outside gardens also pay tribute to all those who were killed or wounded in that effort. We both learned a lot.
Monday night, I got word from my brother, Jim, that my mom had taken a fall at home and broken her hip. Jim's wife, Cheryl, and son Trevor made sure that she got to the hospital ok and she was operated on today. Just before I started writing this post, I checked on her and she was out of surgery and resting back in her room. Recovery will be a little tougher for this one compared to her hip surgery two years ago. That one was to repair a worn hip. This break requires more involved surgery and her rehab will take more time.
Even though it was hard to be so far away when mom's accident happened, the doctors and nurses are the ones who will see
that she gets better and they know what needs to be done.
After convincing myself that things were moving in the right direction, we decided to make another short visit to downtown Savannah. The two places that we visited were (1) the home of Juliette Gordon Lowe, founder of the Girl Scouts and (2) the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. I have included two pictures but you really have to see these locations in person to get the full experience. Both places show what a great job the city has done to preserve the old downtown area. We had lunch in between the two visits at The Six Pence Pub. It was so authentic that we were surprised when our waitress spoke with a Georgia accent and not a cockney one.
Well, our day of chilling at the park went well. I finished the book that I had been reading and I paid a visit to each of the two lakes in search of fish. No luck on the search. The locals tell me that the fish are "nesting" at this time of year and they are not as eager to chase food. Also, I was using artificial bait, so the attraction was probably not that great. I am going back in the next couple of days and try some pieces of hot dogs as bait. That way, if the fish don't eat the bait, I can. It's a win-win situation.
Although the day went well, the evening was not quite as smooth. We started out to find some pizza and then go grocery shopping. But the best laid plans of Bill and Sue sometimes go astray. After we filled up with overpriced gas and got a cheap car wa
sh, we started looking for a pizza place. As we drove, a noise came from under the car and I noticed a definite pull to the right on the steering wheel. You guessed it. FLAT TIRE
Luckily, there was a handy parking lot of a defunct business that we could pull into and not be in anyone's way. We still had a bicycle, satellite dish, golf clubs, lawn chairs, etc. in the back of the car, so getting to the spare and the jack took a bit of work. Then, with the crummy little lug wrench that came with the car, I could only get three of the four lug nuts loose. I am going to have to start carrying the good X lug wrench from the bus with us in the car. Well, we decided that, since we have been paying AAA dues since 1972, we might as well let them give some back. They got there in about 30 minutes and we were back on the road. We grabbed some BK food and went home.
Today, we went over to the nearby Super WalMart and got a whole new set of tires. They did the job in the time it took us to shop for groceries. Talk about multitasking. The old tires were the original tires from 2003 and the back tires had about 15,000 miles more than the front ones because of towing the car all over the country. We bought Goodyear American Eagles, which I'm sure they shipped here from Akron, just for us. The bad tire had a hole punched right in the middle of the tread, just like it had taken a bullet.
Once we were safely mobile again, we did a little driving around to check out some shopping areas and locations of movie theaters for activities later in the week. And we finally got our pizza too.
Tomorrow, we are headed for the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. It is very close to us and some of our friends in Florida recommended it. Check future blog posts for more information on this visit.
Our adventures today took us to Tybee Island. The island is about 18 miles from where we are camped. We focused our visit around the famous Tybee Lighthouse. It was first used in 1736. Because of two erosion problems and one burning during the Civil War, they are actually on their fourth lighthouse. James Oglethorpe and other early Savannah residents realized the strategic importance of Tybee to protect the mouth of the Savannah River. There have been bunkers and fortifications there from Revolutionary and Civil War days. During WW I and WWII, troops were trained and stationed there.
One of the bunkers has been converted into a museum. It is shown in one of the collage pictures. Notice that some of those pictures are taken from a high point. Sue and I climbed the 178 steps of the spiral staircase to reach the top of the lighthouse and took advantage of the wonderful view from the observation platform. From that height, you could actually see some of the buildings in Savannah, almost 20 miles away.
We checked out the museum after we came down from the lighthouse (down was much easier than up). Then we stopped for some shrimp and other good "low country" eats at Sting Ray's. We drove around the town a bit to see the many brightly colored houses. Many of these are advertised as rentals, but if you are looking to buy some beachfront, vacation property, there are also a bunch of For Sale signs.
Then it was time to head for home. The plan for tomorrow is to chill out at the RV park. I plan to spend some time fishing at the lake in the park and also do some reading.
Note: I forgot to mention that yesterday, in Savannah, we had fried green tomatoes as an appetizer with lunch. Can you get any more southern than that?
As planned, today we took a trolley trip around the beautiful "old" section of downtown Sav
annah. There were sixteen designated stops and you could get off and on the trolley according to your own schedule. A trolley came by each stop every 20 minutes from 9:00 to 4:3
0. It was a good way to see the area without walking too much. We were there from about 1:00 until 4:00 and we saw some spots that we may go back a take a closer look at on our own. We saw Paula Deen's restaurant. They were all booked for lunch and, as the picture shows, people were still standing in line. I guess if somebody died or got sick, it would open up a chair. Geez! We found another nice place called Belfords, and had lunch outside on the patio.
This section of the city is divided into over 20 squares and each one is named for some famous person or persons. It lends itself to some really nice parks and landscaping, and makes it easier to visualize the city's past. We found out that the squares were numbered in the early years and, if there was a fire, they would use a huge bell to ring the number of the square so that people could go and help to fight the fire. I would think that could be bad for fires in the higher numbered squares, because people might lose count.
We also saw the church steeple from which the feather floated down to Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name, and the bench on which he delivered the "Life is like a box of chocolates" line.
We arrived at our campground in Rincon, Georgia at about 5:00 today. We stayed at a nice rest area near Titusville last night. It turned out that the Super WalMart that we were going to stay in didn't allow overnight guests. They had city ordinance signs posted to tell us about it. The rest area was nice, with all night security and good lighting. Trucks coming and going were a little noisy. It bothered Sue more than me, but I think that we will both sleep better tonight.
The trip from Titusville to Rincon was 99% on I-95. It was a little windy, but not bad enough to make us pull over. There were also some construction areas where we had two lanes instead of three. Since we were not on a tight schedule, we just rolled along. I even got 30 minutes of nap time in when we stopped for lunch. The trip through Jacksonville, FL on 95 was nice because we got a good view of the city. We wanted to see the downtown area more so we decided not to take the I-295 bypass.
The only real snag in today's trip happened when we got off I-95. The directions that I had printed from Google said to turn right at the end of the exit ramp. We found out later, by calling the campground, that we should have turned left. We didn't think that we needed the GPS today, but maybe we will have to start using it along with the printed directions. The real problem was that when we made the wrong turn, we saw a street name that matched our directions and turn onto it. It took us almost immediately to a narrow country road with no place to turn a motorhome around and that turned out to be a DEAD END! Yipes. We had to take the car off of the tow dolly (which we were going to do at the campground anyway), take the dolly off so that I could back up and get the bus turned around. Then we reattached the dolly and once we got the correct directions from the campground, Sue just followed me in the car. Only a minor glitch. It's one of those memories, that 10 years from now, will make us wake up screaming in the middle of the night.
Tomorrow, we are thinking about taking one of the trolley tours around Savannah to kind of get our bearings and decide what we might want to go back and look at later on our own. We have until 4/24 so we should be able to do lots of sightseeing.
Well, tomorrow morning (Tuesday) we begin our gradual journey back to Ohio. We worked today at getting most of the outside materials like lights, rugs, chairs etc. all packed away. The tow dolly with car attached is hooked up and ready to hit the road. After breakfast, we will do the few last minute, inside things and then probably take showers before unhooking the water and sewer lines. It's always good to start a journey with that clean feeling. Check out time is 11:00 and I don't see us leaving much before that. We are only looking at a little over three hours of driving to get to the WalMart near Titusville and there is no reason to get there early.
It has been a good winter here in Florida. We met some good people and enjoyed having family visits from Kris, Howard, Mike and Kim. It's also nice to know that we will be coming back to the same place next winter. That will be a first for us.
Sue and I are both looking forward to seeing new sights in Savannah and Charleston and, as always, Wickett will enjoy having new places FOR HIM TO POOP ON!!
Cliff Lee is the man
8 innings and just 1 run:
Sabathia longs
Well, we made the trip over to Manatee Park with Mike and Kim yesterday. Even though the chances of seeing one of the beasts was rather slim, this trip has become a tradition for us and any of our visitors. As we suspected, the high temperatures were keeping the manatees from showing up at the park. But we did get a picture with our guests and the frozen manatee on a stick (see above).
We had planned other activities for the day, however, so after lunch (Cracker Barrel) we proceeded to Smuggler's Cove, an upscale miniature golf place that we had driven by a few times. The rest of the afternoon was spent chasing the little balls around this really neat pirate-themed golf course. (Did I mention that Kim is a pirate enthusiast?) We had a lot of fun. Mike and I tied for low score, but everybody did well. Each day they designate a "mystery hole" and if you get a hole-in-one on that hole, you win a free game certificate that never expires. When we turned in our score card, they said that the mystery hole was #2 and Mike had a "1" on that hole and also on #18. Congratulations Mike!!
We had a light dinner at Burger King because we were going to visit the train-themed ice cream store nearby. After ice cream, we went home and turned in early. We were up at 5:30 am today to get to the airport by 7, for the 8:00 flight back to Cleveland. We got a call from Mike to tell us that they arrived safely and it is kind of warm at home, but a little rainy.
Now, Sue and I have to start getting everything ready for our gradual return to Ohio. We leave Upriver on Tuesday and will be headed to Savannah for 8 days. It will be the first visit for both of us and we are looking forward to it.
We had to hang around the RV park this morning. We were waiting for Camping World to bring back our tow dolly. They took it last Saturday to do an alignment check and make sure that the electric brakes were up to par. They also found one race of bearings that was worn so much that they needed to be replaced. They brought it back around 1:00, so it it ready for the trip home.
With that out of the way, we headed out for the Edison/Ford Estates in Fort Myers. We had visited there earlier with Sue's dad and Mike and Kim had said that it was a place that they would like to visit. And so we did
. Again we took the self-guided tour and went at our own pace. Sue and I both noticed things that we missed the first time and the person who narrated the tour of Edison's botanical lab was much more knowledgeable than the one we had before. It was sunny, with a good breeze, so the day was very enjoyable. It is interesting to try and imagine what it was like for the Edison and Ford families to live there in the early 1900's.
Since we were only a few miles away from our favorite Mexican restaurant, IGUANA MIA, we went there for dinner. Two BOGO coupons that we printed from the internet saved us some dinero also. This establishment is becoming El Campesino-South for us.
When we got back to Upriver, the young people went to the pool and hot tub while the old people just chilled out.
Well, Mike and Kim arrived safely yesterday. Today, we traveled down I-75 and visited the Naples Zoo. It was a fun trip. The weather is very tropical down here right now. Hot and humid during the day, with lots of sunshine, and then a chance of showers late in the day. Fortunately for us, the showers lately have either failed to show up or else came after dark. Tomorrow we are headed for the beach.
I started the day as I usually do, watching the Today show. As I listened in amazement, it was revealed that New Kids On The Block are reuniting. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!
clothes. Matching blue tee shirts and shorts with white belts on the shorts. Our bus driver told us that the courtyard pattern shown in the picture was done to make sure that all graduates were NASCAR fans.
that she gets better and they know what needs to be done.
sh, we started looking for a pizza place. As we drove, a noise came from under the car and I noticed a definite pull to the right on the steering wheel. You guessed it. FLAT TIRE
annah. There were sixteen designated stops and you could get off and on the trolley according to your own schedule. A trolley came by each stop every 20 minutes from 9:00 to 4:3
0. It was a good way to see the area without walking too much. We were there from about 1:00 until 4:00 and we saw some spots that we may go back a take a closer look at on our own. We saw Paula Deen's restaurant. They were all booked for lunch and, as the picture shows, people were still standing in line. I guess if somebody died or got sick, it would open up a chair. Geez! We found another nice place called Belfords, and had lunch outside on the patio.
Well, we made the trip over to Manatee Park with Mike and Kim yesterday. Even though the chances of seeing one of the beasts was rather slim, this trip has become a tradition for us and any of our visitors. As we suspected, the high temperatures were keeping the manatees from showing up at the park. But we did get a picture with our guests and the frozen manatee on a stick (see above).
. Again we took the self-guided tour and went at our own pace. Sue and I both noticed things that we missed the first time and the person who narrated the tour of Edison's botanical lab was much more knowledgeable than the one we had before. It was sunny, with a good breeze, so the day was very enjoyable. It is interesting to try and imagine what it was like for the Edison and Ford families to live there in the early 1900's.
that 'fro. And to be fair to all sports, check out Darnell Hillman from the old ABA. Also, this not a racial issue as shown by former OSU and current Jets player, Nick Mangold.
