Orlando landing, Elliot's picture album

  We are in Orlando now for a few weeks,  all in one place for a while at Annie's sister's house.

  The yard was a little tight fit, we're wedged in the hedge!

Before, oh sure, it'll fit right in there...

yep, see Homer, those there bushers are Flexible

 

 

 We kept our priorities straight, and went to see Star Wars first thing in the morning after we arrived, just the boys;  Elliot, Uncle Mark and I.  I still remember my Dad taking me to see Star Wars in 1976.  The Force Awakens was great, we'll probably have to go see it again with all of us.  Mark already got in a second showing.

And then we've been just relaxing and playing, little projects around the house and camper, playing with the dogs, etc. 

Today was our Christmas celebration,  and Elliot put together a collection of his pictures from the trip so far:

   3 1/2 months on the road ! 

This one may be my favorite,  a panorama from the top of the hill overlooking Camden, ME.  We had arrived at the campground in the later afternoon, but we had time to bike up to the top and look around as the sun was setting.


Merry Christmas!

Amelia Island / Fernandina Beach

Well here's an old school motorhome; 1981 Winnebago Brave here from Montana.  The back of the camper has a rack full of walking sticks that he's carving and polishing to sell later.


We're at a county beach access point that is posted as allowing overnight parking. And it's perty nice; trees on either side so as to not see the parking area from the big condos on either side, the road is a ways back without much traffic, and the beach is just over the dunes.

Bob in his Winnebago drove in about sunset, we had been here for an hour or so. Fun guy to talk to, he has done a few repairs to get it on the road, new trans (3 speed) and numerous other projects (body work from an elk hit on the passenger side front). His phone rang while we were talking, and then he drove off shortly after, so we had the park to ourselves for the night.

In the morning, Annie, Alice and I walked up the beach to explore.


About a half mile up there is another similar but larger beach park, with showers. We may swing through here shortly.

This park had more overnight campers last night, one huge new class A pusher, and then these two other more, ahem, old school, rigs. Note the Maine tag, what will Mainers think of next?  I suspect these are budget conscious travellers.


I talked with the young couple in this trailer, they have moved back here to Florida, (from Colorado?) in search of a new start.  Looking for restaurant jobs to start with, and staying here at the park as long as they can.

Last stop before Florida

It felt like a record time to cross Georgia from top to bottom yesterday; We drove down the coast from Savanna / Fort McAllister to St Mary's in just a
couple hours, normally we have taken I-75 the long way.  We did stop to try 'Boil' (boiled) peanuts at this peach stop, 25% of us (Elliot) liked them!

So it was a nice short day driving and we had time to look around St Mary's in the afternoon, and have a nice sunset out the window. 

Today we parked here under the palm trees.
 

The waterfront is cute, with a large park and some shops and restaurants. Across the river is Florida. The Cumberland National Seashore is off shore a couple miles, with ferries running out to it several times a day. In the middle of the park is a boat ramp and a lot of boat trailer parking spots which we conveniently fit into.  The marina and moorings just up the river are a paradise for basket case sailboats, if anyone is in the market.  Some nice ones too of course.

There is currently a large wooden tall ship, the Peacemaker, docked here in the river, and we walked through it. It was taken over and completed by a commune group, they have sailed it for a few years and now it's up for sale.





We were careful to use caution with our risk....


St Mary's history goes way back:  When the Acadians were chased out of Nova Scotia in mid 1700s, a large number found shelter here after hard times on a Caribbean island.  Back in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and maybe Campobello too, there are numerous historical markers about the Acadians and the British sending them out elsewhere.  Larger numbers went further west into Canada, and to Louisiana.

There is a nice plaque in a peace garden nearby downtown.

Savannah

We arrived in Savannah around eleven in the morning, and drove around the city with the rv for about half an hour. The city was mostly residential, with little condominiums and huge towering town houses, dotted with shops and squares. Most of the squares had some kind of little monument in the center. The one we stopped at to eat lunch had a monument to a revolutionary general, as did most of them. Across the street from us there was a large cathedral, and beside that, a very large, very old, and very ornate house. The house had been used by the general as his home and headquarters while his troops were in the city.

We drove around the city for a while more after we ate lunch, and the only place that we could find to park was an area were you had to pay. We parked and immediately after, the person next to us moved rather far away… We found that rather entertaining. We then decided to take the free transit bus around to the river front. The bus stop was nearby, so we could see the camper. And so we waited. And did a little more waiting. And then, for a change, we waited some more! As soon as we decided that if the bus didn’t come in five more minutes, it came around the corner. In total, we waited for over twenty minutes. We soon discovered that the bus did no follow the route on the map. In the end, we rode the bus over to the river front and got off uneventfully. The river front was very interesting, an we walked through a WWII memorial, in addition to watching a container ship pass.

After the river front, we headed back to the RV, packed up and proceeded to “home”, or our campground.

Hunting Island

We stayed in a Walmart parking lot (“Mr. Walton's driveway”) last night, and this morning we drove over here to Hunting Island State Park. This really feels like somewhere in South America, there's palm trees and tropical-looking plants all over! We're really close to the beach, but our site is really shady, which is awesome.

We got here around midday, so once we were all set up, I biked down the beach a bit. It just happened to be low tide, so on the north end of the beach, there were a TON of exposed tidal pools. The beach probably gained a quarter mile or so from where it is a higher tides, you can go out really far. It's pretty fun riding around the tidal pools, you just have to watch for soft sand, and the rest of the sand is really washboard-y. As I was coming back though, the tide must've been coming in, because one stream I had crossed without getting wet was a lot deeper.

Later that day, I took another ride down the beach the other way. We had heard that there was some flooding a month or two ago around here, and there were a bunch of trees that had been uprooted and were lying on the beach. They looked like they had been there for a while, some of them were buried quite a bit. It was pretty tricky going through the trees with my bike, but I managed to find a trail that went around them, then back out to the beach. I rode up the beach a bit more, through some trees, until I came to more trees that looked like they would be really hard to get through, so I turned around.

A bunch of trees had been uprooted on the beach, maybe by flooding

We didn't really go anywhere outside of the state park, mostly just biking and walking and hanging out, it was really nice. I did have some bike trouble, but we got that fixed. I have to say, I really like these South Carolina state parks, they're really nice!

Life is an Afternoon at the Beach - Always a change in Plans

We haven't been keeping in touch enough, maybe we'll catch up on the last couple weeks, but here's a quick day summary of the past 24 hours.

This afternoon we are having a sort of hilarious time, at Folly Beach County Park, SC.     What's so hilarious? The idea that our little 'house' is located here at the beach, right out at the end of the road, three of us playing on our devices on the internet and the other baking granola bars in the oven and making her own hot chocolate mix in the ocean and bay view kitchen.....  

 The county parks (and the state parks too) are great in South Carolina. Last night we were at James Island county park outside Charleston, and the Festival of Lights is on.

The campground was all full hookups and a little expensive, but really great for bikings around and then seeing the Christmas lights. It's weird to have holiday activities when it's all warm out, but I think we're getting over it. 
 

Dreidel, Dreidel

We had an easy going wake up and pack up today, pulling out of the campground but just parking in one of the other lots at the park and biking the paths again. The light displays are neat even with the lights off.

There are also tidal areas behind the park that we found today, and a couple of guys were crabbing from the dock.

Come and get me, I don't bite....

We had lunch in the camper after our ride, breaking the budget again with PB&J & banana sandwiches. That's our very typical lunch most days that we're moving. A short way further south-east is Folly Beach. We had figured to come down here and see the beach quick, then go on to our next place.

But after walking around for a while, picking shells and finding starfish, playing with everyone else's dogs on the beach,  we thought maybe stay here for dinner and the sunset.  Since there are beach houses up to the north, with clear line of sight, we also could get connected. So here we are, and here's this post, at least written out.

location, location, location...

And then the change of plans.... turns out the park closes at 5, and it doesn't get dark as early here as I was thinking, and we walked on the beach longer than expected.

As I was taking pictures of the sunset, and Annie & Alice were about a half mile down the beach, the county park guy comes by to mention he'd like to close the gate, very friendly like being as it's already after 5.  So quick, Elliot run down the beach to get the girls and off we go to our next destination;  Mr. Walton's driveway.     

And there we are, tucked in for the night.