Black Friday

The Thanksgiving dinner worked out well, as most "pot luck" efforts seem too. It was well attended and enjoyed. It would appear the folks here are not accustomed to turnip, as that was the one item that had any amount left over.
The weather has been behaving it's self by keeping comfortable ( in the high 60's to low 70's.) It has been dry with the exception of Wed. when our accumulation was 7/10" in total. Last night was cool with the temp about 34....today will be 65.
Yesterday was Black Friday, which is in essence, similar to Canadian Boxing Day and signals the start of the Christmas Season down here. Most of the stores opened at 4:00 a.m. for the heavily discounted prices. Six of the ladies from the park left about 10:00 to do some shopping ( no flat screen tv came back with Sue).

Full circle Troy to Troy

Our final campsite in Georgia was the Georgia War Veterans Memorial State Park and it was a very nice surprise. Some of the State Parks are quite primative, this one however, was on the edge of a lake, with a definate warning posted ( see picture #1 ). It turns out the warning was primarly for the back waters and rivers of the lake, so we were FAIRLY safe. Leaving there on Sunday morning got us into Troy Alabama, our "home" for the next 3 months at about 1:00. The whole area between Georgia and Troy is Pecan trees and cotton fields. The bottom pic is of a truck with cotton bales aboard. These are about 8 feet in diameter and baled with a machine much the same as a hay or straw baler, but rolled off the side rather than the rear. We're getting settled in so to speak and had supper at Santa Fe's last night with two other of "the group". A Thanksgiving Dinner is planned in the rec hall for Thursday ( ladies please provide side dishes and desserts).
The weather at the moment ( 10:45 CST) is sunny and 73F :-)

Very nice city

As it turned out, we spent two days here in Savannah when only one had been planned. That allowed time to take a trolley tour with some "old folks" ( the oldest of whom was 104 !!!!!! ). The city was laid out by an English fellow, General Overthorp before he had even seen the site. It is basically planned around squares. Everyone of the original 24 squares ( 21 remain) had to have at least one church and civil building facing the square. The historic area includes many Live Oak and Cyprus trees along with Palms. We went to the Pirates' House for lunch. Construction of the first part of this building started in 1734 as The Herb House which was part of the Trustees Garden. This experimental garden was started to see what would grow in this area. In 1753 the House opened as an inn for seafarers. It retains most of it's original structure, including dowel joined beams in the Captain's Room ( which is where we ate). The Herb House is incorporated inside the main structure.
The top pic shows some of the wrought iron work which is very common in the Historic Section. Number two, is the smallest house in all Savannah at 530 sft. It is for sale.......$250,000.00+. The bottom photo is the exterior of the Pirates' House...not much to look at outside ( it's 257 years old ) but the inside has "patina".

A change of plans

The beautiful State of South Carolina will be behind us tomorrow as we leave for Georgia and an overnight in Savannah. While here, we took a drive to Edisto Beach yesterday ( Tuesday ). This was an area of miles of fine sand and big beach houses. As the top picture hows, it was void of people. Mind you it was 9:30 on a weekday morning and there weren't too many people looking for shells and sharks teeth. Today the drive had us in Charlestown. What a great old city it is. The historical society has done a great job of preserving the structure of these old building, some of which go back to the early 1700's. We did a self guided walking tour of the old section of Charlestown. The middle photo is of the City Hall, while the bottom is of one of the houses on the Battery. It is still a single family house as are many of the original houses.
One more bit of news. We are not returning home until the beginning of March. This should reduce the amount of snow and cold we will have to tolerate this year

Myrtle Beach SC

This certainly is a beautiful place. The temps are moderate, the sand is white and fine and the water is about 65F. We did a walk along the beach Saturday and then drove through the main beach area. That night, it was off to a seafood buffet
(www.seafarerestruant.com) which is, as most buffet are, an all you can eat affair, which the focus on seafood and prime rib beef. This includes crab which apparently is unusual to have them included at the same price. Today, Sunday, was a hang around the park day. It's a great resort (www.briarcliffervesort.com) which backs onto the inter coastal waterway. We road our bikes around the complex.....geez there are some nice RV out there. One week today we'll be in Troy Alabama for the start of a 6 week stay before heading back home. Tomorrow it's Charleston SC for a couple of days.
The top pic is pier 14 at the beach, the second is just the waves rollin' in.

South Carolina

It seems that everything you hear about Myrtle Beach is true...tons of golfing and one price seafood buffets. We don't golf.....so I guess we gotta eat...........mmmmmm. We have no more than just arrived here, but are staying until Monday morning. The camp resort is FANTASTIC although perhaps the sites are a bit tight getting into. The RV of choice here are the large class A types.
We have advanced our arrival at Troy Alabama to Nov 21st, where it is 73F now compared to 64 F here. Tomorrow will be our day of discovery of Myrtle Beach.

Big Bang

We did our tour of the Wisconsin battleship on Tuesday....man what a ship 800 + feet in length, 9, 16 inch guns and several smaller 5 inch guns. There was a shell on display of a 16".....it's a lotta steel comin' at ya . It served in 3 wars, WWII, Korea, and the first Gulf war. She was decommissioned after each event and recommissioned and retrofitted again when required. She is now in permanent moorage. Because of the time spent on this tour, we were too late to do the tour of the Naval Yards as there is only one per day this time of year. Today ( Wed) had us enter "The South". We know this because of the Spanish Moss and the harvesting of cotton. It's also warmer ( 63F at 6:30 PM ) We will be here near Jacksonville NC for two nights, then on to Myrtle Beach for 2-3 nights.


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Three State Day

Yup, we once again travelled through 3 states. We left Maryland, travelled through Delaware and into Virginia, where we are tonight and tomorrow night too. We crossed the Chesapeake Bay bridge/tunnel combination. This structure is made up of 2 miles of tunnels under the bay ( in three different sections), so the ships can pass over and 16.5 miles of bridge ( so the vehicles can pass over
:-) ). I imagine it could be a trying experience when the hurricanes pass through. We passed through Virginia Beach VA. We are in Newport News and tomorrow it's Norfolk VA to the Navy yards to see the fleet and do a tour of the Wisconsin, a retired battleship.

26,850 Miles so far

We are movin' along. Wed. we visited the daughter of friends who lives in PA. ,near Scranton. Had a nice visit and dinner with them. She is expecting in about 5 weeks. Thursday was a crappy day with rain and very hilly and narrow roads...we hit a 12% grade at one point...not nice with a big rig. This was on secondary roads, which we prefer normally, but Thursday really was not a nice day to be doing that. Friday the 5th ,had us take Brandy for her monthly ( haircut), while Sue and I sorta drove around. We drove into the train station today ( we're staying in NJ ) and took the PATCO (Port Authority Transportation Company) train into Philly. The Liberty Bell saw me for the second time, as I'd been here a few years ago with a friend to see a football game. It was a first for Sue and she seemed to enjoy, it in spite of the lengthy lineup. We visited some of the buildings in Independence Square and tried to visit the mint, but they must be a union shop and are only open Monday to Friday. After the visitor centre, we took a city bus up to the Mutter Museum. This place generally displays medical oddities and instruments from "days gone by". It's amazing how well preserved body parts are after many years in formaldehyde. It is part of the College of Physicians. The first photo is the Liberty Bell, the second a reflection of the modern buildings downtown.
Tomorrow ( Sunday), Maryland is the destination.

www.collegeofphyscicians.org

Horses & Clocks

Mass. and Rhode Island are now behind us as we are in Conn. near Plymouth. We found Mass. to be a very pretty place with the cedar shake sided homes mixed with the older style of Colonial homes. Last Sat.and Sunday were spent in Rhode Island. We didn't do any site seeing while there, but Sue did attend an interesting church in North Scituate. It was 175 years old ( Baptist ) and had box pews, where in days past, you had your own pew each week. She says it is a much more formal Church than what is the norm today. Yesterday ( Monday) we did a couple more museum visits. These were both in Bristol CT. The first was the Carousel Museum. This place has a very large number of vintage "merry-go-round" animals, primarily horses. The museum contains a restoration shop, which restores their own as well as other privatly owned animals. Many of the displayed horses date from the early 1900's. A very interesting place indeed. Our next stop was the Watch and Clock Museum. The oldest piece here is a single hand wall clock ( as they all were originally) dated 1680. The rooms of this converted 1801 house, each hold a different syle of time piece. One room may have all grandfather or tall clocks, while another will have all wall clock. There is a display case of nothing but hour glass style time pieces. All of the working time pieces strike on the quarter and full hour ( thankfully, they are not all exactly the right time). Tomorrow it's into Pennsulvania to visit a friend and her husband and baby ( with another on the way).

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