Roseville to Oakland in 78 Days

Our journey is complete. (CA)

2007-11-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

Our goal is complete - Roseville, CA to Oakland, CA in about 78 days.

We celebrate Thanksgiving 2007 at John and Carmen's home in Oakland, California.

Yes, we are home!

2007-11-19T20:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, we arrived home today, safe and sound and happy, but a little tired.

Wednesday and Thursday we will officially end this journey by celebrating Thanksgiving with John and Carmen and many others in Oakland.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Cam & Marcia

Drive, they said... (AZ, CA)

2007-11-18T21:34:00.000-08:00

We were undecided on what to see in the Phoenix area and with Thanksgiving approaching decided just to drive. This was a little depressing for both of us, as our trip exceeded our expectations and we could have happily instantly joined another caravan. Home will seem too routine.

On our way out of Tempe we tried to spot the Frank Lloyd Wright designed auditorium on the ASU campus. We saw one candidate but Marcia said it didn’t look quite Wright.

Today we drove over 520 miles in somewhat more than 9 hours – a long day, particularly dealing with traffic on I-210 and I-5, and the sad shape of California’s freeways. Our first tank of diesel on returning to California was $3.78/gal – a fine welcome home.

Tonight we are at the Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, one of our favorite stops. It is in the middle of an orange grove and you can have all the oranges you can pick.

Good WiFi here, which is why I managed to post about a week of traveling in an hour. Fortunately no more than an hour - a big 5th wheeler pulled in the site next to me, blocking my WiFi signal.

We will be home tomorrow (Monday).

A desert museum and Saguaro National Park… (AZ)

2007-11-17T21:28:00.000-08:00

Thirty-two degrees outside but our trusty electric heater kept things inside in good shape, with a little propane furnace boost on our rising. Outside it warmed rapidly and was up to 84 degrees by the time we reached Tempe AZ.

Today we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, near Tucson AZ. It is aptly described as a zoo, natural history museum, and botanical garden all in one – very much worth the visit. Large creatures such as mountain lions, black bear, wolf, deer, coyote, and big-horn sheep are displayed naturally; each habitat provides two, sometimes three, viewing angles. Marcia suggested feeding is handled at night by opening the enclosures and allowing nature to do its thing. Smaller animals such as snakes, lizards, and birds are also easily viewed, and trails introduce botanical aspects of the Sonoran desert.

This is the land of the saguaro, the tall desert plant that from a distance might look like a large human. So we went to Saguaro National Park (west – the other part is east of I-10) and went on a 6-mile loop drive through saguaro forests. The park is within a couple miles of the Desert Museum and is a bit anticlimactic as the museum has many saguaros; nevertheless it is an easy trip worth the brief time it required.

Tonight we are staying in Tempe AZ, competing with the snowbirds for the available RV spots.

We paid $3.39 for diesel this morning and $3.46 in Tempe AZ in the evening.

Ft Davis, skip the PRADA outlet, go to Willcox AZ… (TX, NM, AZ)

2007-11-16T21:25:00.000-08:00

During my shower the water rose in the shower pan. The trailer has electronic sensors that provide green-yellow-red status of the tanks. The gray water indicated “green” prior to Marcia’s shower, and we both take navy showers, so having the water rise unexpectedly is annoying. We’ve had this problem before.

You can’t just drive to a dump station with water sloshing about the inside of your trailer, although I once read an account of a guy that tried it. So I drained to the ground enough gray water to empty the pan, then we drove carefully to the dump station and emptied the rest – deer watching us all the way, with disapproving looks.

What to do to cheer up? Why, a hot breakfast and coffee at the nearby lodge, of course. The Indian Lodge, a 1933 CCC project, looks quite nice, and we had a good breakfast with gigantic surely unhealthy biscuits. Neither of us had really needed being cheered up, but a break in our usual trailer breakfast routine was indeed nice.

We left camp at probably 9:30 AM, bought $20 of diesel in Ft Davis for $3.65/gal and drove a very scenic Hwy 118 to Hwy 166 to Hwy 505 to Hwy 90 to I-10 west.

On Hwy 90 we drove through the town of Valentine, a typical desert community of brown adobe or stucco wood frame structures leaning this way and that, and abandoned stuff all about. The sign gave a population of 468, but we couldn’t imagine 50. All the homes and businesses face on the highway and almost all showed signs of abandonment sometimes in the last ten years. Why did everyone so suddenly leave? We don’t know, anymore than we could understand why they were there in the first place. Ranching? The railroad?

But someone had a sense of humor: about a half mile west of town, a single white storefront stood with large display windows. We could see a few pair of women’s shoes, and the sign above the store said “PRADA”. [In April 2011 I learned this was/is an art project supported by Prada, and it certainly got our attention in the middle of nowhere. The article stated that it has been repeatedly vandalized and may have outlived its purpose, considering the costs of repair. People seem to either love it - we are in that category - or hate it.]

El Paso was our only traffic snarl, complicated by a drizzling rain and a need for diesel ($3.25). But for some reason today our 15.8 MPG decreased to 15.7 and then 15.6. Marcia thinks a headwind.

We drove through Texas and New Mexico into Arizona, and spent the night in Willcox at the Lifestyle RV Resort ($26), maybe 40 miles into Arizona. Not a bad camp for gravel, but more than we needed on this 440-mile 9-hour driving day—exercise gym, pool, etc. Well, maybe we did need those things, but we didn’t use them.

Unfortunately, couldn’t get the WiFi to work.

McDonald Observatory: What’s up, Doc??? (TX)

2007-11-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

The traditional looking telescope is the Smith 107-inch. The other, in the geodesic dome, is the 433-inch HET. The photo of the HET was taken from a glassed-in (but heated!) visitor area and is a little confusing. The top part is the inside of the geodesic dome that makes the walls of the observatory. The large crossed members are what link the top and bottom of the telescope and allow it to be focused and rotated – replacing the tube in a traditional telescope. At the bottom is a pair of jeans attached to an engineer; he is adjusting the mirror right over his head; that mirror is on the front edge of 95 mates that gather and focus starlight. The blue pipe follows the perimeter of the mirror array.

As part of the serendipity of travel, we stumbled into a nearly three hour tour of the McDonald Observatory, a short drive from our campground in this very sparsely population section of Texas.

Our engineer guide first talked to us in the visitor center about our place in the universe (insignificant, it seems, in case you hadn’t heard) and about our own sun. His technology allowed him to intersperse live telescopic looks at the sun, and that failing because of passing clouds, DVR images of what people saw on previous visits. Solar flares, sun spots, and such like. It was very well done and cool technology.

He then shuttled us to a 6900 foot peak where we enjoyed an inside tour of the 107-inch Smith Telescope Observatory, constructed in 1968. Our guide demonstrated practically everything – the aiming of the telescope, the rotating of the dome and opening of its doors, even the raising of the floor we were standing on – this designed to ease maintenance access. He said the nearest Wal-Mart is 90 miles away making this peak in the middle of nowhere a great place to stargaze. About 125 engineers, astronomers, and other support people live there fulltime. There are few school age kids, which is not surprising.

The only negative for us was the ambient temperature – about 38 degrees, inside and outside. This is less of a problem for modern astronomers because they are located in a distant heated space, images gathered and transmitted electronically.

We then toured the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, dedicated in 1997 and having a 433-inch mirror (Palomar is 200 inches). It looks unlike the traditional telescope as there is no visible tube, and the reflective mirror is made up of 96 separate smaller mirrors rather than one large mirror. This allows the gathering of even more and dimmer starlight at a lower cost.

Fort Davis in West Texas… (TX)

2007-11-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

Officer Quarters across the Fort Jefferson parade grounds, taken from the enlisted barracks. The other picture is just of a nice agave.

Fort Davis is about 32 miles south of I-10 on Hwy 17, in the Davis mountain range, at about 5000 ft. This morning it was 36 degrees outside. Brrrr. Inside we are fine with our trusty electric heater.

We are staying in Davis Mountain State Park – nice, with good meal service at the adjoining Indian Lodge. The drive in was also nice, the topography changing from west-Texas rolling hills to a hint of low mountain, with vertical basalt-like rock pillars.

The fort is named for Jefferson Davis. At the time he was US Secretary of War, not president of the Confederacy. Built in 1854 it was a frontier fort protecting emigrants and trade lines on the San Antonio – El Paso road. With the Civil War it was abandoned by the Union and briefly held by the Confederacy, then abandoned again. In 1867 it was re-occupied by the US Cavalry but the fort was so decrepit it had to be rebuilt. The remains here today date from 1869-1891 and involve a lot of reconstruction. The fort was again abandoned in 1891 as no longer having a purpose with the conclusion of the Indian Wars.

400 miles fueled by junk… (TX)

2007-11-14T21:13:00.000-08:00

Bob and Jan got us a round of excellent breakfast tacos from yet a different Mexican restaurant and at 9:30 we left, Bob watching carefully as I unwound the trailer from his utility lines.

This was perhaps our most horrible driving day food wise, as we subsisted on a bag of potato chips, a bag of ginger snaps, a 32-oz soda, some chocolate, an apple, a DQ cookie-dough blizzard, a soft-serve vanilla, more chips and cookies, and finally a nice light diner of leftover beans, cheese, and tortillas, and some green vegetables from the refrigerator.

We covered a little over 400 miles today and have taken a diversion, to Fort Davis, a Texas State Park and National Historic Site.

We visit Jan & Bob in San Antonio… (TX)

2007-11-13T21:06:00.000-08:00

Mileage has ticked up another decimal place to 15.8 MPG, hard to believe after around 7000 miles. Diesel clicked down a bit in price, about $3.27/gal as we approached San Antonio TX.

We left Vinton LA (a few miles short of the TX border) about 9 on a foggy morning continuing on I-10, bypassing (somewhat) Houston on I-610, then returning to I-10. The Houston area remains as ugly from the freeway as I remembered it, but the long drive to San Antonio was nice. Marcia drove about an hour when the sun began to make me drowsy – the temperature was in the 80s.

We arrived at Jan and Bob’s house in San Antonio about 3:30 PM, covering 327 miles today. They graciously let us spend the night in their driveway, which required some maneuvering as their street is very narrow. Only when we were in place did we notice the power lines overhead! They are touching plastic and fiberglass elements of the trailer roof.

Marcia visited Jan a couple years ago and raved about a certain Mexican restaurant, so after some conversation and a couple glasses of wine we were off to downtown San Antonio – a much larger city then when I was stationed here 1964-65. The restaurant is called Picante Grill and it is indeed fantastic. A very unassuming place but food well beyond you staples of excellent tacos, enchiladas, burritos, fajitas, etc. I had a chili stuffed with minced pork and Marcia had the casserola problana (spelling?). Sadly I can’t think of a comparable Mexican restaurant in San Diego, my previous gold standard, let alone Roseville.

We returned to Jan’s for a couple games of dominos, more conversation, amusement watching their four dogs and three cats (all but one a former stray), then it was off to bed.

Burning miles... (FL, AL, MS, LA)

2007-11-12T20:02:00.001-08:00

Photos, mostly from moving car, top to bottom: Mobile AL; Mississippi; Mississippi Visitor Center (a genuinely classy place, a bit colonial); Baton Rouge LA; Atchafalaya NWA LA (from a causeway that went for many miles over this very large NWA).

Our drive yesterday confirmed that we must press on, burning miles with little opportunity to investigate the things the route has to offer. This is sad.

We left Wal-Mart at 9 AM continuing west through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and to 40 miles short of Texas before camping in Vinton, Louisiana, about 4:30 PM. Touring consisted of our first visit to a Cracker Barrel, a home-cooking restaurant favored by RVers. Excellent RV parking, OK food. Might be fun to try for a breakfast.

Otherwise, the only thing of interest was the decline in the quality of the pine trees bordering the freeways as we went west. Some of this was Katrina damage – trees broken off several feet above the ground, other trees bare of branches, fields with few trees still standing. Our campground in Vinton only recently reopened because of storm damage. But the casinos are back – they make up at least half the signs along the freeways, and certainly 90% of the newer signs.

Marcia and Cam head for home! (GA FL)

2007-11-11T19:59:00.000-08:00

We got off at 9:30 this morning, but not without incident. We forgot our Airstream doormat, which was on a picnic table drying from the previous night's disaster. Others found it and by very circuitous handoffs we should receive it back about March or April.

Then, perhaps an omen, I nearly clocked a pelican as we drove off the island. He was flying crosswise to us at low level, passing not too many feet in front of our truck.

We drove south on I-95 and eventually picked up I-10 heading west through Florida. We decided to change to Hwy 20, which had been suggested to us as more interesting. This narrower road dropped our driving speed by about 10 MPH but we thought it might be worth it, and then all traffic came to a halt. Ahead of us was a spilled motorcycle, nobody around, and maybe 200 yards on was a car crosswise to the road and something in the street. By the time we abandoned hope of forward, we had lost maybe an hour and had to retrace our steps back to I-10 in order to resume our journey west. We drove until 6:30 PM, far later than we intended, and spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot about an hour short of Pensacola.

We shutdown the camp bringing shame to the caravan… (GA)

2007-11-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

Pulling into our campsite after the party, I ran into a PVC hose bib, creating a mini-geyser. Water began to build rapidly and flow toward the neighbors and out on the road.

The campground office was closed so I went to Jamie’s rig – he who thought he was rid of us just minutes previous.

I was in luck; Marcia’s thank-you gift of a watercolor (ironic) apparently extended a protective shield to me, and Susan and I went to find the campground host. She identified herself and hesitating just briefly said that I had a leaky hose big. The host said he’d come check so I thanked Susan and road back with the host in his campground golf cart.

There we saw water still spraying and a good-sized lake, extending from my site to the neighbors. The neighbor, his spouse, and their teenage daughters—the daughters probably very bored until this point—were standing around trying to decide how bad things were going to be. The host sped off in his cart as I made small-talk with my neighbor, reminiscing about my days with a tent-trailer as he too has one. The lake now extended under his trailer and was moving toward their fire pit, and he made the comment he couldn’t find matches anyway. He was such a good sport I went and found him matches.

Then out of the dark two golf carts converged on the now comparatively quiet hose-bib, and five strangers to me gathered in the headlights to figure out what to do. This is when I learned the campground was now totally without water, creating some urgency. The five were actually having a good time, nothing much apparently having happened this season. One said it was too bad only Jim knew where to turn the water off, and they should do something about that. The others offered advice to someone (Jim?) on how to deal with the broken pipe, still flowing readily because the break was at ground-level making it the drainage point for the 100+ site campground. The one person that knew what he was doing made some lighthearted comment and the next thing I knew the thing was fixed; some kind of 3-second PVC glue that works under water. At least that’s what one of the don't-know-what-to-do guys told me.

I said goodnight to my neighbors, who were now enjoying their campfire, picked up some things around our site so they could dry out, and adjourned to my trailer. There I found Marcia intently playing computer solitaire, pretending in her way that she was no part of what had happened.

The caravan disbands… (GA)

2007-11-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

We all went to the Jekyll Island Club Hotel for cocktails, a beautiful sunset, and dinner – the last event of our 40 day caravan. Only Cathy (with a ‘c’) couldn’t make it – too uncomfortable with a dislocated shoulder and sprained ankle from her Vertigo attack.

This was an incredible 40 days, thanks to our great co-leaders Jamie and Susan, the excellent chemistry between the 48 participants, and the southern seaboard that we toured.

We will definitely do another caravan.

Jamie and Susan get an MHM signed original…(GA)

2007-11-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

As our thank-you to our caravan leaders, Marcia painted this “follower” view of their rig, an early Airstream motorhome. I delivered the painting, and we later learned from Jamie and Susan how pleased they were to receive it. Good job, Marcia.

Tabby, but not the cat... (GA)

2007-11-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

These southern coastal areas have an abundance of oyster and clam shells. The early settlers learned quickly that the shells could be mixed with a little lime, sand, and water to form a concrete-like construction material called "tabby". This wall, at Fort Federica, dates from the early 18th century.

Even today communities will often use ground-up shells as a road base.

St Simons Island... (GA)

2007-11-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

Today we drove with Kathy and Dave to St Simons Island, toured the waterfront, and Fort Federica

As a bonus a Coast Guard patrol boat—about 85 feet long—was having an open house.

Marcia and I found the boat tour interesting because we had just completed reading The Light Keeper’s Son, by Homer Hickman. The book is set at the breakout of WWII and is partly about a light keeper’s son (you guessed that much) that captained a Coast Guard patrol boat off the outer banks as German U-boats began to take their toll on shipping. The book was very interesting from an historical perspective, covering life on a small outer-bank island in less busy times, but became a bit hokey near the end. Fair warning, if you decide to read it. A fast read, good airplane fare.

Fort Federica was built starting in 1736 by the British under General Oglethorpe in an attempt to secure Georgia and perhaps parts of Florida from the Spanish; Spain had a fort less that a 100 miles south in St Augustine Florida, to secure Florida and claims on Georgia. Both sides knew this was a situation that would end in fighting, and in 1740 Oglethorpe attacked St Augustine without success. The Spanish returned the favor in 1742 moving northward to attack Federica, but in the Battle of Bloody Marsh the Spanish were defeated and withdrew. Later Spain signed a treaty giving the English claim to all areas.

On our visit the Fort docent put the battle in perspective. A lot of archeology work has been done here and the adjacent town of 1000 inhabitants. A worthwhile visit.

A little off the top, please... (GA)

2007-11-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

On long caravans, haircuts become necessary but you don't always have an official barber available.

Jekyll Island good stuff... (GA)

2007-11-09T19:04:00.000-08:00

The picture to the left-bottom is of our campground entrance. The two building photos are different views of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, built in 1882. The gargoyles are on the nondenominational church, which also had front and rear Tiffany windows.

Cotton was king on Jekyll Island, but the Civil War’s end sent it in a rapid decline. The island then progressed through several owners until purchased by a consortium of very rich people (Rockefeller, Pulitzer, Crane, Vail, Koehler, Morgan, Gould, etc.) who founded the Jekyll Island Club. They built large but not particularly ostentatious homes, a grand club now a hotel, and common facilities such as an infirmary, nondenominational church, and wharf. It was a place of relaxation and an opportunity to escape the winters back home, and spend quality time with their families and wealthy contemporaries.

Membership declined during the depression and the club shut down in 1942 as servants were drafted into the military. It never reopened and was eventually seized by the state of Georgia for nonpayment of property taxes.

Today it is a state park with a campground on one end, miles of beaches, 22 miles of bike trails, the historical area, the Sea Turtle Center, the original Jekyll Island Hotel, additional hotels, and about a thousand private residences that look about 1960s vintage – an attempt by the state to capture some more revenues.

I do not know how the state garners enough revenues to cover the costs of all this – the concept is somewhat like a large Asilomar but with many high maintenance buildings generating little or no revenue.

Our campground seems large and our rigs are well scattered, making socializing a little more difficult. But the grounds are nice, with many trees.

This morning we were taken on a trolley tour of the island, including the historical area. We had access to the Rockefeller vacation home, which has a large walk-in safe in the livingroom. No credit cards in those days, just bearer bonds for these guys. SS She got a far better bathtub.

In the afternoon Marcia and I bicycled with Ed and Susan maybe 12 miles of the island and had a very fine dinner at Latitude 31, a small seafood restaurant on the Club’s old wharf. In Club days the wharf was the only island access – now there is a bridge.

Untrouble at Jekyll… (GA)

2007-11-08T19:00:00.000-08:00

Fortunately, Cathy was diagnosed with an attack of vertigo, something she has had before but not in many years, and not a stroke. On the downside, the vertigo caused her to fall, and she dislocated a shoulder. She is back in the campground, feisty as ever, and confident she can still deal cards.

Trouble at Jekyll… (GA

2007-11-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

Sadly, we couldn’t make it to the end without trouble. Cathy (our bridge instructor, song leader, and all round happy person) appears to have suffered a stroke and was taken to the hospital this evening.

We become deparkers and drive to Jekyll Island… (GA)

2007-11-08T18:57:00.000-08:00

Marcia, Judy and I were deparkers this morning, meaning we checked each departing Airstream to make sure signal lights were working and everything looked safe for travel. Unfortunately Judy found one of her own tires soft, so we inflated it with my compressor only to find her tire still not holding air (bad valve stem). Judy has had bad luck this trip – a fresh-water leak, a refrigerator door falling off en route, and now a flat tire.

We left with Phil helping Judy, and enjoyed a pleasant 110 mile drive to Jekyll Island GA, out last campground of the caravan. We were standing in a group commenting on how sorry we were it is nearly over, but Susan’s reaction was one of joy; you see, she is one of the leaders, and her responsibility ends Sunday.

Marcia admires aluminum... (GA)

2007-11-07T18:54:00.000-08:00

In camp at Tybee Island.

You can tell the weather has turned much cooler.

Marcia is happy as a clam… (GA)

2007-11-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

The beach in front of the Tybee batteries was Marcia’s best yet for shell finding. She has released these shells for public viewing, retaining about an equal number for possible release later, depending on the market.

Tybee Lighthouse … (GA)

2007-11-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

Marcia has about had her fill of light houses and I’m not very excited about seashells. We resolved this by parking at a central spot and I climbed the Tybee lighthouse and Marcia combed the beach.

Since it is my pen I shall describe what I found first, and in more detail.

In 1862 the Union set out to blockade all southern ports. It occupied Hilton Head SC which is visible from Tybee Island GA. The Confederacy under Lee watched the Union from the Tybee Island lighthouse. Then Lee, buying in to the idea that Ft Pulaski was invulnerable (he, incidentally, had a role in its design and construction as a 2^nd lieutenant fresh out of West Point), ordered Tybee abandoned and its troops moved to Ft Pulaski where they could shoot without getting shot. For good measure, he ordered the destruction of the Tybee lighthouse.

The Union soon occupied Tybee, surprised to find no resistance. The lighthouse, constructed of brick, suffered minimal damage and became a Union vantage point for observing Confederate activities in Ft Pulaski.

Under the cover of darkness the Union moved cannon and troops to where Tybee Island is closest to Cockspur Island, the site of Pulaski. Included were new weapons, featuring rifled cannon. The Union attacked with overwhelmingly superiority and the fort surrendered after 30 hours, with the results described in the posts about Ft Pulaski.

Today the lighthouse and keeper facilities are open to the public ($5/senior, including nearby batteries). This is one of the less visited lighthouses and touring is pleasantly self-guided and thorough. The 178-step climb to the top is alarmingly challenging. I ran into fellow caravaner Joe there; he told me he used to lead tours up a Washington lighthouse several times a day. He lost 15 pounds the first month.

One view from the lighthouse shows batteries Brumby and Garland – there are several others. These were started late in the 19^th century and grew from the failings of Ft Pulaski. They are low, made of reinforced concrete, and the seaward side was covered with sand and vegetation to pass as dunes.

Today History is strange, at times. The battery on the left now houses the local Shriners’ Club. The next one houses a bar and grill. The right one has an interesting museum, included in the admission price of the lighthouse. The batteries extend a couple floors below ground, for safe storage of explosives.

In WWI some cannon were sent to France. In WWII the remaining cannon were melted for scrap, and the military departed in 1947. In the 1950s the sand was removed to make room for a parking lot, and to provide building material for Hwy 80. Many batteries are simply abandoned, used for storage, or ineffectually barricaded with chain link fencing.

Tybee Island cop takes our mug shots… (GA)

2007-11-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

Cold and windy on arising, turning into a beautiful November day.

In the 1930s and 40s Tybee Island had many large resort hotels and a pavilion. It was a regular stop of the big bands, but that is now all gone. Today it is mostly a community of quiet residences and vacation homes for people wishing to escape the summer heat.

Our campground is just off US Hwy 80. We drove about five miles to its end and found this sign, saying the other end is San Diego. The map indeed shows intermittent stretches of Hwy 80 stretching west, but I’m not sure you can find it today in San Diego; you will find I-8. I-80, to confuse things, passes by Roseville with a terminus in San Francisco and an eastern terminus in, I believe, New Jersey.

A Tybee officer came by as I stood in the middle of the lightly traveled (in November, anyway) main street. I clicked and waited, and he hollered asking if we’d like a photo of the two of us. We said sure, so he parked his patrol car in the middle of the street and took the second picture. Nice guy.

Beyond this sign we found am amazing tidal beach, bordered on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and on the other angle by the Tybee Creek, looking like a lot more than a creek. Nobody was out and we enjoyed walking around. Signs warn of strong currents, don’t swim.

More Fort Pulaski... (GA)

2007-11-06T08:11:00.000-08:00

Seemingly resting on the young woman's up-bowed finger is a rather large turtle. The turtle is on a platform created by an 1862 cannon shot.

Hard to see are at least three unexploded projectiles, still lodged in the wall. One is the dark circle center-right near the top.

Although this fort was considered invincible at the time of construction, the old-fashioned aspects are interesting--a medieval moat, and medieval looking drawbridge. The fort's 7 1/2 foot thick brick walls were built to withstand heavy iron balls, not the rifled projectiles that eventually took it down. When Pulaski fell, the world was shocked; similar fortresses everywhere were suddenly obsolete.

We do Fort Pulaski… (GA)

2007-11-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

This morning Marcia and I went to Fort Pulaski, on an island near the mouth of the Savannah River.

Fort Pulaski was one of many eastern seaboard forts built early in the 18^th century as protection from European nations. It was considered invincible, with 7 ½ foot thick walls and cannon that could be easily sighted toward most any target, but it was not well garrisoned. The fort was easily seized by Georgia’s militia in January 1861, two weeks before the state seceded from the Union.

Union troops returned in April 1862 with superior numbers and weaponry. The supposedly invincible fort fell in 30 hours, one wall so collapsed the Union was able to fire projectiles nearly into the powder magazine.

How? For the first time in a large battle anywhere, rifled canons were used. Instead of the commonly used iron ball and smooth-bore cannons, the Union used bullet-shaped projectiles containing gunpowder and a detonator. The projectiles and the cannon barrels were rifled so projectiles would spin, greatly increasing distance and accuracy.

One has to feel a little bit sorry for the fort commander, only 25 years old.

The fort was partially rebuilt after the war then abandoned when batteries were established on nearby Tybee Island. The battered corner has been repaired but other parts less severely damaged remain basically as at the close of battle in 1862; you can even see unexploded cannon shot imbedded in the wall.

Fort Pulaski is definitely worth a visit and a guided tour.

After Pulaski we did some errands and drove into Savannah’s River Street area for a late (3 PM!) lunch/dinner at The Cotton Exchange. It was just OK.

Diesel purchased: $3.32/gal, a new Murray Family record.

More on SCAD... (GA)

2007-11-05T08:04:00.000-08:00

This is one of the Savannah College of Art and Design dormitories. Like almost all their buildings, it is a reuse of something already existing. This was a Motel-6.

Lunch with Paula Deen & Sons... (GA)

2007-11-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

Lunch at Paula Deen's restaurant The Lady & Sons.

No, she was not there.

No, her sons were not there.

But a cousin was signing books in the neighboring Paula Deen store.

And the food was great.

... we do Savannah. (GA)

2007-11-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

At 9:30 AM we were picked up by a tour trolley and driven to Savannah for a city tour.

Savannah seemed less than expected, not quite the mood of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which perhaps unfairly established expectations. Not helped by 90 minutes bumping up and down on bench seats in a fake trolley. There are at least three trolley tour companies and their vehicles are everywhere.

On the ground, it is a more interesting city. The architecture is varied and well protected by ordinance. The neighborhoods all center on small squares. But there is a mythology about this town, too much emphasis on ghosts haunting old buildings where terrible things happened. There is even a riverfront statue of a girl waving at passing ships, as she promised her sailor boyfriend she would do until he returned; he didn’t, and she waved for 42 years before dying of a broken heart. They claim locally that this is true, and if it is, that is all the more pathetic.

Ah, but the food. We ate at Paula Deen’s restaurant, The Lady & Sons. She is on the Food Channel. The menu items looked good but fearing I might get something I didn’t like, I went for the $13 buffet. Marcia also chose the buffet; she had ordered off the menu last time, on the Ladies Tour.

The cheese biscuits were great, the fried chicken very good (as it is nearly everywhere), the mashed potatoes excellent, the lima beans and black-eyed peas were very good, as was the mac-n-cheese. Marcia reports the collard greens were the best she has had, but still unpleasantly bitter.

This was again a fairly typical low-country, or perhaps more broadly, southern food offering.

This could have been a tourist trap but we were seated at the promised time, politely served, and never rushed.

Before lunch we spent time prowling around galleries of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Established in 1978, SCAD already has buildings all over Savannah and in other cities as well. After lunch we toured the Jepson Center for the Arts.

Beaufort to Tybee Island and Savannah… (SC GA)

2007-11-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

Beautiful, spotless day as we left Tuc De Wood Campground for Savannah, a short distance away.

Savannah from this direction is entered across a bridge very similar to the one in Charleston. This dramatic entry builds expectations and it was a letdown to be deposited in an area of crumbling buildings. We followed a sign to the visitor center, parked with difficulty, and walked inside only to find it was a trolley tour promoter.

Since we couldn’t enter our camp until 3 PM, Marcia and I reluctantly parked our rig on a side street and walked a couple blocks to what the map indicated was the true visitor center, and a railway museum. The railway museum is housed in the crumbling buildings we had seen, the old rail yard. An interesting self-guided tour ($4.75 each) but not a lot to see. Some equipment, a beautiful brick chimney with privies built in to the base, and a turntable. The true visitor center was in the old passenger terminal.

Having killed enough time we followed the directions in our drivers manual to the River’s End Campground & RV Park on Tybee Island, about 12 miles the other side of Savannah. This is a really old campground with streets built seemingly for 1940s-style trailers and it was very tough for all of us to get parked. Once parked, our hookups were on the wrong side, so the dump hose (and everything else) had to be strung under the trailer to the other side.

Unrelated to the campground problem, Judy’s refrigerator door fell off en route, spilling the entire contents about her trailer. She thinks she forgot to pin the door closed.

Dinner tonight was in the campground, prepared by our fellow caravaners. One of the best: chips and homemade salsa, BBQ chicken, corn and bean salad, saffron rice, and really good freshly baked bisquits.

Tuc De Wood resident reptile… (SC)

2007-11-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

There is a nature trail about 100 yards from our Tuc De Wood campsite, where we found this 7-footer.

We think there is a fence around the pond, but hard to tell with all the growth.

Beaufort makes the Marcia/Cam approved list… (SC)

2007-11-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

Beaufort is a beautiful very old waterfront town with a lot of history.

We very much enjoyed walking around looking at the many beautiful old homes, and driving the waterfront that we could not walk.

Lunch was very good, at a popular waterfront casual restaurant called Plums.

This was a good-old California style coastal getaway town, with B&Bs, nice restaurants, antique shops, art galleries, and Realtors everywhere.

Beachcombing on Hunter Island... (SC)

2007-11-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

Beachcombers search for--well, whatever.

We go to Hunting Island State Beach (SC)

2007-11-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

A chilly morning promising to be a very nice day.

Marcia and I drove to the state park beach on Hunting Island, South Carolina.

The beach is beautiful, wide and so covered with sea shells they crunch as you walk. We discovered Ed and Susan beachcombing for seashells, and Marcia had a great time doing the same.

The lighthouse, obsolete since lighted buoys were deployed in the 1930s, is built of interchangeable cast iron plates, one of only two of this construction. The idea was that the lighthouse could be disassembled and moved to a new location, if necessary. This became necessary about 20 years after it was built (in the 1800s). All told, there have been three lighthouse sites on this island, the first two now under water.

Erosion continues to eat into the island forest, an odd but beautiful mixture of pines and palms.

Baynard ruins on Hilton Head (SC)

2007-11-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

These are the ruins of a plantation home on Hilton Head, where cotton was grown. We spent forever with Dave and Cathy trying to find the ruins, so I’m including a photo in the blog.

Dueling GPS... (SC)

2007-11-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

Dueling GPS - Dave's Garmin on the left, our TomTom on the right.

They acted like they were using the same map system, but would route slightly differently and advise slightly differently. We may not have had our options set the same, e.g. truck routes only, avoid toll roads, etc.

We go to Hilton Head… (SC)

2007-11-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

After lunch we joined Cathy and Dave for a drive to Hilton Head Island, the famous luxury resort on what is claimed to be the largest island on the eastern seaboard south of New Jersey. As we approached we began to notice Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

Hilton is a centuries old name for the area, unrelated presumably to the hotel and, ah, entertainment Hiltons.

Most of Hilton Head consists of gated communities but for $5/car you can enter one of the original 1950s communities. The single family homes, nestled in trees, looked quite nice and not overdone. The condos looked like typical resort condos but did have nice pond views. Golf courses everywhere.

Dinner consisted of a couple beers at Hinchey’s on Hilton Head. The bar was Chicago sports-themed and Cathy (from the Chicago area) remembered growing up with a Hinchey that she though had moved to Hilton head. She questioned the bartender, named Mike, who turned out to be the son of the Hinchey that dated one of her bridesmaids 40 years ago. The father, unfortunately, had left just hours ago.

Mike said that hurricanes are very rare in Hilton Head, contrary to reports, but if one came it would be devastating. His restaurant/bar does a great business during the summer tourist season allowing him to stay open all year, although he does close during the Christmas season. From a visitor standpoint, he thinks the summer is the worst time to visit because of the heat, bugs and crowds; we are visiting at the best time.

Fellow traveler to Parris Island... (SC)

2007-11-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

This monster was holding on to the back of the seat in front of us on the Parris Island bus outing. He never moved, nor did we. At least not without care.

What is it?

You will report at 0700 hours to Parris Island… (SC)

2007-11-02T06:42:00.000-07:00

At 0700 we boarded a bus in the dark to go view a graduation ceremony at the Parris Island Marine Corp Recruit Depot, tour the base, and have lunch. How did all this come about? Why? Not sure, but our leader Jamie was a Marine pilot during Korea and is well connected throughout the Carolinas.

Twenty five minutes later we were on base only to sit in our bus for an additional 25 minutes awaiting an escort. Soon after we were on backless cold aluminum stadium seats in an equally cold breeze wishing we were still in the shelter of the bus.

All the Marine escorts and ushers wore short sleeve shirts.

A young-looking full-bird colonel came out, as he said, to warm up the crowd and answer questions. He said they wear short sleeve shirts because the general decreed winter starts Monday, and today is only Friday. [Laughter.] After a few more warm-ups he moved to another section and repeated his shtick. He was from laid-back Los Angeles and definitely didn’t match my image of a Marine colonel.

At 0900 the start of ceremonies was signaled by the parade-center arrival of a uniformed English bulldog mascot that preferred standing with his rear to the audience. The recruits then marched into formation as the wind launched caps skyward. Occasionally a uniformed observer would parade-march to a hat, pick it up, parade-march to a hatless recruit and with two hands, as if lowering a crown, cram it on the recruit’s head.

Weddings, funerals, and graduations all get to me and this was no exception, but when it concluded we were all anxious to get back to the bus. We were then guided on a bus tour by a six-year sergeant but little was visible except buildings and PT areas. She told us most of the physical training is done between 4:30 AM and 6:30 AM.

Lunch was in the NCO club and was good.

Gullah, Gullah… (SC)

2007-11-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

For some time we’ve been hearing about Gullah culture. Gullah is unique to certain islands of South Carolina and Georgia, and in Georgia it is known as Geechee. It is a blend of African, Caribbean, and Old South (English) elements.

In Myrtle Beach Jamie showed us a professional DVD featuring a woman that goes by the name of Aunt Pearly Sue telling stories and singing in Gullah. We also saw a DVD of last year’s caravan, where Aunt Pearly Sue told stories and sang to the caravaners. Her dialect, our hearing, and the recording quality made her difficult to understand, but most frightening of all, she pulled people up on to the stage and made them participate, and that is definitely not my thing.

Tonight we had a good low country dinner (fried chicken, mashed potatoes, Frogmore Stew aka low country boil, coleslaw) at the Penn Conference Center a few miles from camp, followed by Aunt Pearly Sue in person. I, naturally, was in the 3^rd row, as far back as I could get.

She was easier to understand in person and altogether friendlier and not inclined to put us on the slavery guilt trip I expected. She commented that there was no way that that few white people could take that many blacks, that there were also black slavers. And her songs spoke not of placing blame but moving forward. Best of all, I didn’t get pulled to the stage.

Bob blows a tire… (SC)

2007-11-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

Bob blew a tire on today’s drive.

He became aware of it when a passing motorist pointed to his trailer wheels. The tire (yes Paul) was a Goodyear Marathon with less than 4000 miles and fairly new. He removed the wheel and rather than fussing with a spare drove on three wheels to the campground. (I don’t know about other two-axle trailers, but you can do this on an Airstream, as long as you keep your speed down and limit travel to maybe 50 miles.)

Ralph had a tread blow on a Marathon and defensively replaced a second Marathon as well. This is the first flat tire since Ralph's experience..

Charleston to Beaufort…Cam and Marcia as parkers (SC)

2007-11-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

Marcia and I left early with Jamie and a few others to ready things at Tuc De Wood (that’s Gullah) campground on St Helena Island, close to Beaufort SC. On the way we stopped at a country store called the Carolina Cider Company, featuring a variety of very good cider (I sampled a nice peach), jams, jellies, etc. Marcia selected a couple things and I bought a trip-appropriate rubber blue crab that squeals, undoubtedly sounding just like a real crab, squeezed.

Parking was easy, except for the bugs and humidity. Marcia stood with Jamie waving a red flag as Airstreamers approached so they would not miss the obscure entrance. For better or worse, the sight of a woman waving a red flag caused some non-Airstreamers to come to a halt, not sure what was going on but reluctant to pass.

I stood with my own red flag down the campground road and would halt Airstreamers, give them brochures on the area and a campground map, and direct them to the campground office.

This was an easy parking job because that was all we had to do; the campground operators would then meet each Airstream, lead it with a golf card to its assigned site, and guide it in parking. (Minus the golf cart, that is what we parkers normally do.)

This campground really is in the woods. The sites go off in many different directions to fit amongst the trees, and at dark it is incredibly—ah, dark.

We eat Seewee...Halloween on the road (SC)

2007-10-31T17:12:00.000-07:00

We drove to the Isle of Palms, a beach community. Isle of Palms is built like Harbor Island or Shelter Island – a thin neck leading to an island that goes some distance left and right, but in this case it is all residential.

Nothing particularly interesting, but the beach—accessed from a county park—was nice. The usual shell hunting, people watching, and horizon gazing.

A very large ghost crab stood outside his subterranean home in the dry sand about twenty feet from me. He has strong survival skills, as proved by his size and attitude. If I moved just a foot, he would dash inside.

Lunch was at a very old and rustic restaurant call Seewee about five miles north of camp on Hwy 17. Seewee is very popular with locals and knowledgeable travelers (hah!) for its low country cooking. When we arrived, three other Airstream couples were just finishing up; other fellow caravaners arrived as we were leaving.

Marcia had crab cakes, fried eggplant, and a sweet potato casserole. She loved it, but the casserole less so. I went less low-country, ordering beer-battered shrimp, coleslaw, and onion rings—yum, as Rachel Ray would say. I believe this was also my first introduction to Palmetto Ale, my beer of choice in SC. (The Palmetto palm appears on the South Carolina state flag.)

The rest of the afternoon was spent pumpkin carving for Halloween. Our entry tied for second, and although 1^st was good, Marcia slightly overestimated the sophistication of the judges in designing her entry. Our costume—Marcia’s 30-year-old fried egg and my toast & bacon—did not place, sadly.

As for bridge, the other beginners have past me by and I’m feeling nothing but frustration, so after being called “Cal” by the instructors a couple times after all these days (hey—guys can be sensitive) I decided I’d had enough and returned to the trailer to read and sulk. Mostly read.

Halloween preparations... (SC)

2007-10-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

Aluminum at the KOA outside Charleston.

Marcia and Susan work on their entries, and the eventual winner.

We throw snake-eyes... (SC)

2007-10-30T16:41:00.000-07:00

We took a loop trail through the swamp around Drayton Hall but we were halted by a flooded wooden walkway. Maybe a good thing. You can see a snake crossing over the left edge near the top of the photo.

Snakes particularly but also alligators were a constant threat to slaves in the rice fields.

Drayton Hall swamp walk... (SC)

2007-10-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

The narrow gauge railway from mining days followed this path.

Today this is a nature trail.

Drayton Hall front yard ... (SC)

2007-10-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

In plantation days slaves cleared the forested area and planted rice in the same way rice was grown in Africa. The slaves lived just this side of where trees stand today. During the phosphate mining era the Draytons would have looked out on open mining pits in the same areas.

Early in the 20th century the pond was created and the dirt used to form the carriage turnaround, but only the mounded portions remain.

The second story portico where Marcia is standing originally had no railing, in keeping with the style of the times. Modern day lawyers and insurance carriers apparently insisted on adding the railing.

We visit Drayton Hall, a plantation home ... (SC)

2007-10-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

A chilly start, warming to a beautiful day.

Marcia and I drove to Drayton Hall, described as “the oldest preserved plantation house in America that is open to the public”.

Drayton Hall construction began in 1738 as the center of a successful rice plantation. During the Revolutionary War it was at times occupied by British troops and colonial troops. During the chaos of the Civil War it was severely damaged and vandalized, and overgrown with vegetation, but one of the few that wasn’t burned by advancing Union forces. The Draytons fell on hard times with the collapse of the rice economy but recovered by leasing the land for phosphate mining. Gradually they rebuilt. Later generations of Draytons used the house only on holidays and were not inclined to invest much in modernizing, so there is no indoor plumbing (at least that we could see) or a kitchen – these necessities were in separate structures.

In the 1970s conservators decide to preserve the building “as is” rather than picking an era and rebuilding to match those times. The rooms have an abandoned look – no furniture or wall hangings, and a lot of missing paint. Today with the front and rear doors open it felt like a wind tunnel.

The conservators are fortunate in that artists and early generations of the Draytons made detailed sketches of the buildings and property. Also, one slave family remained on the property for seven generations acting as caretakers, and contributed their knowledge.

As part of our tour ($13 senior), a very sharp woman described the role of blacks and black life in the Drayton Hall plantation culture. This was followed by an excellent house tour by a speed-talker named Bob, who has been involved in the Drayton Hall conservation from when it became a National Trust site, over 30 years ago. In casual comments that were minor elements of his talk, he spoke of many years ago buying a 17^th century home in Charleston, and at another time providing a special tour of Drayton Hall at the personal request of Jacquelyn Kennedy Onassis. A most unusual guide.

Sand burrs take down Frank... SC)

2007-10-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

Frank unfortunately has a several day hospital visit but is back and fine.

His foot became infected and he went to the emergency room when vertical red lines began to appear.

Possible culprit: sand burrs, really awful things that began appearing south of Delaware and stick to everything. They are painful to step on, easily pierce skin, and are difficult to remove intact.

Inside a Charleston house ... (SC)

2007-10-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

We wanted to see the inside of at least one house, so we chose the Calhoun Mansion, $15 per person. It is the one with the couple standing outside. Our buggy guide described it as the "oh Gawd" house because everything inside makes you go "oh Gawd".

Owned currently by a lawyer, it has a very complicated history; in fact, during WWII it housed some Navy officers, including JFK. The current owner (our guide declined to name him but suggested he is in his fifties) is rich and a collector, so the inside is over-filled with antiques from Europe, Asia, and--oh Gawd.

The owner lives on the upper floors (closed to us) and uses the lower floors until 10:00 AM, when the tours start. No photos allowed.

The garden, however, was very nice.

Doing the Charleston... (SC)

2007-10-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

After our buggy ride Marcia and I walked around the old area admiring the architecture.

Lunch was at 82 Queen, an old house converted to a restaurant. Marcia had her long-sought she-crab soup, and loved it. We both loved the herb-cheese biscuits. I had a low country chicken dish served on a kind of mac-n-cheese, and more mac-n-cheese in a side dish. Mine also was very good, better than it sounds.

Charleston is prone to earthquakes but since nothing is torn down you end up with some buildings with a wavy wall, as in the pink building photo.

Charleston was founded partly on the idea of religious freedom, but there was only one church, the Church of England, and it (Episcopal, post-revolution) is on Church Street. Other religions gathered in meeting places, and their (I didn't say churches) are all on Meeting Street.

The round thing that looks like a church is actually a meeting place, and is on Meeting Street. Parts of the cemetery are pre-revolution.

Old Charleston is below sea level in some spots. We experienced an extreme high tide and water suddenly started flowing up from the storm drains. We left, but I hear it actually soon surrounded their old market center, the brick structure.

And now, the Charleston buggy ride… (SC)

2007-10-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

It was 52 degrees and even more gusty this morning as we drove for our 10 AM buggy tour of old Charleston.

Sixteen of us per buggy, four to a row, and fortunately blankets were provided. Our guide was excellent, making the cold weather only a minor nuisance. We were pulled by two mules that seemed to need little guidance, although traffic and permit restrictions cause route variations presumably only known by our guide. (Mules, as I can never remember, are the product of a male donkey going up-market with a female horse. Mules are sterile. Donkeys mating with donkeys produce donkeys.)

Old Charleston dates to the 17^th century and has a tremendous history, attacked regularly, it seems, by everybody. By law nothing older than 75 years can be torn down or significantly modified (at least on the exterior). The streets are narrow and the battery sits on Murray Street. There is nothing else you need to know.

Fire ants... (SC)

2007-10-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

Ed treats one of many mounds of fire ants on our campsite. They swarm at you when disturbed but are much smaller than I assumed. Nevertheless, we were careful walking around, especially at night.

An uncomfortable encounter, and back to camp... (SC)

2007-10-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

After our harbor tour several of us went to the nearby Fort Sumter Visitor Center. The flag flown during the first attack is on display, and exhibits describe the politics that led up to the start of the war.

People like Lincoln weren’t always as unambiguously anti-slavery as painted by history:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. [1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate]

As I read this statement I was distracted by a squeak to one side. I turned and locked eyes with a Windex-wielding black cleaning woman, looking like she thought I was annoyed with her. I nodded a kind of hello and turned away feeling very uncomfortable.

We returned to camp. This group loves sweets and nothing will warm you up faster than an ice cream social, rootbeer floats for all. There was also a 20-question trivia test based on our travels, and I’m sorry to say Marcia and I didn’t do well.

Charleston Harbor boat ride.… (SC)

2007-10-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

Cool and blustery this morning, perfect day for a Charleston boat ride.

We carpooled in with Ed and Susan, crossing a beautiful new suspension bridge.

We boarded a pontoon tour boat with our group for a look at Cooper River and the Charleston Harbor. The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, commissioned in 1943 and now a museum ship, is here. We young people know her best as the Apollo 8 recovery ship.

Charleston Harbor is much larger than, say, San Diego Bay but the surrounding town much smaller. Charleston’s population is about 110,000 – less than Roseville. The metro population is maybe 600,000. From the harbor the views toward land are more of low-rise buildings, some dating back to the 17^th century.

Since the 1930s Old Charleston has had a rule that nothing over 75 years old gets torn down. Maybe this would be a good place to retire.

Our guide took us to a crab pot, the picture showing only a portion of the catch after only a few days. This was the first time we’ve actually seen blue crabs, famous on this seaboard.

The crabs were then tossed overboard, albeit perhaps a quarter mile from their last position of freedom. The guide said the empty shells were caused by feeding whelk.

The old island fort is Fort Sumter, which was fired upon by South Carolina forces, starting formal fighting in the Civil War. Of course, it had to be fired on again toward the end of the war, so the Union could retake it from the Confederacy. So the 1860s were tough on it. Our guide was nice but this is roughly her total commentary: “I’m not an expert on Fort Sumter, but I believe it used to be a little taller.” (She was right, we later confirmed at the Fort Sumter visitor center.)

Our boat landed us on Morris Island as countless migratory birds flew about. Marcia has done a lot of shell hunting on this trip, and this time she found long-coveted conch shells, intact. We also saw several horseshoe crabs, dead or sluggish, it was hard to decide; or perhaps it was a defense posture.

Not shown are the many dolphins that surfaced around our boat, diving before I could click the shutter. This looked great but was perhaps more exciting to the mid-states members of our caravan.

Myrtle Beach to Charleston (SC)

2007-10-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

The south east has been in a prolonged drought so the rains have been most welcome to the locals. It rained all day yesterday and very hard from about 8 PM to midnight. No visible leaks!

This morning we moved camp from Myrtle Beach to the Mt. Pleasant/Charleston KOA. We deliberately travel in small clusters so we don’t block traffic, but at one time we were going around a bend and I could count five beautiful silver trailers in a row. Very impressive, but no photo, unfortunately.

Dead letter office? (NC)

2007-10-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hunting the perfect shrimp… (SC NC SC)

2007-10-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

Rain basically all day, growing harder at night. To clarify, the temperature drops but is still probably in the mid-70s, so it feels warm and very humid even when not raining.

Ed and Susan drove on this free day, this time to Calabash, a small coastal town just across the border into North Carolina. Calabash is famous for its shrimp, supposedly wild rather than ranched. We tested it at Ellas and found it to be superb, particularly fried; the sautéed shrimp (my order) less so. (Incidentally, so far on this trip we have always been given the choice of sweetened or unsweetened iced tea. At Ellas we were served large glasses of excellent iced tea, with a full pitcher for refills.)

Although it wasn’t raining hard, the power went out while we were eating causing us no problem, other than the minor one of having to pay with cash on leaving. Traffic lights were also out but eventually we wound our way around some back roads and took the freeway to Conway, an old county seat in inland South Carolina. The lady in the visitor center over-oriented us and we set out on a river-front walk in a light drizzle, checked out the old courthouse, a cemetery, and a couple art galleries. A nice old town with an interesting river front. It might have been fun to take the river tour.

Suck whaaat??? Myrlte Beach retail... (SC)

2007-10-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

California fires...

2007-10-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

Marcia hears the good news that at least as of today everybody we know in California is doing OK with the wildfires. We certainly hope that continues to be the case.

Pawleys Island, GAM#6, adult ’smores… (SC)

2007-10-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

This was a free day, the morning taken up with Marcia doing laundry and my trying to get our WiFi to work at the campground coffee shop (1 hour free with purchase, no success).

In the afternoon we drove south a half-hour to Pawleys Island. Planters had summer homes here to escape the threat of malaria. It is now a strip of relatively modest cottages, a few dating to just prior to the Civil War. The island is a couple miles long and 100 yards to a quarter mile wide, ocean on one long side and marsh land on the other. Closely spaced wooden piers extend into the marsh, most ending in a small gazebo. Canoes or other flat bottomed boats hang from davits. Some gazebos are topped by egrets intently watching the marsh; others with fake owls, intently watching nothing. The tide is very low and no one is around, other than clusters of fishermen on the bridge connecting the island and mainland.

On the ocean side the beach is very shallow with probably a hundred yards difference between high and low tides. People are walking about enjoying the comfortable temperatures, some collecting seashells.

Pawleys Island looks like a delightful place to spend a do-nothing short vacation.

We had our final GAM tonight, organized by Marcia to cover the people missed in GAMs 1-5. Tonight we had Ed and Susan, he retired from the US Forest Service, and she from the schools. They live in Sonora (the only other Californians on the caravan) but had not previously done much camping. Then there is Ralph, who worked for several large industrial companies and is now retired, as is his wife Sylvia, an RN; they travel maybe 7-8 months a year, on their own and connecting with caravans when they can. Fred and Searcy are retired and also travel fulltime, although they each own houses in Texas; they and their spouses knew each other at least fifty years, and Fred and Searcy married about five years ago when their spouses died. Finally we have Jean who used to own a trucking company but has been full-timing for many years. His wife died and he recently met Carolyn, a widow of an Airstreamer, and they are now traveling together. Jean wears funny hats and cowboy shirts with souvenir-covered suspenders and polyester pants; although from New Jersey, earlier in the trip he would play Dixie across his CB PA each morning and evening. That has stopped, but he is now wearing a Confederate hat. This is Jean's second time on this caravan, and he plans to go again next year. Jean is always in good cheer.

After the GAM we all adjourned to a campfire social and made ‘smores. For dinner I had four, Marcia two. Airstreamers don’t usually do campfires. It was good to smell the smoke and eat the ‘smores as it reminded me of our years of camping with Andrew and Kevin and Brian and Erika. All it needed (aside from people under sixty) was a ghost story from John.

Carolina Opry - Take me H-o-o-o-m-e … (SC)

2007-10-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

The group went to the Carolina Opry, a 1000-person theater. This is one of maybe a half-dozen theaters featuring tribute groups and country music with a bit of modern electronic flash.

The Carolina Opry had (1) a piano player comedian from England with kind of a tamed down Liberace act; (2) four whites in ghetto clothes doing a dance derivative of Stomp (which I also didn’t like); (3) a white woman belting out her best Aretha Franklin or maybe Tina Turner; (4) a mulleted singer looking at least 50 pounds heavier than his picture in the program; (5) a couple comedians that were actually pretty good if a bit corny; (6) the same comedians doing a total rip-off of the Abbot & Costello “who’s on first” routine; (7) a comedic country singing group called, I’ll admit amusingly, Run GMC; (8) a black guy singing a good black guy song of some sort with electronic assistance; (9) an emcee that also sang and acted as straight-man for the comedians; and (10) a large bloodhound that scratched and licked appropriately.

The program ended with a couple patriotic songs which brought everyone to their feet, and the firing of a confetti cannon.

Counting on stage and what I could see of the audience, there were three blacks.

At intermission several groups were acknowledged, including our group and lot of church groups, mostly Baptist.

The Carolina Opry is a Calvin Gilmore presentation, they never cease to remind you. His name and picture are everywhere, including in several puff pieces in the program. He is listed as producer and director and in the cast as “Vocals, Guitar”; the cast members are listed in the program alphabetically, formatted so that his name is at the top of the center column, and the center column is raised just a tad above the other columns. (As far as we know, Calvin was not here tonight. Probably at the bank.)

It was raining as we left. Since I drove it became my responsibility to get the truck and pick up Marcia and Ed and Susan. By the time I got back to the front of the theater, it was just pouring, and it poured most of the way to our camp.

Our trailer was a mess. The tiny bathroom fan was open and the WC area was soaked (my fault, Marcia warned me it leaks.) And during yesterday’s strong winds I manually closed the Fantastic Fan about half way, apparently disabling the rain sensor; Marcia’s art supplies and many paper items were soaked. The humidity makes it difficult to ever get things dry. The only good news: I closed the awning during the afternoon, so it was not damaged.

Brookgreen Zoo (SC)

2007-10-24T18:44:00.000-07:00

This was taken in macro mode. The little guy is really only about 3 inches long.

The cattle in the background are supposedly descended from plantation-era stock, unaltered by modern breeding techniques.

Brookgreen Gardens sculptures (SC)

2007-10-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

The collection is limited to sculptures by native born or naturalized United States citizens.

The sculpture at the top-left was by Anna Hyatt Huntington, the others here were not.

Brookgreen Gardens, the Huntingtons, and rice growing… (SC)

2007-10-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

At 5 AM the windows flashed with distant lightning and something began to clank against the trailer. I prowled around once and couldn’t find it and on my second prowl I partially lowered the awning to allow for rain, and the noise went away. The rain finally came, in a downpour, just as we were trying to leave for a tour.

The tour was of Brookgreen Gardens, and the rain fortunately ended on our arrival. This place is immense and beautiful, constructed by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington in the 1930s to display American sculpture and to feature native plants of the south-east.

Yes, this is another branch of the Huntington family, he an adopted son of Collis Huntington of California railroad fame and wealth. (The California branch, in addition to everything else they owned, for many years owned Standard Felt Company, where my dad worked his entire career.)

Brookgreen is every bit a worthy rival for the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino CA, only friendlier. The gardens are less formal, the sculpture more modern, and there are no wandering guards. Also no paintings of a very stern, dark-clothed and altogether frightening Mrs. Huntington. This Mrs. Huntington is attractive and is portrayed as a confident sculptress, pausing in her work as if the painter has asked a slightly amusing question. (She was a very talented sculptress, but I’m sure the Huntington money didn’t hurt any.)

The Huntingtons bought in Myrtle Beach in the 1930s hoping the climate would help Mrs. Huntington's tuberculosis (she later found a cure in Switzerland). They built a compound on the ocean side of the highway, now part of Huntington Beach State Park. Brookgreen is on the inland side and is over 10,000 acres.

This land was originally part of a huge 17th century rice plantation. Note the photo showing live oaks; they bordered the entry drive to the original plantation house, and yes, George Washington once tread (or much more likely road) this very route on a documented visit.

Why was he visiting? The owner was a friend, but politics is also politics; the man was wealthy beyond imagination, owning nine rice plantations and over 1000 slaves. He had power.

Rice growing declined rapidly in the low country after the Civil War because it was highly labor intensive, and the labor now cost money. The lands were too squishy for mechanical equipment so rice growing moved elsewhere. The plantation home, long abandoned, burned down in 1901.

Brookgreen Gardens today acknowledges this past with well-done displays describing plantation life. In the 1980s or 1990s the trust received permission to re-flood much of the old rice growing area, and it is now managed to promote water fowl and native animals. Our tour included a boat ride and we actually saw a couple alligators.

Myrtle Beach and a mighty fine burger... (SC)

2007-10-23T17:46:00.000-07:00

As responsible for tonight’s social cook group, we broke camp early and caravaned to Myrtle Beach with the trip leaders, the two rigs responsible for the social, and the three rigs that would act as parking guides at the new camp. It was an interesting trip with the CB open and Susan and Jamie commenting on the history and land en route, much of which consists of pine plantations interrupted with luxury developments.

Myrtle Beach is in South Carolina, and it is a bit unbelievable. There are a zillion RVs and RV sales or supply outlets, malls, restaurants, outlets, Branson-style show places, condo salesmen, and giant campgrounds. And old people everywhere, with tanned gnarly legs.

We are at the Lakewood Camping Resort. Some say it has 2000 sites, others say 4000 sites, still others say 7000. (I looked it up – there are 2000 sites. Never believe rumors. It only feels like 7000.) It spreads from the waterfront to the highway, and has been here 53 years. As a group of 25 rigs we are insignificant here, but they did have a nice electronic welcome for us on the marquee.

The temperature is in the low 80s and the humidity a bit high. The playing cards feel limp, but it does not help.

The beach is fairly narrow, separated from the campsites by a sand berm held in place by grasses and sand fences. Wooden walkways cross the dunes allowing access to the beach without walking on the grasses or the dunes. The beach area is really quite nice, but in the distance in both directions you can see high-rise condominiums and hotels. I imagine this area will go soon.

A bagpiper is playing on our walkway, but these are not Scottish tunes – more American, played on a bagpipe. He is an American industrial engineer, learning to play.

We cooked Costco burgers for 48 people on five small camping barbeques, and it worked out well. Afterward Marcia and I continued our introductory bridge drill. They are very patient and don’t make you feel like an idiot as you do dumb things, but it is still not a pleasant experience.

Carolina Beach, Fort Fisher, Southport, Oak Island, and home… (NC)

2007-10-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

A free day, so Marcia and I drove the 30+ miles to Carolina Beach, which looks similar to Oceanside but with bigger more modern homes in bright pastels – a little gaudy, and colors we haven’t seen elsewhere.

A few miles south of Carolina Beach is Fort Fisher, a Confederate fort that guarded the Cape Fear River entrance. It was very important to the Confederacy because ships entering the port could unload at Wilmington, and in turn these provisions could be carried by train to support the war. The Union blockaded the port but nighttime blockade runners still got through.

In 1865 the Union had had enough of this last bastion of the Confederacy and bombarded the fort from sea for several days, after which Union troops advanced across the beach and engaged in hand-to-hand combat, “Glory” style. The attackers were driven off which started another three days of bombardment and another siege, and the fort finally fell.

Well, wouldn’t you know, today was Monday, and the fort museum was closed. We were able to walk the earthworks, however, and imagine how things must have been.

We continued south a short distance and took the 30-mnute ferry ride ($5) across the Cape Fear River to Southport, a small community little changed from a hundred-plus years ago. Cute wooden cottages, with one “craftsman” style beach-front fixer-upper yours for $1.5M (agent on duty). Real estate is crazy here too.

We had lunch at a little outside restaurant that could have easily been in San Felipe, flies and all. But the food was good, attitude great, and the beer welcome.

After lunch we drove to Oak Island, a peninsula with a 1957 light house, the last lighthouse built in the US.

Today was a loop trip for us but we got lost, finally trusting the god GPS, which also seemed challenged. We got back to camp later than intended and tired, with the GPS still muttering about additional turns we needed to make.

Dixie Grill, Cape Fear Museum… (NC)

2007-10-21T17:31:00.000-07:00

Marcia and I went to the Dixie Grill in downtown Wilmington for breakfast. Very crowded but we saved time by accepting two stools at the counter. Marcia won this time: her egg, bacon, cheddar scramble on a biscuit was fantastic; my hash, cheddar and eggs was OK, but was difficult to eat as an integrated taste. Slices of mild sausage served as the meat, and the potatoes were tasty but cut large, a mouth-full on their own. The servers were very nice and attractive but tat-covered. In the background a guitar player sang blues/country songs.

We then as a group toured the Cape Fear Museum, covering local history from the earliest times to the near-present. This was my first chance to see how they handled Civil War history, and I was surprised to see the war blamed directly on slavery, with no mention of “states rights”.

During the afternoon four of us shopped for food for a social that is our responsibility at our next stop, and later I went out on my own for minor convenience items.

Wilmington invaded: battleship, water taxi, river cruiseboat, trolly… (NC)

2007-10-20T17:14:00.000-07:00

This was a busy day.

Late this morning we met at the battleship USS North Carolina, now a memorial, for a self-guided tour. We went seemingly everywhere, following arrows and reading signs, encountering not an interpreter or safety person anywhere, and ship’s ladders present a lot of potential for trouble.

But we had our own interpreters. Marcia and I hung around with fellow Airstreamer Bill because he was a font of information and excitement, demonstrating some weapons he hadn’t seen since serving on a WWII carrier at age 17.

The North Carolina’s construction was underway when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and in July 1942 she became the first major replacement ship to enter Pearl. She served in just about all the major Pacific battles and was torpedoed once but was able to stay on station. Decommissioning came in 1947 and in 1961 she was floated up the Cape Fear River to her current resting spot in Wilmington. And I do mean resting spot. She grounded while being positioned, so rather than presenting an aggressive bow-out posture, she shows her stern to the city and any visitors.

(The North Carolina was the first so-called fast battleship. She was 729’ long and displaced 35,000 tons. The Iowa class Long Beach based USS New Jersey, commissioned in 1943, displaced 45,000 tons and was 887’ long.)

After our tour the group took a water taxi (top picture) across the Cape Fear River to downtown Wilmington, where we boarded the Henrietta III (no picture - not the Just Enuff lady) for lunch and a river tour. The lunch was huge (we skipped dinner that night) and the tour interesting, and it was a beautiful day. At one point the guide was speaking about Wilmington during the war, which I soon learned means the Civil War around here, not WWII.

After the cruise the group took a trolley tour of historic Wilmington, but the driver wasn’t very dynamic and I had had a lot to eat so, yes, I nodded off a few times. I still don’t think I missed anything; I was listening.

Amusing ourselves Chocowinity to Wilmington… (NC)

2007-10-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today we broke camp in Chocowinity and caravanned again with Ed and Susan and also with Jean and Jim from Long Island. They retired and sold their home and have been full-timing for about a year, although they recently bought a new home in upstate New York. They have exactly the same dialect. Her dialect and way of speaking reminds one of Carmela Soprano, at least to a Californian.

Much of today’s drive was through Camp Lejeune, reputed to be the largest Marine base in the world. The base is hidden behind trees on both sides of the highway, and it is huge. Nothing visible--but wait a minute—what’s that up there? An Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft in hover mode. Later we saw it in normal flight. Those are monster rotors.

We had to kill time en route so we stopped at Mayfaire Town Center, very interesting from a retail perspective. It has conventional areas, e.g. a large department store and a large Whole-Foods-like Fresh Market facing on large parking lots with outboard standalone restaurants (Macaroni Grill, Red Robin, etc.). But a smaller part is split into newly constructed city blocks with mall stores lining the streets. The streets are landscaped, wide, allow a lane of traffic in each direction, have wide sidewalks and diagonal parking. A couple blocks have condos above the stores, offered at close to $400K for 1300 feet to over $600K for larger units. North Carolina has joined California in having delusional housing pricing. Although I didn’t see examples, the mall also includes luxury apartments and single family detached dwellings, as well as office space and a hotel.

At our appointed time we checked in to our new home for the next few days, the KOA campground in Ogden, serving Wilmington NC.

We go to Hog Heaven for eastern NC BBQ… (NC)

2007-10-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

This was a morning of reflection as Marcia started in earnest on her painting and I tried to track down the source of foul odors. She did better than me.

We were on our own for dinner so we went to a BBQ place called Hog Heaven, reputed to exemplify eastern North Carolina BBQ, something taken very seriously around here. Their BBQ is always whole-hog pork, and is vinegar and pepper based, no tomatoes.

The place was a little strange, painted a brilliant white inside and out, with long flickering fluorescent tubes providing an overdose of buzzing lighting inside. As we entered there were a couple of black parties leaving; inside everyone was white. The walls were decorated with prints reminiscent of Thomas Kinkaid’s country scenes - brilliantly lit cottages on small streams; interspersed were humorous photographs of hog farmers, young and old. The cash register area carried shelves and shelves of schlocky little figurines and clocks.

Marcia ordered the BBQ with coleslaw; I ordered BBQ, coleslaw, green beans, and Brunswick stew, which is a corn/bean/chicken/onion soup. (I have since learned that Brunswick stew was classically made from squirrel and stale bread.)

I expected something that looked like typical BBQ but would taste different, so I was a bit surprised at what we were served: brown cafeteria-style plates filled edge-to-edge in Marcia’s case with chopped up meat, a bit brown-gray under the fluorescents. No obvious sauce, and not a hint of red. My segmented brown plate was broken up into a section for the chopped up meat, a segment that tasted just like school-cafeteria style canned green beans, and a third section with the stew. Our coleslaw was in a serving bowl, and a separate plate provided hush puppies and corn sticks.

So how was the BBQ? Although a little unappetizing to look at, the meat was really quite good and not fatty, tasting lightly of vinegar and pepper. Marcia sensed more vinegar and pepper and felt it was better when mixed with the coleslaw. The hush puppies were good but not as good as some we had had earlier, the corn sticks weren’t too interesting, the stew was OK, and the coleslaw was very good. Service was swift and we were out of there and back at camp in probably an hour. On exiting we saw a long drive-up line of people picking up dinners-to-go.

What Washington, Bath, and Edward Teach had in common: just us. (NC)

2007-10-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

Washington is a small town across the Tar-Pamlico River, and today the group went to the Estuarium. This is an educational and exhibit area dedicated to protecting estuaries, defined as the area where fresh water from rivers and creeks mixes with salt water from the sea. A one-legged very energetic young-looking woman with gray hair and a beautiful NC accent (“I’m a 40-year cancer survivor!”) talked to us about the crab industry and life living on an estuary. In a slide she pointed out the area where she lives, and it is indeed beautiful: water lapping at her front lawn, acres of pine trees.

One photo shows an 18^th century house with a cannon ball lodged in the wood. The house next door also has one. These were not necessarily lodge at these points, but the cannon balls were found during renovation. This likely happened during an unsuccessful attempt by the Confederates to retake Washington, then under the control of the Union - or if not that, to at least harass the Union occupiers.

After lunch Marcia and I drove 16 miles to Bath, the first incorporated town in North Carolina, founded in 1705. We were unable to get in any of the historical houses and instead walked about town admiring the old architecture and views of the sound.

Bath (the photo with the boats) is perhaps most famous as the home of Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. Although already a pirate (or privateer, if he was on your side), he was invited here by a friend, the governor of North Carolina. As Blackbeard, he won by terrorizing as much as anything. In battle his hair was ragged and twirled out at each side, and burning tapers under his hat gave the impression of smoke pouring from his ears. The British Navy finally ran him to ground at Ocracoke Island, leaving him with 25 stab wounds and a detached head. The head was brought back to Bath, but I don’t know what happened to it. They never tell you these things.

At camp we had GAM (“Get Acquainted Meeting”) #5, our final, leaving four couples we will never formally meet. At tonight’s GAM we met Bob, who retired from the Navy and a defense contractor career and now travels with his wife Betty and sister Norma; a retired airline pilot named Andy and his wife Jan, a young-looking couple with great-grand children; Judy, a retired computer programmer, who lost her husband a couple years ago; and Ken, who has an engineering degree and retired from a career in technical sales. Ken’s wife died suddenly a few years ago and he decided he needed a new life more than he needed money: he gave his stuff away to his kids and grandkids, sold his home, and now travels full-time doing whatever he wants, and very happy. He spends a couple months each winter at Disneyworld as Mickey’s bodyguard, which gives him a backstage pass to the entire park and impresses his grandkids no end. (He gets minimum wage, as do the costumed characters unless they have speaking parts; speakers like Snow White get a couple dollars more per hour.)

At camp we were to have a ‘smores social but the governor (the current governor, not the one previously mentioned) banned all fires just yesterday. So instead we received gigantic ice cream cones at the camp store and were given the makings of ‘smores to cook in our microwaves. Just not the same thing.

Songs of the new sourth... (NC)

2007-10-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

We broke camp about 10 AM and caravanned with Ed & Susan and Dave & Kathy 145 miles west to Chocowinity, NC, where we will remain for three days.

We three chose to take the designated scenic route 264 because we are brave and adventuresome; the others took the faster route 64 bypass. We had been cautioned to travel at least in pairs because the road is narrow with no or little shoulder and if you became stranded it could be some time before another vehicle came along that could help.

Highway 264 wasn’t too bad and we had a good time, and traveling at least in pairs certainly makes sense. This part of North Carolina is very flat and somewhat swampy. Roads are formed by digging parallel trenches and piling the dirt in the center, ending up with a raised roadbed and a water-filled canal on one side, and a narrow and steep shoulder on the other. We would be in deep trouble if a trailer wheel slipped off the asphalt.

Highway 264 passes through such interestingly named areas as the Dismal Swamp and the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Much of the road is through forests of tall thin trees, perhaps pines, interrupted on occasion by wet areas, some of which show hurricane damage (trees broken off part way up the trunk, etc.). The area is lightly populated and contains both a Navy and an Air Force bombing range for entertainment. In one small village there is a building signed as a disaster assistance center and five houses in the process of having their foundations raised.

Eventually we came to stretches of large fields of soy beans and cotton but no people in the fields, only large machines, like the cotton areas in California. Things must not be good for the unskilled and low-skilled and local real estate: there are many abandoned usually small houses overtaken by brush. Sorry, no antebellum plantations. No darkies singing about picking soybeans all day.

We are now at the Twin Lakes Camping Resort in Chocowinity. It is large, treed, and laked. Prior to this we were on the outer banks; we are now in what is sometimes called the inner banks. Pamlico Sound separates them. Additionally, we are a ways up the Pamlico River. Much farther west and we’d be in Greenville.

Dinner was catered: coleslaw, potatoes, fried fish, and breaded shrimp, served under an open pavilion. A little kitty cat helps clear the plates.

Tonight I browsed a “dummies” beginning-bridge book, did the blog, and continued reading a book about the lost colony at Roanoke. Marcia read then left for the game room, where she played yet another version of Mexican dominoes, winning 2 out of 3 games.

Roanoke Island history...(NC)

2007-10-15T18:47:00.001-07:00

This is the northern most end of Roanoke Island. We bicycled here from Fort Raleigh, the small earthworks that remain from the 16th century English fort.

There is so much history here.

To our right a hundred yards stands the earthworks of a Confederate fort.

To our left is an area I think I'm incorrectly calling Freeland. (I can't currently find the correct name.)

As Union troops advanced large numbers of slaves were emancipated. About 6000 settled here and were given an acre of land per family.

Of course, that couldn't be the end of the story. Some signs talk of how great it was for these people to be free. Others talk the same way, but add it was a continuing struggle that is still going on. And somewhere I read after the war the former slaves were ordered off the land.

It was a nice bike ride.

Nice teeth... (NC)

2007-10-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

Marcia's find, on Roanoke Island.

Wreck of the Oriental... (NC)

2007-10-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Marcia is pointing to the boiler of the Oriental, a 210 foot long Union transport vessel that went down on May 16, 1862. Amazing that there is still something visible. Our leaders live in Oriental, North Carolina, named that because a local resident returned from the wreck with the ship's name board and nailed it to a tree near where he lived.

On Pea Island... (NC)

2007-10-15T18:34:00.001-07:00

Pictures from or near Pea Island.

Pee what? (NC)

2007-10-15T18:24:00.001-07:00

Today we prowled around the Pea island National Wildlife Refuge after a liberal dose of deet, then went on to Roanoke for a look at the earthworks of the 17^th century Fort Raleigh and a very pleasant bike ride.

The first picture is of Marcia receiving instruction from avid birders Nancy and Robert. The second photo is of an unidentified older gentleman. The third photo is of a blind man recording bird sounds.

Dinner was again at the Full Moon in Manteo on Roanoke Island. Our server recognized us, said she’d love to have an Airstream. Turns out she was an extra in the Richard Gere movie Night in Rodanthe, Rodanthe being the small town bordering Waves and formerly known as Chicamacomico. It was filmed during a Nor’easter in April, until 3 in the morning, freezing cold, with stand-ins for the big names. They insisted that she wear a frilly dress.

Sunrise off North Carolina... (NC)

2007-10-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

People had been kidding us about not having seen a sunrise over the Atlantic, so we got up at 6:30 this morning and this is what we saw.

Orville and Wilbur do the Outer banks...(NC)

2007-10-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

I have a new appreciation for Orville and Wilbur, two bicycle repair guys from Dayton that achieved the world’s first sustained powered flight at Kitty Hawk NC.

I didn’t realize how many years they dedicated to the goal, and how much rather sophisticated testing they did prior to actual flight attempts. This was not luck – it was smarts and approaching the problem in a very orderly and scientific fashion. I also didn’t realize they had to build from scratch their own engine in order to meet their weight and power requirements, and they had to develop many of their own tools, such as wind tunnels for testing.

The first photo is from the crown of Kill Devil Hill, the launch point for their early experiments with gliders. At that time the hill and the surrounding flat lands were shifting sand allowing for a relatively soft landing, but wild grasses now keep everything reasonably in place. In the distance can be seen two plank reproductions of their living quarters and machine shop. The museum is to the right and contains reproductions of their early aircraft, their self-built wind tunnel, engine fragments, and photos.

The next photo shows granite markers indicating the end-points of the four flights on the morning of December 17, 1903. The powered flights started and ended in the flat areas; the hill was used only for the glider flights.

A view from their buildings to Kill Devil Hill would show it today topped by a Stalinist-style great monument to the Wright Brothers and their first flights. No photo, as we ran out of battery power (the modern equivalent, I guess, of running out of film).

The boys, like good brothers, took turns, and each flight beat the previous; the final flight (by Wilbur) went 852 feet in 59 seconds. Although others around the world had achieved powered hops and glides, this added the all important factor of sustained control. Regular readers (impossible) of this blog are familiar by now with the US Lifesaving Service; the boys were assisted at launch time by surfmen from the local station; in fact, the iconic photo of the first flight of the day, with Orville at the controls and Wilbur running alongside, was taken by one of the surfmen, using the Wright’s camera.

Wilbur, the older by four years, died of typhoid at the age of 45 after a trip to Boston defending their patents. Orville died in his 70s in 1948 of a heart attack. Both are buried in Ohio, not in the mausoleum-like structure on Kill Devil Hill.

Did you say Bodie Lighthouse? (NC)

2007-10-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

The Bodie lighthouse was built in 1872. Named Body at the time, it became Bodie somewhere along the way but is still pronounced locally as Body.

The marsh areas surrounding the lighthouse grounds are teeming with birds, but because of the high cover we mostly could only hear them.

Ocracoke Lighthouse (NC)

2007-10-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

Built in 1823, the oldest operating lighthouse in NC is on Ocracoke Island.

Hatteras to Ocracoke: best ferry deal going.

2007-10-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

At the town of Hatteras we road a free car ferry for the 40-minute trip to Ocracoke Island.

This has to be the best ferry deal going, anywhere.

It is a one-deck open ferry and you can walk about during passage, enjoying absolutely tremendous views of the lands forward and to the rear, open waters, large sandbars, weekend fishing boats, and things I never quite understood that look like very small oil drilling platforms—perhaps used for fishing, or maybe they are artificial nesting spots for birds.

As you debark on Ocracoke Island and transit a long protected area, the villages take on a wholly different look than on Hatteras Island; they seem smaller, and businesses often employ pirate themes, flying the skull-and-crossbones.

At the end of Ocracoke Island is the town or Ocracoke, the jumping-off point to take a ferry to the next island (we didn’t). The road has really thinned at this point; we are grateful the trailer is not in tow. But it is a nice village centered on a small harbor with many cottage-style rentals, a very relaxing look. This look is contrary to its past, when Ocracoke served as a hideout of pirates, including the notorious Blackbeard, slain here in 1718. (His head was then carried north to the town where he grew up, for a sort-of homecoming.)

Dinner (our dinner, not Blackbeard’s) was at Howards Pub and Raw Bar on Ocracoke. “Raw” doesn’t mean sushi, or scandalous; to the locals, it is an oyster bar. My shrimp salad was very good.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse... (NC)

2007-10-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

After our usual slow start (familiar to John & Denise) Marcia and I were off to explore Cape Hatteras to the south and take the ferry to Ocracoke Island – famed as a pirate refuge and attack point – arrrgh, Black Beard himself.

Many miles of the outer banks are protected by either the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge or the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Where unprotected, villages naturally develop, with small unattractive stand-alone buildings or equally unattractive strip malls. In the residential areas there has been a lot of expensive development in the last decade or two; as we drove south from our campground in Waves, the homes seemed to become fancier and larger, often four-stories with a false first floor, on half-acre and larger lots.

The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, at 208 feet, is the tallest lighthouse in the United States. It was built in 1870 but shifting sands caused it to be closer and closer to the water, to the point that in 1999 the Park Service literally moved it on rollers a half-mile to its present spot.

More than 600 ships have wrecked off the Outer Banks, a good percentage at the hands of German U-boats: 10 in WWI, and 80 in WWII. That fact doesn’t relate much in context, but I found it interesting. Later I read that along the entire eastern seaboard over 400 ships - both freighters and warships - were sunk by German U-boats in just eight months of 1942.

Traffic south of the lighthouse thins out and at the town of Hatteras the road ends. Those adventurers wishing to go farther south must take the ferry.

Stalked by a reenactor... (NC)

2007-10-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

I've never liked reenactors, and they've never liked me.

Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony… (NC)

2007-10-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

Looking at Roanoke, at least in October on a beautiful day, it is hard to understand why that 1587 colony of 117 persons had such a tough time.

Today we drove to an historical center that describes life in the area when the settlers first arrived, in the 16^th century. It includes an acre arranged like a settlement, with a few reenactors answering questions.

For lunch we went to the Full Moon, where I had only my second hamburger of our trip (a very good Angus blue cheese burger) and Marcia had a quiche. I had the Full Moon ale, and Marcia ordered the Royal Bitch chardonnay. Marcia and the waitress seemed to share some inner female humor in her choice.

After lunch we toured a small aquarium with some interesting displays (including an in-tank replica of the Monitor wreck), checked out the Elizabethan Gardens, got lost even though everything is either north or south and got back a half-hour late for GAM #4.

No wind tonight – just beautifully clear air and another spectacular sunset.

Camp Hatteras at Waves…(NC)

2007-10-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

We will be camping at Camp Hatteras at Waves on Hatteras Island for the next five nights. The camp spills across both sides of the highway, so that the eastern sites see the ocean (if it weren’t for a prominent sand berm) and the western sites, where we are, face the bay, or as they call it here, the sound. But it is not a peaceful bay; the waters at least on our arrival day are really quite wild, and the winds very strong. Sunsets across the sound are spectacular.

This is another barrier island, stretching for miles north and south and maybe a half-mile wide. Houses with false first floors and two or three stories above seem to dominate, at least in the new construction. Often all this is topped by a deck, sort of a modern widow’s walk, which should be a spectacular spot for watching approaching hurricanes.

In the more natural wildlife refuge strips, the sound side land tapers away into marshes that look similar to the areas just south and west of Imperial Beach. The highway is one lane each way, with a wall of sand on the ocean side partly restrained by nearly buried sand fences. In a couple places road equipment can be seen removing sand drifts from the highway.

We continue our Life Saving Service education … (NC)

2007-10-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

You may recall in Delaware we visited one of the few US Life Saving Service stations preserved as a museum. Today we visited another one, this one at Rodanthe, just north of our camp on Hatteras Island. This is the Chicamacomico Life Saving station. (The locals still know this area as Chicamacomico; the postoffice made them rename it to something more easily spelled and pronounced, and so it became postally Rodanthe.)

This station is noteworthy in that it contains seven well preserved buildings. The one in the picture was built in 1874 as the first station here. The extra support members are needed because an August lightening strike took out the “king” beam and caused a vapor expansion inside, resulting in joint separation throughout.

Life Saving Stations were once spaced at six mile intervals on the eastern seaboard, a few in the gulf, a few on the Pacific Coast, and a large number along the Great Lakes. The Chicamacomico station owes its fame to an incident in WWI when an English ship bearing tons of airplane fuel exploded and sank off shore. The station surfmen managed to save most of the crew while fighting high seas and burning gasoline. The station and its surfmen received many awards and international recognition for heroism.

The Indian River (DE) station was staffed mostly by surfmen named Lingo, a name still prominent in the area. Here, six of the seven 1917 surfmen were named Midgette; the seventh was named O’Neil, and was married to a Midgette. The Midgettes are still prominent in the area, but sadly seem not to be without their black sheep; while shopping at the local Food-o-Rama, we spied a notice on the cash register telling employees not to honor checks from one Mary Midgette.

Driving below the sea… (VA)

2007-10-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

The ferry from Kiptopeke to Virginia Beach no longer exists. Today, you take a 17- mile combination of bridges and tunnels to reach the other side of Chesapeake Bay. It is a wondrous trip, even to someone that has experienced BART under San Francisco Bay.

What is different? After a $20 toll (truck plus two-axle trailer), you begin driving across a causeway trestle much like the approaches to the San Mateo Bridge. Then suddenly the road slopes skyward as we climbed across an area that allows fishing ships to pass; soon we plunged back to water level for a while, then in the middle of the bay we plunged below water level into a tunnel that continues for maybe a mile. We then emerged at water level as if to catch our breath, then again plunged below water for another mile, and back again to the surface until we reached Virginia Beach.

Why did they build it this way? Probably to guarantee no enemy could destroy a bridge and trap our Navy in Chesapeake Bay.

Marcia and I go bird banding… (VA)

2007-10-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

At last night’s social a guest described the process of bird banding, and the large scale banding project taking place the next morning with the help of many volunteers.

Since the weather was good and we had the time and suspected Dee would be annoyed if we didn’t do it, Marcia and I set out about 8:15 AM to see the bird banding process. We walked to the approximate location and began following some temporary signs marked with directional arrows. The signs continued longer than we expected, with no banders in sight; then a sign appeared marked “5K” and a little latter another “5K” sign. We spotted a couple of long net fences and some birders and learned we had been following the path of a marathon held the previous weekend.

Unfortunately, in the little time we had left, no birds were caught for banding, an anticlimax for our early morning efforts. But it was a short walk back to our camp.

Our leaders

2007-10-10T16:54:00.000-07:00

Susan and Jamie, our leaders, from North Carolina. I think this is their third year leading this caravan. They are volunteers, unpaid.

Kiptopeke State Park at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay (VA)

2007-10-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

We left about 10 AM in a light drizzle for the 74 mile drive to Kiptopeke State Park, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. But check-in time wasn’t until 3 PM, so we had to stretch things out. Caravanning with Ed & Susan we busied ourselves with a trip to the market, a hardware store, other miscellaneous stores, and a round of “golf”—the card game we learned from the Warners. I wanted to visit a museum that in plantation days was a home for the destitute, but I couldn’t interest anyone.

Kiptopeke is sunny, low humidity, about 70 degrees, our most comfortable day yet. We understand this is closer to typical October weather, if it isn’t raining. Occasionally jets roar overhead from the Norfolk Navy base.

To my knowledge we are the only caravaners to hike the half-mile to the water. Prior to the bridges and tunnels, the trip from the Virginia barrier islands to Virginia Beach across Chesapeake Bay was via ferry. The seas can be quite rough, so to provide a safe harbor for loading and unloading, the ferry operators created a breakwater of nine WWII concrete ships, sunk end-to-end. This was in 1948, and the ships are very visible and deteriorating. (The Allies did the same thing off Normandy, sinking Liberty Ships in a line to provide a protective harbor for the landings on D-Day. Liberty Ships get no respect—the Germans sank them, we sank them.)

Dinner tonight was provided by the “social” committee—40 pounds of large shelled shrimp for the 48 caravaners. Very good.

Horse overboard! (VA)

2007-10-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

Several mares were seen today swimming to Chincoteague, apparently in search of their foals that had been taken for the auction a few weeks previous. All but one was driven back by cowboys in powerboats; the remaining one made it across and was last seen wandering in town.

Today's flush... Biking for bites… (VA)

2007-10-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today we had breakfast at Mr. Baldy’s and drove to the Wallops NASA visitor center only to find it closed. We then drove back to Assateague Island. At the nature center we used the toilets (there is a reason for telling you this) and in each stall was a sheet explaining that the toilet dumps to the ground where "it" is naturally filtered and the water is returned to the building to flush again. I asked for an explanation of how well this cleansing action works, particularly in mass quantities, but nobody seemed to know. Afterwards we road our bicycles around a network of about seven miles of trails, encountering few people and little wildlife but very expansive views; the area is in a drought and looks similar to what we might expect on the African savanna: large dried-out lakes with low trees in the distance, punctuated occasionally by tall trees.

We returned to the ocean side for lunch and seashell collecting, and then to Island Creamery for WiFi access to do this blog (can’t keep the fans waiting).

This afternoon we are having cocktails with Ed and Susan from Sonoma -- they are the only other Californians on the caravan -- and a caravan-organized pizza dinner. Hopefully not clam or oyster pizza. Tomorrow we pull up stakes and move on.

Oyster and clam aquaculture… (VA)

2007-10-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

Today we the caravan had a big lunch at Don’s Restaurant and listened to a waterman (as they call their oyster and clam diggers) talk about shellfish aquaculture. It takes two years to raise an oyster to marketable size, and they have a short market window because oysters die naturally the next year. Clams present a different set of problems. Like all farming, there can be good years and bad years. There is federal farm insurance, but in bad years (large die-offs) it pays 2.5 cents a clam, which is only enough to cover the cost of the feed.

Clams and oysters are no longer economically harvestable in the wild, he said. He remarked on their ecological importance to Chesapeake Bay, where their volumes were capable of completely filtering the water in about three days; now it would take 20 years. (Probably as much a measure of increasing pollution as the decline in the filtering population.)

Tonight we attended our third GAM—“get acquainted meeting”. For an idea of the people we travel with, I’ll summarize the backgrounds of these couples. All four have grandkids and some great-grandkids. One is a widower retired Arthur Anderson CPA from Washington that has a home on Mercer Island in Seattle and a trailer at Lacey Washington (an Airstream-exclusive park owned by the local WBCCI unit), presumably the trailer that is on the caravan. His wife died a couple years ago of Alzheimer’s, and they spent her final five years traveling everywhere in the Airstream. Phil has done an incredible number of things, including sailing from Seattle to Hawaii, he flies, leads caravans, teaches, is involved in volunteer tax preparation, etc. Another man described himself as "living in sin" with his companion, a retired or underemployed ceramic engineer; as a woman, she said she has a hard time getting work as an engineer. He had a Navy carrier and airline maintenance career and Airstreamed everywhere until his wife’s death. His companion was long a single mother and had an Airstream. Another man is a retired chiropractor and past Airstream unit president (many of these caravaners seem to be former unit presidents). Our host was an air traffic controller during the Reagan showdown, and later trained new controllers for a couple years.

Tonight I’ve been suckered into a beginner bridge playing class with the guarantee that it will be nonthreatening. I got a break when a call from Andrew nicely interrupted the instruction.

Hello, Mickey! How's Minnie? (VA)

2007-10-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Note found on our windshield after leaving the Assateague visitor center.

Assateague Island wild ponies… (VA)

2007-10-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

We were told the swollen bellies are from the high-salt diet.

These are barrier islands, thin strips of land running north and south just off the mainland. Man has built a few high points such as light houses and visitor centers, but the natural land looks as most five feet high. We understand these to be the only mostly-undeveloped barrier islands on the coast.

As I write this we are seated under our awning celebrating evening happy-hour while a thunder shower passes through our campground. To a Californian this is a little unexpected; a few hours ago we and a few thousand others were sunning ourselves on the Assateague Island National Park beach, not a cloud in the sky, less than a mile east of our camp at Tom’s Cove.

-The island is part of a wildlife refuge most famous for its wild ponies, a few of which are driven through water to the mainland each year and auctioned as a fund raiser for the Chincoteague fire department.

But as you might imagine from the beach comment, all is not as it seemed in you National Geographic article on Assateague Island. This is a very managed wildlife refuge, and very visited. The ponies, thought to be descendants of animals driven to the island hundreds of years ago to avoid taxation (one of many thoughts), are branded, vaccinated, de-wormed, and checked by a veterinarian yearly. Not all ponies destined for auction are cowboy-driven to Chincoteague; the non-swimmers get a truck ride on the causeway. (A cattle guard discourages escapees during the rest of the year.) The refuge is also home to some Asian elk left over from a Boy Scout fundraiser decades ago; as exotics, certain numbers can be culled during hunting season. Also, there are many squirrel boxes throughout the refuge, built to promote the population of a type of squirrel that is endangered off the island. There are sculpted rectangular ponds to catch water for wildlife. The naturalists installed water pumps to flood or drain areas to accommodate their interpretation of the needs of various species of migratory birds. And, as can happen anywhere, a former Virginia governor’s first lady favored bluebirds, so there are countless bluebird boxes, although apparently this is not a native spot for the bluebird, and none has been spotted.

Much of this was gleamed from a bus tour of the refuge late this afternoon, during which we saw wild ponies, very large flies, the endangered squirrels, turkeys, other birds, no bluebirds, some Asian elk, and some white tailed deer.

In the morning we set out to climb the 192 steps of the Assateague Island light house (built in the mid-1800s) but were driven back by long lines and mosquitoes.

For dinner we chose Mr. Baldy’s, a family restaurant with good fix’ums. The cornbread was good but I’m getting tired of your classic dinner rolls. On the other hand, we had our first green salads of the caravan. For $7 I had a flavorful pair of grilled porkchops. Marcia had a big piece of meatloaf.

Our favorite fishing charter...(VA)

2007-10-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Chincoteague Island Oyster Fest... (VA)

2007-10-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today, and for the next four days, we are camped at Tom’s Cove Park on Chincoteague Island VA after an uneventful 72 mile drive south.

Chincoteague Island is a 7-mile-long 1.5-mile-wide spit connected to the mainland by a narrow draw-bridge causeway. The campground is large and we have what looked like an easy site to back into, but I got too close to a fence and another car, and it took probably ten minutes and the advice of several caravan members to get settled. There was a lot of motivation to help me, maybe too much: nobody could move forward until they got me out of the way.

Just after noon we grabbed two camping chairs and caught the shuttle to Chincoteague’s 35th Annual Oyster Festival. The entry fee included all-you-can-eat and beers for $1 each. In one area volunteers steamed oysters in huge pots heated by propane burners that looked like large versions of the portable wands highway workers use to seal asphalt, while in another crews shucked oysters. For an hour we used our fingers and plastic forks to force a half-dozen crabs to yield what seemed a very trivial amount of meat. Marcia then went to get fritters and more beers while I stood for an hour in the oysters-on-the-half-shell line. Unfortunately, we found we could swallow only a couple “sliders” each, although others clearly enjoyed dozens. By the time we got to the coleslaw and hush puppies tent, and the even more important chocolate treat tent, all was gone and closing was imminent so we took the shuttle back to our camp.

Even though we had eaten probably fairly little, neither of us was particularly hungry, so dinner was a satisfying dish of ice cream at the Island Creamery with free WiFi (hence this prompt post).