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1 to 15 April 2016 16 to 30 April 2016

Friday April 1, 2016

It is 9 am and it is already hot and humid. I finish my last 3 chores, put away the sewer hose, fresh water hose and the electrical cord.
At the same time, Michele was busy setting up the inside for traveling.

We hit the road at 10:15 am. We only have to travel 50 km. We did have to stop for construction, but not for very long.

Where are we?

At the Walmart in Live Oak. We only have to buy a few things. I do not know what happen, but we left the store and my wallet was $98.00 lighter???

Yesterday, I called the dealer where we bought the MH. We still have a few things to get fixed before the warranty end.
One of the things to get fixed is the side cameras. They get foggy when we are driving.
This is the back camera. It works good.

This is the right side camera. Nothing on the screen. We can see the lens full of moisture.

Ten minutes after we left the Walmart we drive in the "Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park & Campground".

We have a coupon for 2 free nights and the registration went smoothly. Of course, we had pre-registered March 22.
Me and my bird!

This is our site. This is the section with full services. It is full during shows and festivals. This is not a section where you spend a month. We would be pretty close together.

It is a good thing it is not full.

One bat house.

I am out walking around the campground.
You never know what you will come across.
A sculpted guitar, a small travel trailer painted to look like wood planks.

The country store and a few small shops. The small shops are not open because it is not a "big" weekend for shows.

They sell some pretty looking birdhouse.

Some of the RV sites.

The campground is in the red line area.
They have 600 sites with services and another 800 acres or about 600 football fields of open sites where you can set-up camp wherever you want. It is a big place.

The weather forecast for tonight is calling for thunderstorms.
The rain started by 6 pm.

Saturday April 2, 2016

What a night!
Only one thunderstorm, but it started 2:30 am and did not stop until 5:30 am. Lots of lighting, thunders and rain.
We woke up and the sky was gray, but no more rain.

The site for the festival was flooded with about one foot of water in the middle.

While I was outside, I could hear a loud buzz in the background.
I start to investigate.
Here is what I found....
... Click here for a video ....

It is a rainwater catching pond and it is full of fresh new water. The frogs and other critters are having a great time because it is mating season.

I continued on my walk and came across the stage where they give smaller outdoor concerts.

One more carving, this time a bear.

What is it? Who is it?

The "Lake Monster"! If look closely you can see a squirrel in his mouth.

In addition, it is all made of recycling materials.

Where you can camp without services, you park wherever you like.

The campground is divided in many section, here is one with 2 services.
Notice the house on stilts.

This is a giant bat house and under the house, you have the "guano".
It is bat poop!

With the rain we had on Friday night, some of the roads are in bad shape. This one has a foot deep canal in it.

Now, that is outdoor showers...

Some campers.

One that has camped!

Some more sites with only 2 services.

What a good looking cardinal.

They even have a section for camping with horses.

RVs with paddock in the back.

We just stayed home for the evening.

Sunday April 3, 2016

Time to leave is here. We are on the road by 9:15.

This is not going to be a long drive, only 240 km to go for our RV Park near Savannah.

We are not taking any interstate highway today.
Jasper? Are we back in Canada?

Shortly after we leaf the campground, we entered Georgia.

A large part of our driving was done on divided highway.

Many of the small town are empty, it is Sunday after all and everyone is at church.

Just after lunch, we arrived at this mobile home park. It is a pretty colourful place!

It is our RV Park!

It is very clean. Our site.

Our street.

By the end of the afternoon we went out looking for some local caches.

Our RV Park is in Hinesville, Georgia.

We found 5 caches and a few we did not find.

Monday April 4, 2016

We are on our way to visit Savannah!
Once again, we never know what we will see in our travel...

The "Talmadge Memorial Bridge".
Here is what Wikipedia say about this bridge.
"Completed in March 1991, the new Talmadge Memorial cable-stayed bridge replaced the old Talmadge cantilever truss bridge (built in 1953), which had become a danger for large ships entering the Port of Savannah, home to the largest single ocean container terminal on the U.S. eastern seaboard, and the nation's fourth-busiest seaport".

The inside of the information center of Savannah.
The lady at the information center gave us lots and lots of good information and things to do and see in Savannah.

We start our visit to Savannah with a trolley tour of the city. This is also a hop on, hop off, trolley.
The guided tour last 90 minutes and is very good.

The driver/tour guide tells us everything about Savannah. Savannah has many park in the old part of town.

There is so much history in Savannah. I cannot even begin to tell you everything about Savannah.
The tour guide pointed some of the little things in Savannah. Like these cast iron down spout for the rain gutters.

Or these stone blocks by the road/sidewalks. One hundred years ago, it was used as a stepping stone to get in and out of carriages.

There are so many old houses with so much history related to them.

Even the Bus Stop signs are old!

If I remember right, this is the oldest house in Savannah.

The "Pirate house".
The story goes like this... When a ship arrived in the harbour, the sailor would take off and come to this tavern to have a "few"!
They would use a tunnel between the harbour and the tavern. On the revers side of the coin, when captains were short of sailors, they would come here and buy drinks to sailors. When they were drunk and past out, the captains would take the past out sailor to their ship via the tunnels and sail away. When the sailors would wake up, they had no choice, but work for the captain.

What good is a pirate house if you have no pirates?
Johnny Depp?

This is River Street. We had lunch at the "Cotton Exchange Tavern".
We should have known, the portions were super big, we should have ordered only one meal for both of us. It was good!

For those who have been following us for a while, I have talked about this before, but here it is again!
They add lots of seashells to concrete, to the point that people call it shellcrete. This always impresses me!

It was strongly recommended visiting the St-John the Baptist church.
It has been renovated a few years back.

No matter what your opinion is about religions, churches are beautiful work of art.

Holy water and the bath for baptism.

We strolled in Savannah for a while, it is a beautiful place. We will have to come back and spend more time here.
Michele is still not feeling 100%. She did enjoy Savannah, but when I told her I wanted to visit the "Roundhouse", she said, "Go by yourself".

A roundhouse definition as per Wikipedia.
"A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables. The defining features of the traditional roundhouse was the turntable, which facilitates access when the building is used for repair facilities or for storage of steam locomotives".

The actual building is formed around the turntable in a semi-circular fashion.

Our guide took us to a luxury rail car of the late 40's. They were used by the executives of the railroad company.

For the wealthy of the time! The walls were made of mahogany paneling.

The floor of the shop, between the rail cars and locomotive is paved with "bricks" made out of wood. On the left is a "new" floor and on the right a "used" floor. Why wood? It was easy to repair and it absorbed all the grease and oil used in the maintenance of the locomotives.
No environmental concern in those days!

Another rail car, but this one more recent!
A house radio would not last very long in a rail car moving and shaking along the tracks. They had to use car radio as they were better suited for "traveling". If I remember right, this radio is from a 1956 ford.

Luxury in the late 50's. Everything is original.

The chef's domain!
Small, but functional.

Some of the restored locomotives. They are the type used in the yard to assemble a convoy for the big locomotive.

This one had the nickname of "the mule".

This is one rail car being restored. They estimated it was built 135 years ago...

This locomotive is no longer running.

I really enjoyed my tour of the roundhouse. I have learned so much stuff about trains, roundhouse and railroads.

The old train station of Savannah now a museum and the information center.

While Michele was waiting for me, she took pictures of the blooming tree.

A really nice day, but very tiring for Michele.

Tuesday and Wednesday April 5 and 6, 2016

We basically stayed home for two days.
We did take a walk in the RV Park. It is a very colorful place.

The laundry room. Everything is very clean. Most of the mobile homes have been or are in the process of being renovated.

We will be leaving for South Carolina in the morning. Precisely to the Charleston area.

Thursday April 7, 2016

We left the RV Park at around 9:30 am.

Less than an hour later, we were in South Carolina.

Before leaving the I-95, we had to stop for gasoline. After the conversion to CDN $, including the exchange rate, the gasoline only cost us $0.67 cdn per liters. Pretty good even with our dollar being so low.

The first 100 km was driven on the I-95. Not a fun place to drive, lots of trucks and cars on the roads.
The second 100 km was driven on secondary highway.

This road is like the Interstate, but without the trucks and traffic.

In the US, it is normal to see a school displaying their team with coloured plastic cups stuck in a chain link fence.

Almost 3 hours later, we make it to our new home.

Where are we going?
The speed limit is not 5 MPH, but 4.7 MPH!!!

We have a site with 2 services (water and electricity) for two nights. Sunday we will move to a three services site (water, electricity and sewer) for four nights. Michele slept most of the afternoon and I went to the car wash to clean up the car.

Friday April 8, 2016

It is time to do some laundry. We are getting low on some basic pieces of clothing...
Do I look like someone who does not know what he is doing?

With the laundry behind us, we headed to the Welcome Center of Charleston.

The young man inside gave us so much information on things to do and see in Charleston...
Michele is feeling better, so we are now on the hunt for Thrift Shoppes. While Michele is in the Thrift Shops, I go hunting for geocaches.

Many of the roads in the area are under "green tunnels". We love it!

On our way back home, we come across this guardian of the RV Park.

Michele is feeling better. We have to sort through a large amount of information on Charleston and figure out what we want to visit. On the weather side, the temperatures will drop to 20°C on Saturday and 16°C for Sunday. Will it be a tour day or a geocaching day?

Saturday April 9, 2016

It is a geocaching day!
We are walking the "West Ashley Greenway Trail" and looking for caches along the way.
It is spring here in South Carolina and the birds are all dolled-up in bright colours. Love is in the air!

This is a "Rail to Trail" trail and we are now at high tide so we have a lake next to us. In a few hours it will all muddy.

Funny to see this vine all twisted up, but look at the tree, it was growing, but the vine had a pretty tight hold on that tree...

Our home for the next three days.

The park has a short hiking trail around the lake. It is a very nice trail.

We do have a pool at the campground, but it is not heated!

The street where most of the seasonal are located.

I cannot get too close to look for a placard to tell me what kind and what year this travel trailer is.

We spent the rest of the day at home...

Sunday April 10, 2016

This morning we have to move from one site to another. This site is a three services site. We will be here for four more nights.

Michele has done it again. She typed "Free things to do in Charleston" on Google and found "Free Tour by Foot" . You only have to pay $1 per person for taxes purposes and you give the guide what you feel the tour was worth.

We have chosen the "Historic Charleston" tour.
Scott, our tour guide, has to give us some of the do and don't s of tour by foot before we can start the actual tour.

The St-Phillip church survived the big earthquake of 1886, but the steeple is now leaning to the left on this picture.

A few of the old houses in historic Charleston.

If you look carefully, you can see that the bricks are not all the same colour on this wall.
This is because the bricks were made by the slaves. They made two types of bricks, the one formed in a mold. This made them more similar from one to the other. The other method was making the bricks by hand with whatever the "mud for making the bricks" was at the time. This is why you have a change in coloration and in size too.

Liquors stores here in South Carolina are called Spirit stores and have to have three red dot on the facade of the building to indicate it is a place where they sell spirits and wines.

A section of East Bay Street is nicked named Rainbow Street.
The center house on the right photo was sold for 3 million dollars a few months back.

Charleston Bay.

This house with a view of the Bay is still on sale for a nice 11 million dollars...

Here is our group getting information about the stone blocks we see between the sidewalk and the roads. (I talked about that a few days ago)
They were used to help you get in and out of carriages. In the photo on the right, you can even see the hitching post.

Scott took us into a garden with a "joggling board". It is a bouncing plank you use it just like you would use a bouncing ball in Pilate's.

The "Old Slave Mart" of Charleston. It was built in 1863 and used until the arrival of the Union's solders in 1865. That when the trading of slaves was stopped.

Another part of Charleston.

Scott was a great tour guide. This is probably one of the best tour we had so far in our 6 years of full timing.
We highly recommended this tour by foot.

After the tour was over, we walked a little in the town market.

Once we were back home, I went to chat with our neighbors. They are from Rouyn in northern Quebec, they are very nice people.

From Savannah to Charleston, what a week...

Monday April 11, 2016

A lazy day for us today.
The small lake on the campground is open for fishing. The best part is we do not need a fishing license to fish. The lake is only catch & release.
I caught a large mouth bass.

We have the visit of Muscovy Ducks in the afternoon.

It is always good to have a day or two of "do nothing day".

Tuesday April 12, 2016

We had rain most of the night.
The arrow points to the site we had before. It was a site with only two services, water and electricity.

Now, our site with water, electricity and sewer.

After lunch, we head out to the "Charleston Tea Plantation". It is about 30 minutes away and in a very agricultural area.

Here I am with Waddy the frog. He is having a cup of tea.

Michele waiting for the start of the tour. Her cold is finally gone.

This is the Gift Shop and behind you get a free tour of the tea factory.

To make tea from tea leaves is a relatively easy process.
We can see the same Withering bed on both photos. Basically, it is a drying bed for the tea leaves.
The tea leaves contain 80% liquid and 20% solid.
To make black tea you have to dry the leaves for 50 minutes, for Oolong tea, you dry the leaves for only 15 minutes and for green tea, you do not dry the leaves before you grind them.

Next, the leaves travel up and then through a grinder and up again to be cleaned from debris.

The factory tour only last 15 minutes and it is good. They are not harvesting at this time of year so we did not see it functioning.

An aerial view of the tea plantation.

A little history about the arrival of the tea plant in North America.

To tour the actual plantation of tea, we have to take a trolley tour. We even got a discount of $2 because we are retired military.
The cost was only $8 per person per person.
Jack is our tour guide today.

Some different view of the tea plants.
The tea plant is like a bush.

You need five pounds of tea leaves to make one pound of tea.

A field without the tea plant.

In the center of the photo you can see some new tea plants growing.

The first "big" row of tea plants is about two years old.

The tea plants are at maturity after four years. They are now ready to harvest.

The plantation has a greenhouse on site. It is used for growing the new tea plants as needed.

The "Charleston Tea Plantation" is the ONLY tea plantation that produces tea commercially in North America.

The distances on the post are showing where the tea comes from around the world.

This is tone of only three tea leaves harvester in the world.
It was built here on the plantation. If you look at the fenders around the wheels, you can see they are made to separate the branches between the rows of the tea plants.

We tasted many different types of tea in the gift shop.

On our way back from the plantation, we had to stop at "Angel Oak".

The angel oak is estimated to be between 400 and 500 years old.

It is considered the oldest oak east of the Mississippi.

It is one big tree.

There is cache in the vicinity, so we go looking for it.
We found it in a PVC pipe!

We got home just before the rain stared again.

Wednesday April 14, 2016

Most of the morning is under a grey sky!

We finally decide to go back and walk more of the "West Ashley Greenway".
This part of the trail is in town and paved.

Hard to see, but there is a cache there!

Everything is blooming at this time here in Charleston.

A cacher!

Once again, you never know what you will see...
This time it is an old Ford.
I contacted my brother, the expert on old cars, it is a 1961 Ford Fairlane or Custom.

There are many birdhouses along the trail.

While looking for a cache, we saw a green gecko for the first time.

Lots of nice flowers along the trail.

We have walked 7.5 km and found 11 caches!

Another good day!

Thursday April 14, 2016

We are back in the old Charleston. This time it is for a cruise in the bay of Charleston.
This is the Cooper River with the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in the background.

We have about an hour to wait for the cruise to start.
We head in to the Fort Sumter welcome center. It is a free museum and a departure point to go to the Fort itself.

Our cruise ship, the Carolina Belle.

The first part of our cruise goes by the old town of Charleston. We get almost the same information that we received from our "Tours on foot".

A selfie.

Fort Sumter it where the first shot were fired in the American Civil War. The Fort is a very important place for the American people.

On the opposite side of the Cooper River, you have a few islands where the wealthy people built beautiful cottages!
When Hurricane Hugo made landfall here in 1989, it destroyed everything on those islands.

One more selfie!

The USS Yorktown CV-10 is part of Patriot's Point museum.
The museum has this aircraft carrier, a destroyer, a submarine plus many other exhibits.

The captain takes us under the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge and once we were under it, he blew the whistle and the horn. The echo under the bridge was something to hear.

One other thing we learned, South Carolina is the only place in the world where they assemble the BMW X3, X4, X5, X6 series.

It was an OK cruise.
We drive out of Charleston during rush hour. Like many cities with rivers, the traffic is horrendous.
What else do we have to do with our time?

Friday April 15, 2016

We had light rain all night and a big part of the morning.
The sky stays grey all day and the temperature reach only +15°C.
A day to stay home and...

With the weather like it is, we have lunch at the A1 China Super Buffet.

It is a buffet like many others.
BUT!!! They also have CRAWFISH!
I just dived into the crawfish like there was no tomorrow.
My belly hurt all afternoon from too much crawfish, but it was worth it.
This photo is for you Agnes and Charles. They do not taste as good as the one in Breaux Bridge, but still, they were good.

The rest of the day was for reading under the covers for Michele and working on the blog and surfing the net for me.

Until next time.

Life is good...