Fulltime Ramblings

It’s Been a Long, Long Time…

Posted on October 24, 2016 by taleena4

Wow, it’s been nearly three months since I wrote our last blog post – too danged long. We’ve traveled quite a distance and seen quite a lot in that time, so I’m going to try to give a fairly concise summary in the interests of not having this post run to pages instead of paragraphs.

After leaving the Finger Lakes, we traveled into Ohio, staying one night at Evergreen Lake Campground in Conneaut, and then down to Cincinnati and a two week stay at Winton Woods campground for the purpose of visiting family and friends. We also went to the Cincinnati Zoo, an attraction that we haven’t been to in almost 20 years. It seemed a lot different than it did back then, and not always in a good way, but that’s the nature of life – things aren’t usually as good as you remember them being when you were younger.

A baby giraffe – isn’t it cute?

One of the African Painted Dogs (Lycaon pictus) at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Up close and personal with a polar bear (Ursus maritimus).

Does this Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) remind anyone else of “speak no evil”?

From Cincinnati, we traveled down to Raccoon Valley, an Escapees park a dozen or so miles outside of Knoxville, TN. We got to see and babysit our grandson for the first time while we were there, and then we moved the RV over to Hiawassee, GA to be closer to our where our daughter and grandson were living, trying to make it easier on all of us to enjoy what little time we were going to have in that area before we headed out West. While in Hiawassee, we made a little day trip down to Helen, Georgia for their Oktoberfest celebration, but honestly weren’t that impressed. Brasstown Bald, the highest point In Georgia, was honestly more interesting to us and definitely less like a tourist trap.

A patriotic scene from the top of Brasstown Bald in Georgia.

After Hiawassee, we cut across the north edge of Alabama and Mississippi to stay at Pickwick Landing State Park, just north of the Mississippi state border in Counce, Tennessee. This nice little state park is a hidden gem and is located just down the street from Shiloh National Military Park, site of the battle of Shiloh during the Civil War. It’s also adjacent to one of the best catfishing lakes in the USA. Unfortunately, we heard that the catfish hadn’t been biting very well and so chose not to do any fishing while we were there. But we made up for the lack at our next destination…

A cotton field along the side of the highway in Mississippi.

A row of cannons in Shiloh National Military Park.

Our next stop was in Cotter, Arkansas – a small town in the northwestern part of that state. Now, anyone who knows freshwater fishing knows that this area of the country is prime trout fishing territory. Our two-week stay at Denton Ferry RV Park on the banks of the White River proved this to be the undeniable truth. We paid for our nonresident licenses, bought two pairs of waders, and then headed out into the cold, clear water. The first day was a bit slow as we tested various baits to see what would work best, but we still caught a few rainbow trout that were worth keeping. Over the next few days, we typically spent about two hours or so of each morning down in the river, catching and either keeping or releasing numerous rainbow trout. We quickly reached our possession limits (and the limit of what our fifth wheel’s freezer could hold!) and didn’t even use the entire week that our fishing licenses were valid.

The view of the trout-filled White River from our campsite at Denton Ferry RV Park.

After that, we made our way down to the town of Jessieville, Arkansas, and a stay at Ron Coleman Quartz Mine and RV park. On the day that we went out to the mine to dig, we managed to unearth a nice bucketful of quartz pieces, chunks, and points. Yes, we got absolutely filthy with red clay soil and received quite a few nicks and cuts on our hands, but it was a fun experience overall. Plus we’ll have some unique Christmas presents for people. We’ve also jaunted down into the town of Hot Springs to do a bit of shopping and to see the historic bathhouses along Bathhouse Row. Later this week we plan to visit the Buckstaff Bathhouse to get a taste of the medicinal bathing experience of a bygone era. The Buckstaff has been in continuous operation since 1912 and has been visited by numerous movie stars, ballplayers, and even gangsters over the years. We’re looking forward to it!

Some of the quartz we dug up at Ron Coleman Quartz Mine.

A closer view of a few of the points (and a little cluster) we found at Ron Coleman Quartz Mine. Note the red clay still clinging to some of the pieces.

The stained glass skylight in the men’s bathhall of the Fordyce Bathhouse (now the National Park Visitor Center) in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

The opulence of the Fordyce Bathhouse is quite stunning.

After we leave the Hot Springs area, we’ll be headed to Vicksburg, Mississippi and Summerdale, Alabama so we can make a couple of short day trips over to Florida to get some things done in our state of residency. Then it’s off to Texas for the winter.

Until next blog post…

Chaos and Escapees

Posted on August 1, 2016 by taleena4

Maybe I’m just not disciplined enough to keep a blog up-to-date. Once again, it’s been nearly a month since I last posted to this blog, and we’ve been very busy in that time, so we have a lot of catching up to do.

We headed over to Sugar Ridge RV Park in Danville, VT for what was supposed to be two weeks of peace and quiet before we bounced over to the 56^th Escapees Escapade. Little did we know that Sugar Ridge seems to be the “whoop it up” location for most of the area. There were activities going on all day and evening long, many involving yelling children, and our RV site was straight across from the recreation building and the park’s two pools. And then there was the poolside DJ on Saturday nights from 7:30 to 10:30, blaring at a volume of what I measured (using a handy little cellphone app) to be 70 decibels right outside our fifth wheel’s door – so loud that we had to practically shout to each other even inside our RV with all the doors, windows, and vents closed tight. Not conducive for relaxing or even watching a movie on tv. So we actually decided to cut our stay short by one day – something we have never done – and head over to Escapade early, figuring it to be a bit calmer even though it was a huge rally.

During our stay at Sugar Ridge, we did manage to escape the chaos a few times by doing a bit of sightseeing. We went for a drive nearly up to the Canadian border and back just to see the gorgeous mountain and lake scenery, we visited Dog Chapel and Maple Grove Farms in St. Johnsbury, stopped into Cabot Creamery in the small town of Cabot, Vermont, and hopped over to Waterbury, VT to visit Ben & Jerry’s and chow down on samples of their delicious ice cream.

A view of the Vermont countryside up near Canada.

The outside of Dog Chapel. Note the cute slogan on the sign.

A portion of the inside of Dog Chapel. All the pictures and notes on the wall are memorials visitors have left to their deceased pets.

A different sort of graveyard – the flavor graveyard at Ben & Jerry’s. All those delicious flavors they no longer make.

When we arrived at the Champlain Valley Expo Center, where the Escapade was being held, we immediately felt more relaxed. Even though it was tighter than a lot of commercial RV parks we’ve been in, we were positioned with good neighbors on both sides of us (what else would you expect from Escapees?) and enjoyed chatting with them several times during our stay. We were kept pretty busy with a full slate of seminars and other activities – everything from a seminar on how to camp free on public lands to one on joining an expensive caravan group to Alaska. It was very informative and great fun, and we will absolutely make plans to attend another Escapade in the future.

Sunset over the 56th Escapees Escapade.

After leaving Escapade, we traveled to a one-night stopover at Twin Oaks Campground in Schoharie, New York on our way to the Finger Lakes region. For a simple stopover, we were very pleasantly surprised. The views were absolutely to die for and we were able to sleep with our bedroom window open for the first time in months. It was that quiet. Definitely a place we might return to someday.

After our one night stop, we continued on to Camp Bell Campground in Campbell, NY. So far we’re not extremely pleased with our stay – the sites are very tight and not even close to level, and most of the occupants seem to be either noisy weekend warriors or seasonals/permanents with so much stuff on their site that it looks like a junkyard. All of this wasn’t really apparent from the front office area, or we would have never paid for two weeks, instead moving on to somewhere else in the region. But now we’re pretty much stuck with trying to make the best of our stay here and hoping nothing of ours sprouts legs and wanders off, if you know what I mean. At least the Finger Lakes area has a few redeeming qualities – chiefly the 150+ wineries and vineyards in the region. Visiting some of them should help us relax a bit. Hey, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere!

The view from Ravines Wine Cellars, Hammondsport, NY.

Another beautiful winery view, this time from Keuka Spring Vineyards in Penn Yan, NY.

Until next blog post…

Where Does the Time Go?

Posted on July 7, 2016 by taleena4

Seriously, where does time fly off to? It seems like only a few days ago that I wrote our last blog post, but in reality, it’s been more than a month since we last posted. We’ve been pretty active since we left Intercourse, PA, having traveled through six states and staying at least of one night in three of those states. So let’s start catching this blog up, shall we?

Now we’ve been over some pretty bad roads in our time – rutted gravel farm roads, rough dirt tote roads out in the Maine woods, washboard-like frost heaves, etc., but the interstates in New Jersey and New York have to be among the top five worst ones we’ve ever been on with their terrible, several-inches-deep potholes and decaying bridge abutments. It was so bad that the steering wheel of our truck bucked itself out of Lewis’ hands on a couple occasions and we were absolutely shocked to not find anything broken when we were finally able to stop overnight at our very first Harvest Hosts location: March Farm in Bethlehem, Connecticut. It felt a little odd to be the only RV in a location, and even more odd to not be paying anything for it other than a bit of shopping in their cute little farm store, but we appreciated the peace and quiet immensely and enjoyed meeting the farm’s owners when they stopped by our RV that evening. The next morning, we continued our trek into the northeast, thankful that we’d had a good night’s rest after the horrendous jostling we’d experienced the day before.

Glad that the highways in Massachusetts and Maine were vastly more vehicle-friendly than what we’d experienced in New Jersey and New York, we ventured into what was truly our old stomping grounds when we lived in Maine over a dozen years before. Staying at Walnut Grove Campground in Alfred, ME for two weeks and visiting with our friends just up the road in Shapleigh was like traveling back in time. It seriously felt like we’d never moved away and several times we caught ourselves wanting to turn the wrong way out of a business or down a street because that was the direction we would have taken to go home when we lived in the area. It was an awesome fourteen days, but it felt like we were moving away to Florida all over again when it came time for us to continue our journey. I can promise it won’t be twelve years before we return for another visit!

From Alfred, we proceeded northeast to the town of Trenton, Maine and a weeklong stay at Timberland Acres RV Park. This was to be our homebase while we visited Acadia National Park and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t really cooperate too much and most of the week it was pretty drizzly and cold, keeping us from getting out into the park as much as we would have liked. But I did get to make (and keep!) a vow to eat lobster every day we were there, thanks in part to a wonderful special we happened to run across at a nearby restaurant chain named Governors. The anniversary of their opening occurs in the month of June and in honor of that, every year on one day, they offer lobster rolls for $5 plus a penny for each year they’ve been in business. 2016 is their 57^th anniversary, so lobster rolls were priced at $5.57 on June 21, the day after we arrived. I picked up four of them and ate one each day for the next four consecutive days – a borderline-horrible food storage practice, but I didn’t get sick from that one extra day of refrigeration and I had sworn to eat lobster each day we were there, dagburnit! So between that, one night’s dinner out at Testa’s Restaurant in Bar Harbor, where I had their early bird special “Taste of Maine” dinner (featuring a cup of clam chowder, a whole boiled lobster, and a piece of blueberry pie) and the couple lobsters I picked up at one of the local lobster pounds, I managed to keep my vow of one week of eating lobster for less than $70 total. How’s that for living large on a cheap budget!

The view from the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.

The rugged Maine coastline of Mount Desert Island.

Watching the tide roll in on a rocky beach in Acadia National Park.

Ginger checking out the first live lobster she’s ever seen. No animals were harmed during this photo, but the lobster did meet his demise later in a pot of boiling water.

From Trenton, ME, we headed over to Timberland Campground (no affiliation with the last campground) in Shelburne, New Hampshire, a small town about 30 minutes north of the much more touristy location of Conway, NH. It has been a pleasant location to celebrate the Fourth of July as well as my 43^rd birthday two days later, and it is nice to be able to take an occasional walk down along the banks of the Androscoggin River around sunset, a very pretty sight here in the center of the White Mountains. From here, we’ll be travelling on to Danville, Vermont and then to the 56^th Escapade, a huge national rally for Escapees members occurring in Essex Junction, VT at the end of July. Until next blog post…

A typical northern New Hampshire road view.

A covered bridge in the town of Stark, New Hampshire.

Another covered bridge, this time in Maine. This one is near Sunday River Ski Resort, and we discovered its location while taking a scenic drive.

Sunset over the Androscoggin River and White Mountains.

It All Leads to Intercourse

Posted on June 2, 2016 by taleena4

The rest of our stay in Washington, D.C. was filled with activities – visiting the various monuments, going to the National Zoo, being taken on a guided tour of the Capitol Building, and having a truly divine dinner at Rasika. Plus narrowly missing being witness to a shooting just outside the fence around the White House. You’ve got to love our nation’s capital! Thankfully spending a couple weeks in Intercourse to relax was next on the agenda after Washington, D.C., but you’ll have to keep reading through the capital details to get to that part of our trip! Aren’t I a tease?

The day after our last blog post, we hung around the RV for most of the day so Lewis could get some work done, then got all fancied up and caught the Metro down to dinner at Rasika. It was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend it if you’re in Washington for any reason and like Indian food. The food was plentiful and the wine list was much more in-depth than we were expecting. The waiter was also a fount of knowledge, and approved of all our choices for our meal. Of course, it helps that we’ve had a decent amount of experience with Indian food and know what goes well with what. Heck, I’ve even made my own paneer and ghee in the past.

The next day, we headed to the National Zoo. Now, this was unfortunately one of those rare occurrences of bad planning on our part. We arrived at the Zoo at about 10:30 am to find out that the Zoo was closing early due to a private event we were not aware of, with the back side closing first. If you’ve ever been to the National Zoo, you’ll know that the best way to visit it, because of the terrain, is to start at the Connecticut Avenue entrance and work toward the back, resulting in an easy downhill walk for most of the day. Because we had not been aware of the early closing, we had to rush downhill to the back side of the Zoo, then hoof it back uphill fairly quickly to see as much as we could before they started roping areas off. It made for a pretty hectic day and there were several things we didn’t get to see. That’ll teach us to do more in-depth planning and check schedules if we really want to see something.

A lioness with all her attention focused on the men setting up for a private event at the National Zoo.

We thought this tiger was catnapping until I zoomed in on his face.

Maybe this orangutan was trying out for a spot in the next Christmas nativity?

Forget the lions and tigers – the real reason everyone goes to the National Zoo is the (panda) bears!

On Friday we had our private guided tour of the Capitol Building, led by a staff member of our Representative and an intern. That was quite interesting, and we got to skip the tremendously long line the general public had to snake through to get their “I’ve been through security” badges. We enjoyed the tour, then went our way on the Circulator bus, which, if you use a Metro SmarTrip card, you can treat as a “hop on hop off” tour bus for two hours for only $1 per person. It’s probably the best deal in Washington, D.C. and made it very simple for us to visit most of the monuments. The bus also had to maneuver around a white car with its hood up, parked in a no-parking zone adjacent to the Circulator stop closest to the White House. It didn’t seem like a noteworthy occurrence, until we arrived back home, turned on the news, and found out the car was associated with someone who, about 10 minutes after we passed, had carried a gun up to the fence around the White House and been shot by Secret Service after refusing to drop the weapon. Last we heard, the guy was in critical condition after his “suicide by Secret Service” attempt. Oh well.

The view from the Speaker of the House’s office balcony at the Capitol Building.

The outside (facing the Tidal Basin) of the Jefferson Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson in all his bronze glory.

The Lincoln Memorial from the southeast corner.

Up close and personal with Abraham Lincoln’s statue inside the Lincoln Memorial.

Now for the part of this blog post that I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for – the part where I write about spending two weeks enjoying ourselves in Intercourse. Now before any of you readers either get offended or all hot and bothered, let me throw some cold water on your anticipation by explaining this is Intercourse, Pennsylvania we’re talking about, not anything more dirty-minded. It’s the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish and Mennonite communities and is an excellent place to slow down and get back to what really matters in life. We also became grandparents during our stay to an awesome 7lb, 11oz baby boy whom our daughter delivered after being induced and an emergency C-section. We love you, Lucas!

Our new grandson. Isn’t he adorable?

We parked our fifth wheel at Beacon Hill Camping, a small, quiet adult campground just a short walk up the road from “downtown” Intercourse and literally across the street from a real Amish family farm. On several days during our stay, Amish buggies or wagons came through the campground offering fresh fruits and vegetables, and homemade baked goods for sale. We absolutely loved this perk, and it helped us get to know some of the neighbors much better than if we were simply any other tourists staying at a nearby hotel and only interacting with them in the local stores and shops. We got to help the young sons of the Amish family across the street turn their dairy cattle out to pasture one evening, and we also were able to trade their father an “Amish taxi ride” in our truck to return his seedling trays in exchange for a couple quarts of raw milk. For us, this was a much more enjoyable encounter than any amount of visiting “tourist information centers” or museums about the Amish. Not to say there isn’t a place for the latter, but firsthand experiences are usually a lot more memorable.

Sometimes all you need is 7 horsepower (actually, I guess that should be mulepower)!

When you see this outside the local Costco, you know you’re in Amish country.

We did get over to Strasburg, Pennsylvania to visit the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, and Lewis’ mom came out from where she was staying in Gettysburg to visit us and take us to the National Christmas Center, also in Strasburg. The following day, we in turn jaunted over to Gettysburg to visit her and go to the Gettysburg Diorama, the Shriver House Museum, and drive part of the Battlefield itself. Later in the week, we also went on a private buggy ride through the town of Bird-In-Hand, seeing more Amish farms up close, passing beneath a 200+ year old bridge, and going by a historic grist mill (now an art gallery).

The view from the overlook at the Strasburg Train Museum. Yes, those are real full-sized locomotives and train cars, some of which you can even enter.

The St. Nicholas from Holland in the National Christmas Museum, one of many such in the 15+ separate gallery rooms.

A view from one end of the Gettysburg Diorama, the largest military diorama in the United States.

The Devil’s Den at Gettysburg Battlefield, site of intense fighting on July 2, 1863.

Camels on an Amish farm.

Now we have just a couple more days to relax before continuing our journey up to Maine and our friends there. Until next blog post…

Our Capital Adventure

Posted on May 18, 2016 by taleena4

Our week in Roanoke Rapids went by pretty quickly, and was a good way to relax a bit before we continued on up the East Coast to Manassas, VA and Washington, D.C. When we arrived at Bull Run Regional Park in Manassas, VA, we were greeted by the sounds of fairly close gunfire. Now, that may sound extremely alarming to those that aren’t familiar with this park, especially when you consider the crime rate around Washington, D.C., but this was nothing to be frightened of. In addition to a great campground, the park also contains the only public gun range in northern Virginia, and although it was a bit more noise than one would think about in a park, it didn’t disturb us or ruin our stay. We simply imagined it to be the shots of Confederate and Union troops confronting each other just down the road, as they did over 150 years before at the battles of First and Second Manassas. And speaking of that battlefield…

Because Lewis was doing light duty for his work both this week and the next (his first “vacation” in nearly 10 years!), our first day was spent touring Manassas National Battlefield Park, site of the battles of both First Manassas in July of 1861 and Second Manassas in August of 1862 during the Civil War. The weather was chilly and rain showers kept us fairly well damp the entire time, but we still got out of the truck and wandered around Henry Hill, center of the fighting during First Manassas, and the various sites along the driving tour of the much more spread out Second Manassas battlefield. It was not nearly as well marked as the battle grounds around Vicksburg, but the 45 minute introductory movie in at the Visitors Center and the 8 minute interactive audio map at the Brawner Farm helped us keep straight on what happened where and when during these two separate battles.

The Stone House, used as a hospital during both battles, at Manassas Battlefield National Park.

A monument of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, who received his famous nickname at this exact location during First Manassas.

We also took a half day to visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, a sort of “overflow” site for the National Air and Space Museum and adjacent to Dulles International Airport. These two huge hangers display the planes, rockets, and spacecraft that simply won’t fit in the museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. proper, like the Enola Gay, a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the Concorde and the Space Shuttle Discovery. We spent much longer here than we thought we would, but it was such an engrossing experience that we kept finding things to see and linger over. Even leaving the parking lot at the end of your visit can be a jaw-dropping event, as the road runs close to the end of one of the runways for Dulles and can result in planes flying very low over your vehicle if both your timing and the wind direction are right.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The bomb, “Little Boy”, targeted Hiroshima, Japan during WWII.

Up close and personal with Space Shuttle Discovery.

An interesting view of the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” spy plane. Not something easily observed in a plane with a flight ceiling of 85,000 ft and top speed of 2,200+ mph!

The Concorde, the fastest commercial airliner in the world for most of its 27-year career.

While we didn’t manage to be selected for tickets to visit the White House (darn it!), we did manage to get on the tour list for another hard-to-visit attraction within D.C. proper – the State Department’s Diplomatic Reception Rooms. Normally the location of “official government entertainment” in Washington, D.C., the Diplomatic Reception Rooms are where the Secretary of State, Vice President, and Members of the Cabinet sign treaties, work on trade agreements and host foreign dignitaries. The rooms are filled with museum-caliber antiques and artworks that are meant to represent the era of America’s conception and youth (1750-1825) as well as commemorating past accomplishments of our nation and are absolutely stunning visually. It was well worth our time and the extensive security screening we had to go through before the tour.

The Thomas Jefferson State Reception Room, used by the Secretary of State for smaller official lunches and dinners.

The writing desk upon which the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War.

The Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room, the largest of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms.

The last location we visited while staying at Bull Run was Arlington National Cemetery. Once the land which belonged to George Washington’s step-grandson as well as the family home of Robert E. Lee, Arlington is now the final resting place of over 400,000 service members and their families, along with other notable Americans. On the day we visited, 27 funeral services were scheduled, including a high honors one for U.S. Air Force four-star general William Young Smith. The persistent drizzle that fell from the sky for much of our visit was like tears of the heavens raining down upon us as we paid our respects to those buried within the hallowed grounds.

Looking over a portion of the “Sea of Stones” at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Tomb of the Unknowns, with a Sentinel (aka ‘Tomb Guard’) from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard).

As the week drew to a close, we moved our fifth wheel to Cherry Hill Park on the other side of Washington, D.C. in College Park, MD to continue our adventure. Our nation’s capital contains so many sights to see and attractions to visit that it is impossible to see even a small fraction of everything in a week. Heck, even a month probably would not be long enough to take the majority of it all in!

Our second week in the Washington D.C. area began with visits to the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the National Air and Space Museum, all part of the Smithsonian. These museums have changed quite a bit from when I visited them during a seventh-grade school field trip (the National Museum of the American Indian didn’t even exist back then), and I honestly don’t feel it’s in a good way. Sure, the displays have been updated and new information added, but gone is the truly informative, educational feel and now they seem to be more dumbed down “edu-tainment” – lots of looks but very little content. Even the gift shops, which can now be found on each and every floor of each museum, contain pretty much the same stuff from one museum to another, and most of it is made in China. Definitely not the neat gift shops in which you could spend bunches of cash on cool, unique historical or space items that they were back in the late ‘80s. And there might not be any sales tax on your purchases because the museums are federally funded, but they certainly jack up the prices of the items to make up for the lack. Oh well, times certainly change.

The male African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) still stands in the Rotunda of the National Museum of Natural History.

The Hope Diamond, all 45.52 carats of it.

A 2000-year-old mummy, mostly unwrapped, at the National Museum of Natural History.

The kitchen of award-winning chef, author, and tv personality Julia Child, which she donated to the Smithsonian in 2001.

An Apple II personal computer from 1980. I remember using one just like this in school. Thankfully technology has come a long way since then, or this blog wouldn’t exist!

Lakota (aka Sioux) clothing and tools dating to around 1880, on display at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Later this week, we’ll be hitting some of the monuments around town and the true nerve-center of Washington, D.C. – the Capitol Building, as well as having a nice dinner out at Rasika, named one of the top 20 restaurants in America by Zagat in 2014. After that, it’s off to Pennsylvania on our way to Maine. More on all that in our next blog post, so until then…

Savoring Savannah

Posted on May 3, 2016 by taleena4

To catch up everything up from the events of our last post, we did end up adding another week to our stay at Savannah Oaks RV Resort. The gentleman who had the accident and whose dog we were watching had to have brain surgery to alleviate the pressure from the hematoma and resulting clot, but was released from the hospital into the care of his friend who had arrived a couple days after it all happened. We were very glad everything turned out okay for the gentleman and hope him and his sweet dog all the best in the future.

Since we added the extra week to our stay, and no longer had dog-watching duty, we ventured into downtown Savannah to have lunch at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room and explore a bit. The lunch was awesome, and both of us ate a bit (okay – a lot) more than we should have. It was definitely some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had, and each of the extremely plentiful side dishes that sprawled across our family-style table of 10 people seemed even more delicious than the one previous. It was a lot of fun talking with the rest of the table between bites, learning where everyone was from, how long they’d been in Savannah, and what they’d recommend seeing in the city. At the conclusion of the meal, the 10 of us had eaten about 90% of what had been presented for our gastronomic delight and each of us pronounced ourselves stuffed. We waddled up to the register to pay, then went our separate ways, hoping to walk off at least some of the absolutely divine calories we’d consumed.

We strolled past the Mercer-Williams House and stopped to check it out, but didn’t see any of the ghosts that are said to haunt the place due to the several deaths that had occurred there. In addition to the events that are recounted in John Berendt’s book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, there had been two other tragedies within the home’s environs. A previous owner had tripped over the second floor banister, fractured his hip, suffered a concussion, and died 3 days later, and a young boy who was chasing pigeons on the roof had slipped and fallen, impaling himself on the wrought-iron fence that surrounds the home. Maybe the ghosts were just shy that day, but we continued on our way with nary a cold chill or raised hair. Our final stop for the day was Forsyth Park. As everyone does, we stopped to photograph the fountain, then moved on to view the Confederate Memorial and enjoy the fragrance garden.

The Mercer-Williams House, featured in the book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”.

The fountain at Forsyth Park. Probably the most photographed landmark in Savannah.

The Confederate War Memorial in Forsyth Park.

A rose blooming within the Fragrance Garden at Forsyth Park.

The next day, we headed over to Bonaventure Cemetery. That might not sound like much of a tourist destination to most people, but Bonaventure is an absolutely beautiful and historical cemetery that seems to draw visitors like a magnet. Containing the final resting places of several Confederate generals, lyricist Johnny Mercer, and writer Conrad Aiken, along with many others, Bonaventure also feels like a sculpture garden, as quite a few of the plots are graced with elaborate monuments to those that have been buried there. There are also memorials for World War veterans and for victims of the Jewish Holocaust. It was definitely worth the few hours we spent walking through the grounds, reading inscriptions on the stones and feeling the ever-present peace that lies upon the grounds.

An ornate Celtic cross monument marking a grave site in Bonaventure Cemetery.

Little Gracie Watson, who died of pneumonia in 1889. Her monument is said to be a life-sized and picture perfect representation.

One of many angels adorning the graves at Bonaventure Cemetery.

Another intricately sculpted grave monument at Bonaventure Cemetery.

One of the more massive monuments in Bonaventure Cemetery.

A hauntingly poignant memorial at Bonaventure Cemetery. Note the fingers on the sculpture that have been broken off by careless or souvenir-seeking visitors.

After Savannah Oaks, we drifted slowly up the East Coast, stopping for a night at Bass Lake Campground in Dillon, SC (just one exit shy of that famous tourist trap known as South of the Border), then settled in for a week in Roanoke Rapids, NC at The RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads. This is just a planned stop to kill a bit more time before we head up towards Manassas, VA and Washington, D.C. Hopefully we’ll find out this week if we managed to score a tour of the White House while we’re there.

Until next post…

Helping Out When Needed

Posted on April 20, 2016 by taleena4

Our stay at Clark Family Campground in Florida was thankfully uneventful. We had originally planned on only staying a week but ended up adding an additional week so we weren’t feeling quite so rushed. After all, we had to get everything out of our storage area, sort it all, take what we didn’t want to Goodwill or give it to our daughter, get our fifth wheel’s “basement” storage compartment re-organized to hold what we were keeping, and take care of a few other things like having our propane tanks re-certified and fix some minor issues that had cropped up with the RV. All while trying to find time for our daughter and her husband (gods, that feels weird to say) to come visit and catch up on events. Too much to cram into a single week, most definitely.

Upon leaving Florida, we headed up to Savannah Oaks in Savannah, Georgia again to hopefully see and do the things we’d missed back in November, like having lunch at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room and Bonaventure Cemetery (former home of the statue featured on the cover of John Berendt’s book, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”). We may have to add another week here also, as it turns out, because of something that happened about halfway into our stay…

Lewis was working at his desk table along the rear wall of our RV and I was sitting on the sofa with my tablet computer, catching up on various forums and other internet tasks, when we heard a huge thud-crash noise outside. We both jumped up and looked out the side window next to the TV cabinet to see someone lying on the ground across the street and people starting to gather around him. We went dashing outside to see what was going on, since we could tell that something serious had happened and we wanted to help in whatever way we could. Turns out the gentleman on the ground had been trying to unhook his towed vehicle from his motorhome by himself (he had just pulled into the RV park a short while earlier) and the towed vehicle had gotten away from him and rolled backward to crash into someone else’s fifth wheel, knocking him down in the process.

We called 911 while another camper who was a former EMT assessed the man’s vitals and kept him calm and stationary, and a third camper notified the campground office. The former EMT found out from the gentleman involved in the accident that he was alone except for his dog, and we volunteered to look after the dog for him – one less thing for him to worry about. He was taken away in an ambulance and we are now in charge of the gentleman’s dog and motorhome until his friend can fly into Savannah to take over for us, due to the accident causing a hematoma on the gentleman’s brain. Hopefully the gentleman has a speedy and complete recovery, as we can tell his sweet dog misses him dearly. If we have to stay another week to take care of our own desires, then so be it. That’s what considerate, caring human beings do for each other when the need arises. It just seems to be a more common trait in RVers than in the general public.

May Your Lives Be Interesting…

Posted on April 5, 2016 by taleena4

Our second week in Woodville, Alabama was filled with visiting the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, the Huntsville Botanical Garden, and a slightly close call with a tornado, all on top of not getting much sleep because of the constant road noise from the highway adjacent to the campground at which we were staying. Whomever cursed us with “may your lives be interesting” needs to be taken out and beaten!

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville was honestly a bit of a disappointment. We were really hoping to take the bus tour which goes out to Marshall Space Flight Center, where the Saturn V rocket was developed and tested prior to being used for the various Apollo moon launches back in the ’60s & ’70s, but the tickets were completely sold out by the time we arrived (only 30 minutes after they opened). We were not aware that tickets could be reserved ahead of time by calling the Space & Rocket Center, so keep that in mind if you intend to visit. But we decided to stick it out and just tour the main facility and its related outdoor components. For a place that bills itself as “America’s largest space artifact collection”, we honestly were let down by how scattered, disjointed, and out of date most of the exhibits were. It wasn’t unusual to see an exhibit plaque saying something along the lines of, “This item will be used by the U.S. Army in 2011.” Um, hello, it’s spring of 2016! General admission to the facility cost $23 per adult without all the add-ons like the bus tour, IMAX movies, etc. Use some of that money to pay for updating exhibits instead of (as we saw several times) paying young adult employees to stand around gossiping with each other or playing on their cell phones instead of assisting visitors. And this was a pretty busy Saturday – the day before Easter! Definitely a let-down all around, especially for a space buff like me who would live at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral if given a chance.

A mock-up of part of the International Space Station that visitors to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center can walk through.

The world’s only full stack Space Shuttle exhibit (a trainer – not one that actually flew in space).

Bet you didn’t know the moon landing was faked in Alabama, did you? Just kidding – it’s a children’s play area.

A full-sized replica of the Saturn V rocket.

Later in the week we visited the Huntsville Botanical Garden, and that was much better of an attraction in our opinions than the Space & Rocket Center. Spring was bursting out all over, with tulips, daffodils, and azaleas visible in every direction. The air was filled with the scents of blooms, there were riots of cheerful colors in practically every garden bed, and the sounds of little kids giggling as they ran and played through the well-manicured grass could be heard as a gentle backdrop to it all. Despite the venue undergoing a complete, years-long, top-to-bottom renovation, it was a delightful place to spend time relaxing and communing with nature. Too bad we couldn’t say the same about the campground at which we were staying.

A “hobbit house” at the Huntsville Botanical Garden.

A Chinese Witch Hazel (Loropetalum chinense) in full bloom.

A beautiful bed of spring color.

A large grouping of bright pink azaleas.

Spring is here! An American Robin (Turdus migratorius) bathing.

Two nights before we were scheduled to leave, we had a batch of very nasty thunderstorms move through the area, sparking a bunch of tornado warnings around the Southeast states, including one that occurred at around 9pm approximately 35 miles to our southwest for an EF-2 tornado, which caused a 200-yard wide, 8.5 mile long path of damage. We had crammed our bug-out kits (laptops, phones, IDs, bank cards, etc.) together, shoved the cat in her carrier, and were ready to snap on the dog’s leash if need-be, but thankfully it dissipated before it could get to our immediate area. Nothing like living in an easily destroyed “tin can” in severe weather to make you appreciate a well-thought-out emergency plan of action.

On April 2, we left Parnell Creek RV Park and headed into Georgia to stay for a night at Twin Oaks RV Park in Elko. While this campground is only about 1/10 miles off I-75, the noise could barely be heard and there was no sight of it visible through the trees. Everyone was friendly and they actually escort you to your site and let you get set up before making you come into the office to register, a very thoughtful touch after a 6+ hour day of driving. We had our first good night’s sleep in about two weeks, and were up bright and early the next morning for another five hour drive into Florida to camp at Clark Family Campground in Orange City. Time to clean out our (overpriced) storage unit, visit with our daughter, then get back on the road, this time headed up to the Northeast and eventually into Maine to see friends.

Out of the Woods

Posted on March 24, 2016 by taleena4

Well, we made it through the 6 days at Deerlick Creek without any real problems. It was definitely a bit of a challenge with our galley grey tank, since we like to wash dishes fairly frequently, but we could have switched to paper plates or done a couple other things to make it less of an issue. Anyway, neither our black tank nor our bath grey tank was filled to capacity, so it looks like we can pretty easily deal without a sewer hookup for nearly a week without a hassle. Nice to know for the future.

Deerlick Creek itself was absolutely wonderful, and we definitely enjoyed the 6 days in the woods to rest and recharge our mental batteries. Civilization is good and all that, but sometimes you just need to get away from it so you don’t go postal. Of course since Lewis does have to work, we can’t go too far off the grid for too long, but as long as we have a cell phone signal, it’s business as usual. And thankfully we did have very good cell reception at Deerlick Creek. It’s only about 25 minutes outside of the college city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Roll Tide!), but feels worlds away. We had a pull-through spot overlooking a branch of Holt Lake and awakened to the pleasant sound of bird song each morning that we were able to have our windows open at night. It was an experience that has hooked us on visiting Army Corps of Engineers parks, and we’ll most likely be doing workcamping at them in the future as well.

A quiet evening around the campfire at Deerlick Creek Army Corps of Engineers park.

Part of the view from our campsite at Deerlick Creek, overlooking a portion of Holt Lake.

After our time at Deerlick Creek was finished, we headed to the tiny little town of Woodville, Alabama, outside of Huntsville, to stay at Parnell Creek RV Park. This RV park is only a few miles from the first attraction we visited during our stay – Cathedral Caverns. Cathedral Caverns is a must-see destination for cave aficionados, having the world’s widest entrance for a commercial cave (126 feet), and one of the largest stalagmites in the world at 45 feet tall and 243 feet in circumference. It was very interesting to take the guided tour through the caverns, viewing the various stalagmite and stalactite formations, the flowstone “waterfalls”, the Mystery River running through one of the “rooms” and a half-dozen or so eastern pipistrelle (a.k.a. tricolored) bats. There were even a couple of megalodon shark teeth protruding from the ceiling.

The massive entrance to Cathedral Caverns. So easy even a caveman could do it?

The flowstone “waterfall” in Cathedral Caverns. Too bad the park service pumps in the water that currently flows over it.

Part of how Cathedral Caverns got its name – the beautiful formations vaguely reminiscent of a grand cathedral’s pipe organ.

More of Mother Nature’s hidden underground artwork.

An eastern pipistrelle, or tricolored, bat (Perimyotis subflavus).

The next attraction we visited in the area was the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. It’s a much-hyped tourist destination, having been featured on such TV shows as Good Morning America, The Today Show, and Oprah, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, Southern Living and many others. It’s where lost and/or unclaimed airline baggage and cargo eventually goes for resale to the general public. I can’t say it was a complete waste of our time, as Lewis did pick up a couple pairs of shorts and t-shirts and I scored both a Nikon DSLR camera and a Canon compact point-and-shoot camera at about a third of the price of brand new, but most of what we browsed through was not very exciting to us nor very valuable. I would say that if you’re in the area, it could be worth an hour or two of your time, but don’t bother making a special trip hoping to score a Prada handbag or a Rolex watch for $100 – it’s not going to happen.

We have just over another week here before we continue on to Georgia and Florida, but we still plan to visit the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, and possibly the Huntsville Botanical Garden, before leaving this area if we have time and decent weather. Until next post…

Back Across the River

Posted on March 14, 2016 by taleena4

We never did make it back into the Paragon Casino before heading off to Vicksburg, Mississippi and the Ameristar Casino and RV Park. We just weren’t really in the mood and we had a few things we needed to do (like catch up on laundry) before moving back across the Mississippi River. All in all, we had a good time in Louisiana, but it was time to get out of the low-lying areas of the state before we got caught by a bunch of very slow-moving thunderstorms that were predicted to head our way. And boy were we glad we did move to the higher side of the Mississippi River! We had one good weather day to tour Vicksburg National Military Park before the skies opened up and dumped on us for five days straight, causing massive flooding in many areas of Louisiana and Mississippi. Thankfully the Ameristar Casino’s RV park is located on the south side of Vicksburg proper, and protected from the Muddy Mississippi by massively tall bluffs.

But back to our day at Vicksburg National Military Park. Vicksburg, like Gettysburg in Pennsylvania or Petersburg in Virginia, was a Civil War battle that drove one of the major nails into the Confederate coffin. It gave the Union complete control of the entire length of the Mississippi River, and prevented the Confederacy from easily moving much-needed supplies and troops from one place to another. It was also one of those battles that could have turned out much differently if competent leadership on the Confederate side had been in place (the Confederate commanding officer of the forces at Vicksburg, John C. Pemberton, resigned his commission as lieutenant general in disgrace afterwards). A string of forts and defenses that could have been an almost impregnable stronghold became, over the course of 47 days, a steel-jawed trap. It also became one of the best-marked Civil War battlefields, due to surviving veterans from both sides being asked to indicate exactly where they were positioned during the siege when the Vicksburg National Memorial Park was created in 1899. Because of this, over 1300 monuments, plaques, and markers dot the battlegrounds and troop positions surrounding Vicksburg and it is very easy to visualize the struggle that engulfed this area during the siege.

A recreated example of a Confederate defensive line outside the Vicksburg National Military Park Visitor Center.

A portion of the battlefields of Vicksburg.

Shirley House, which has been restored to its 1863 appearance. One of the blue Union troop markers can been seen just to the side of the home.

A 20-minute movie is shown in the visitor center and gives an excellent narrative of the siege through the eyes of both citizens and soldiers, while a 16-mile long road tour winds through the park itself. The park also includes 20 miles of trenches and earthworks, the U.S.S. Cairo museum which is home of the first warship sunk by an electronically detonated torpedo (mine), two antebellum homes (the Shirley Home pictured above is one of these), and the Vicksburg National Cemetery, established in 1866. The defensive lines around Vicksburg also continue outside of the park proper, which made staying at the Ameristar Casino RV Park interesting, as it was located right next to the very southern end of the lines. Heck, you can’t even go to Walmart from the RV park without seeing a handful of officer’s busts and troop position plaques along the way!

A portion of the Wisconsin troop memorial.

A statue of Major General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces at Vicksburg.

The U.S.S. Cairo, a Union ironclad sunk in the Yazoo River during the preliminary attacks on Vicksburg and rediscovered in 1959.

The site of the surrender of Vicksburg to Union control.

One of the officer’s busts on the way to Walmart from the Ameristar Casino and RV Park.

We didn’t do a whole lot of gambling at the Ameristar, only taking the shuttle over to the riverboat twice for about 30 minutes of video poker each time. The gaming simply didn’t feel as good as it had over at the Paragon, despite the machines having a slightly better pay chart at the Ameristar. The weather also didn’t contribute to doing much of anything else, and we were lucky to get enough of a break in the constant downpour to go out to a nice dinner at Walnut Hills Restaurant, an 1880 home turned into a restaurant, on Friday night. Then we were off to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to stay at Deerlick Creek, an Army Corps of Engineers park and campground for 6 nights. It’s our first foray into staying any length of time without a sewer hookup, so hopefully it works out well for us.