One More Mile

St Johns Rv Park

Well it was another very short day for driving only 182 miles. We're at St Johns Rv Park, nice park easy access form I-95 mostly pull thru sites a little narrow but all cement pads. Approx. 7 miles from St Augustine When in the area we will stop hear again its clean and quite and friendly. Our stay 3/24-3/28/2011

Char's ready for a bike ride

Florida or Bust!!

Well we finally made it to St. Augustine FL.  For three years we have tried to take a long trip to FL to see for ourselves what it is all about (sun & beach.....).  I spent the trip trying to figure this blog out and added some pictures.  I still don't know how to get the pictures where I want them (but when Dusty hit a bump they move places go figure) or how to make it so you can add a comment or put yourself down as a follower, guess I will have to contact our 1 follower to see how she did it....thanks Margaret...If we get 2-3,000 followers we can add ads and make $$$$.....yeah right, who besides you would want to see what we are doing???  I can dream.  We arrived here at the RV park around 4:30 pm and Joe and Connie McCart were already here and waiting with a cold beer...now that is true friendship!!  We went out for a nice dinner and talked non-stop ( OK I talked non-stop).  But I do need to fill you in on a couple of funny ? things.  When we were at the micro-brewery , MOON RIVER in Savannah, Dusty noticed cops everywhere and guarding in and out paths.  So we began to gawk like everyone else and couldn't figure out what was going on as there had been no commotion, anyway they ended up cuffing a waitress and escorting her out.  The bartender said it was the 3rd person arrested that worked there...hmm.  Then yesterday on the way here traffic came to a stop and we could see police cars and lights everywhere, when we finally got up there they were out with the K9 dogs and searching the area, there was only one car there and it wasn't wrecked, Dusty figured a chase and runner.  Then when we came back from dinner last night there were police cars, sheriff and firetruck and aid truck at the end of our row here at the park!!!  This is beginning to be a little scary.....hope it doesn't mean anything bad is on the way!!  Well that was the excitement for our day off to new adventures today.

Pictures from Savannah

Well this is definitely a work in progress and takes time to figure out.  While we are travelling down the road I am trying to go back and add pictures to the posts now that I figured it out, but man what work!!!  So I am just going to throw in the pictures here, though there are some added to the previous posts if you want to check those out.  Still don't have how to leave the comment figured out so bear with us...we are playing too much to spend allot of time on this, but I said I would give it try!!!
(If you click on picture you can enlarge them)

Bonaventure Cemetery




Dusty at Bonventure Cemetery




Char has a toast to Conrad Aiken






Savannah Neigborhood



Forsyth Park in middle of neighborhood



River ST. Savannah




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Eating at Mrs Wilkes

 



Mercer House (Jim Williams shot Danny Hansford here)





Char hiding in the flowers



Last Day in Savannah



See all the food!  We couldn't take home leftovers...darn!!

 

See Dusty wait for food!

 Thank you to all of you who sent us e mails about this blog!!  We have now learnt that we had the setting blocked for some of you to leave a comment, hope we got it straighten out and you should be able to leave a comment...be nice now  :)  Soon we hope to get a chance to add pictures as my words just aren't doing Savannah justice, and you MUST come when flowers are in bloom and READ the book.  So yesterday (the 23rd....Happy Birthday Sis) we started by going to Mrs. Wilkes for lunch.  If you know anything about Savannah you know people either go to Paula Deen's or Mrs. Wilkes (or both) but Mrs. Wikes gets more positive reviews.  The lady ran a boarding house and then a eight table resturant serving meals family style with you sitting at a table of 10.  Now everthing you read and everyone says to go early because now that she has passed away her family (and they are there working) only do lunch from 11 am til 2 pm.  Well who is hungry for a 20 course meal at 10 am in the morning???  We got there a little later then we planned thanks to the good GPS and arrived at 10:55 am.  At 12:35 pm we finally went in to eat!!(WE were hungry by then being able to smell the wonderful chicken linger in the air)!  Now thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day and I being of the shy type knew the people around us well by then.  You go in and the food is waiting for you, like I said over 23 different types of dishes (Dusty just counted the dishes in the picture).  There was wonderful chicken, meatloaf, beef stew, potatoes, gravy, squash, biscuits, sweet potatoes and the list goes on and the most wonderful tea I have ever had.  So it is a "thing to do" while in Savannah.  Now that took up most of the early day but from there we ventured out to Tybee Island and found it much more laid back then Hilton Head and the beach had allot of accesiability.  But bring money for the parking.  I finally got to walk on the beach again, I am so a beach person, and then we went to the Famous Tybee lighthouse ( I had never heard of it but they say it's famous).  Now it is one of those lighthouses you can actually go in and climb to the top......178 spiral steps on a 88 degree day...I think not!!  But you can if you go and take a picture for us.  But it was interesting to see.  Then it was back to River St. and to our favorite pub ( we only went to one) where they were tapping one special keg they had made.  They try differnt hops mixtures and then occassionaly they tap it while it is still 'alive' and not carbonated.  It was very good and if you know micro-beer I will describe it as a IPA with a Blue Moon beer thrown in and lots of oranges, so would be a good summer time beer.....we have been to too many micro-pubs!!!!  Cliff and Colette we sure missed you there and you would have liked the Porter, though IF we had SKA Ten Pin we could try your mix...hint hint!!!  We then walked around the riverfront again, Dusty bought some prailines to take with us and we headed home.  If you are bringing a RV to Savannah, the Skidaway State Park is beautifl and it is very easy to get to Historic Savannah from.  There is a campground on Typee Island which is very popular also.  So that concludes our time in Savannah.  My final description of 3 cities is this if you are looking for history and a variety of Plantations and a Party atmosphere go to New Orleans  (our favorite) if you are looking for a way to see where history was made go to and a variety of architecture througtout 300 years go to Charleston but if your looking for the laid back and  graciousness of the old south come to Savannah!!





So we say Good-Bye to Savannah

 Please if you have been to any of these 3 cities we would love to hear what you have to say.  So today we head to St. Augustine and meet up with Joe and Connie McCart from Indian Springs Campground and I have some surprise things to tell you so be sure to check back in soon.

Savannah, GA

What a beautiful day it was.  The sun was shining, no clouds in the sky, warm, just a perfect day.  We started out by going to Bonaventure Cemetery where Conrad Aiken and family are buried.  If you read the book, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" you will understand the importance of this and some of the others places we visited today.  We sat on his tombstone (it is a bench) and had a drink of wine, in Savannah having drinks are very important!!  I know in the book they have martini's but just wasn't going to take all of that with us and besides there was a tour group coming and I didn't want to look too stupid.  I will say that this is the most beautiful cemetery I have ever seen and I do like old cemeteries.  The big oak trees with flowing Spanish moss, azalea's in bloom and the dogwood trees with the Spanish moss flowing from under the blooms, just beautiful.
From there we drove to find Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House where we will eat tomorrow, wanted to know where it was at and enjoyed the drive through the old district and seeing the beautiful squares, I must say that General James Oglethorpe's dream of a gracious city by making the squares of trees and flowers every few streets have come true.  It is too bad other cities couldn't have copied it.  It is like having your own beautiful parks everywhere you look and with the flowers in bloom now we couldn't have picked a more lovely time of the year to come!!
After that we went and got a very important object here in Savannah....a two day parking pass.  If you come be sure to go to the visitor center and get one you will be glad you did, or carry lots of quarters with you!!!  Free parking is not to be had and they honor no kind of handicap plaques.
We then went to Mercer House (again from the book) where Jim Williams lived and shot Danny Hansford.  You can now tour the downstairs and garden and the house is owned by his nieces.  They stay in the house when they visit Savannah.  Just to be there was a thrill.  Then we walked around the neighborhood and enjoyed the day and beautiful squares.
Then on to City Market and River Street.  By 4:00 pm we were hot so we hit the only micro-brewery in Savannah and had a good cold Porter beer.  Dusty was hungry ,  I only feed him 1 meal a day when travelling and we went to Molly Mac Phearson's British Pub for fish and chips.  We have yet to find fish and chips as good as the Irish Embassy in Duranago, CO. if you are ever in that town you must stop by, great happy hour too.  We then walked off dinner strolling along the Savannah River until I could no longer go on, we have been on the go now for two weeks and have only begun this adventure so we headed back to our little home and collapsed!!!

Hilton Head, SC & River St. Savannah, GA



Skidaway State Park, Savannah, GA



So the day didn't go as planned.  Well, guess that is what about living this life is all about, life doesn't always go the way you plan, so you just roll with the punches.  We got a later start then planned and had dinner reservations on Hilton Head so took the scooter, a 400 Suzuki Bergman, and took off for the Island.  From here at Skidaway State Park outside of Savannah it took about 50 mins., as we took the scenic route there.  Some parts of that "scenic" route I told Dusty I didn't want to repeat after dark!!  But we did see some of Savannah I am sure others don't.  We arrived on Hilton Head and stopped at the visitor center and found out there were places we couldn't go on the bike, FYI for you bikers of any kind.  One of them being where the famous Candy Cane color litehouse is.  We did find out about Honey Horn Plantation Coastal Discovery Museum which was the main residence of the island long before there was a bridge there which wasn't til 1956.  At one time of owners of the Plantation owned 20,000 acres of the 30,000 acres on the island.  It was very interesting and all the buildings are original from 1733 on through 1998 when it was sold to the city of Hilton Head for a museum which just opened in 2007, so if your on the island make a point to stop by.They also have a piece of the shuttle Atlas V which launced last May 22 and washed upon the beach of Hilton Head in October.  NASA said it never should have arrived there as it broke off over San Salvador, but there it was and is probably the closes we will come to a piece of a missle launch!!  We then took off to see the ocean, yeah right.  By this time our day was running out and we had only about 45 mins. to see the beach, well you can't get there from there.  You can pay to park and hike to the beach or you can own or rent property on the beach.  You can not drive along anywhere and see water.  If we had more time I would not have minded paying it is just that we will be in Florida for a month and half, so sure we will see plenty of beach.  We did enjoy the drive and decided Hilton Head isn't our kind of place.  We then went to dinner and were glad we had reservations early, but we had a Groupon coupon and had already decided to have one of their early dinner meals, but the waiter said we couldn't use it on early bird specials.  Now remember we have been riding the bike all day and I definitely have "helmet hair" and casual clothes (hey it said casual) which I guess isn't casual on Hilton Head.  We ended up having two "Fancy salads" as Dusty called them an order of mussels and fries and shared a chocolate souffle as we had never had one.  Poor Dusty the salads were the smallest salads , but good, the mussels were delicious and in his effort to get all the french fries spillt the bowl of mussel juice ( hey he was hungry) and the souffle just went poof when he took the first bite.  I guess it is back to Pub food for him or I got to get him out more!!!!  We then rode back to River ST. in Savannah and walked around for a few hours and decided the action on Bourbon St. is way more fun.  So now out of New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah we still LOVE New Orleans!!!!

Today we are going back to Historic avannah and walk some of the squares. There are approximately 22 which are mini-parks with old houses around them, we walked around Washington Square last night.  The weather should be in mid-eighties and we are ready for another adventure!!!


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Piece of Atlas V Shuttle that washed upon shore at Hilton Head

  



One More Mile

Beautiful campsite nestled under the oak trees.

Pulled into Skidaway State Park, Savannah, Ga. after a short drive of 193 miles easy day. Very nice campground although narrow interior roads with a lot of trees. Still ok for a big rig. Short drive to old town Savannah and Tybee Island, cost was $ 28.00 per night.

don't even think about your satellite dish

Skidaway State Park