Into the South

Hi there, welcome back. Our last chapter ended on Saturday, September 23^rd, when we arrived at the Thousand Trails park in Quinby, Virginia, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. We have now officially arrived in “The South” and will be continuing south as our travels take us through the Carolina's, Georgia and Florida. The RV park we are in is one of the most remote we have been to in recent memory. We are near the bottom of the Chesapeake Peninsula, and miles from any major town. The closest “place” is Quinby, Virginia, with a population of 240. The park itself is very large, with relatively few RV spaces given how big the park is. It is very pretty, but we found we can't enjoy the outside because the bugs are horrible. Mosquito and biting flies in abundance. On our second day here, Sunday, we decided to take a day in and that is exactly what we did, stayed in. Neither of us went outside, except that I went for my hour walk in the morning, with lots of repellent on me. We did get a number of chores done, so it was a quiet, productive day.

Monday, September 25^th, another travel day. We were packed up and on the road about 10:30, heading south about 85 miles to Chesapeake, Virginia, a suburb near Virginia Beach and Norfolk. We are looking forward to this four day stay because my brother David lives in Virginia Beach. He moved to Virginia Beach from Phoenix in the early 90's and has been there ever since. The last time we saw David in person was at our mom's funeral in 2009. We visited Virginia Beach in 2006, our first full year on the road. The only direct route from Quinby to the Virginia Beach area is to go south and cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. I have been fretting about this part of the trip for a couple of weeks now because of all the hurricanes that have been wandering around in the Atlantic. Traffic is restricted during bad weather and if winds get over 40 mph the bridge is closed to high profile vehicles like our motorhome. Fortunately, Hurricane Maria is staying a couple hundred miles off shore, and is still off the South Carolina shore, well south of us, so the bridge was no problem. If we had been unable to use the bridge we would have had to go back up the peninsula, across to the Washington, DC area, then south, a 250 mile detour.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel connects the Eastern Shore of Virginia on the Chesapeake Peninsula to the mainland at Virginia Beach. Until the bridge tunnel opened in 1964 the only way to cross was by ferry. The bridge tunnel is 23 miles long, including several high rise bridges, approach roads, 12 miles of trestle, and two one mile long tunnels under the shipping lanes into Chesapeake Bay. This method was used instead of just building tall bridges because of the main East Coast naval facility in Norfolk, Virginia. The government was afraid that in the event of a bridge collapse, either due to natural causes or an act of war, the Norfolk fleet would be blocked from exiting the bay for an extended period and would be vulnerable to attack. The construction cost $200 million in 1960. The original bridge tunnel only had a single, two lane roadway, but over the years the above water portion has become two separate two lane roads. At the present time the two tunnels are still two lane, two way roads and are very narrow. I was white knuckling the coach for each of the one mile runs through the tunnels. They are in the process of constructing a parallel tunnel for one of the shipping channels and will probably do the second one some time in the future. It cost us $31 to cross with the motorhome and tow car, but we would have spent three times that on fuel to go the long way around.

We arrived at the Chesapeake Campground about 12:30 and got settled into our site shortly after. We have a 50 amp water and sewer only site, but we are only here for four days, so that won't be a problem. We got settled in and relaxed for a couple of hours. Around 5:00 we left the campground to go visit with my brother, stopping on the way to pick up a pizza for dinner. David is the second youngest of the five brothers in my family, born in Phoenix in 1963. He had four kids, Stephanie, Jennifer, David II, and Cynthia. The youngest, Cynthia, tragically died early this year of complications from childbirth. She left two children, the baby boy who is with his father, and Serenity, a three year old with an absentee father. David is now the guardian of Serenity and is seeking full legal custody. He certainly has the experience as he raised his four kids on his own after he and his wife split up in the late 90's. We had a great visit with David and got to know Serenity and David Jr's wife Autumn who was also there. David Jr is working on a temporary assignment in San Diego, but is expected to be home by Thursday, so we should be able to see him too. Jennifer is living with her family in North Carolina, so we probably won't see her. About 9:00 we left and drove back to the campground, watched a little TV and went to bed.

Tuesday, September 26^th, we woke up to rain. It had rained on and off all night, and it was still raining lightly. Hurricane Irma had moved north to the point where it was just off the coast of South Carolina, and even though it was a couple hundred miles off shore it was still close enough to bring rain. We went out after lunch, when we thought it had slacked off a bit, and stopped at a laundry to wash some rugs. We hoped to do some caching, but it was still very wet and occasionally raining. After the rugs were done we stopped at Walmart and a couple of other stores, then went back to the coach. We had planned on visiting with David again tonight, but I didn't want to have to drive 20 miles back home in the dark and rain, so we called and said we weren't going to come over tonight. We had dinner and watched TV until bedtime.

Wednesday, September 27^th, Irma made her right turn and is now moving east, getting further away from the coast. As a result, the forecast for today was windy with scattered showers possible. We went out after lunch to try again to do some geocaching and exploring. We had a good afternoon of caching, getting eleven new finds, and one DNF, in a couple of hours. We also spent an hour on the beachfront, walking the boardwalk and doing some shopping. The waves were running about ten feet because of the storm off shore, but other than that it was a beautiful, partly cloudy day. After our exploring and caching we stopped at David's house for a couple of hours. David Jr. got home this afternoon, so he and Autumn were also there. We had been talking to David and Autumn the other day about geocaching and, although Autumn and David Jr. had tried it once or twice, they didn't have any apps on their phone or much knowledge. David was also intrigued, so we helped him put a caching app on his phone and sign up with Geocaching for an account. Once that was done he and I went out to find a cache in a park very close to his house. Once we got there and I showed him how to navigate with the app, and read the information and hints, he was able to locate the pretty tricky cache in about five minutes. His first cache. Yea, another caching “child” for us to add to our list. After we got back to the his house we said our goodbyes and headed back to the coach. We stopped on the way and got some burgers to take home for dinner. We then watched a little TV and went to bed.

Thursday, September 28^th, we went out after lunch to a Kroger grocery store to pick up a few things that we couldn't get at Wally World. We also did three geocaches that happened to be in the area. We spent the afternoon at home, getting ready for a family BBQ tonight. About 6:00 David, David Jr., Autumn and Serenity came over. We visited for a while, then did some burgers on the grill. Everyone had a great time, we took some pictures and talked. They left around 9:00, we watched a little TV and then went to bed. It was great to be able to spend some time with family that we don't see very often.

Friday, September 29^th, another travel day. We were packed up and on the road early, about 9:30, heading south. We went about 190 miles south, into North Carolina, to a little town called Four Oaks. We stopped on the way at a rest stop to get a geocache, our first in North Carolina, and checked into the Four Oaks RV park around 3:00. We are only staying for one night, so we didn't even unhook the car. We just relaxed, had dinner, watched some TV and went to bed. Saturday was another travel day with a one night stand at the end. We were going about 135 miles south to Florence, South Carolina. On the way we stopped at both a North and South Carolina rest area to pick up some geocaches. We also needed South Carolina, so we got our first cache today in that state. We arrived at the Swamp Fox Campground around 2:00 and got settled in for our one night stay. We had to unhook the car because the space was too small to leave it connected, so we drove into Florence just to look around and get some caches. We ended up with four caches for the day and spent about an hour and a half exploring before going back to the coach. We had dinner and watched some TV. Around 9:30 there was a banging on the door. When I looked out the window I saw that it was a drunk guy from across the road. This was the same black guy that had been bugging us when we first checked in and were trying to get set up. He kept asking if he could do anything for us to get some money. I gave him a couple bucks and sent him on his way. He was only a little drunk then, by night time he was wasted. I yelled at him to home and not come back or I would call the cops. We didn't hear anything more from him.

Sunday, October 1^st, we were again on the road about 10:30, continuing south towards Hollywood, South Carolina, a small suburb of Charleston, South Carolina. We arrived at the Lake Aire RV Park around 1:30 and got settled into our spot. Charleston, as well as our next destination, Savannah, Georgia, have been on our “wish list” of places to see since our first full year of caching in 2006. We had scheduled to visit them in the spring of 06, after we had spent the winter in Florida. However, we ended unexpectedly spending a couple of extra weeks in the Monaco Coach service facility in Florida getting warranty work done, so we had to skip Savannah and Charleston in order to get to a scheduled rally in Branson, Missouri on time. After we got the coach set up we went out to do a Walmart run and pick up a local Sunday paper. After we got back to the coach we had dinner and watched TV until bedtime.

Monday, October 2^nd, we left the coach about 11:30 and headed out for a day of exploration. Our first stop was a restaurant called the Early Bird Diner. It had been featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and had good Yelp ratings, and it was right on the way to Charleston. It took us a bit to find a parking place in the very small lot, but we did get a table right away. There was nothing unique about the look of the place, very typical diner decor. However, the menu had a lot of Southern flair to it. I had chicken and waffles, and Jackie had corn cakes Benedict. Mine was excellent and Jackie liked hers except for the fact that the salsa they put on top was cold and cooled the eggs down too much. After breakfast we continued into Charleston.

There is a tremendous amount of history in and around Charleston. The city was founded in 1670 by English settlers at the behest of the King. The main part of the city is on a peninsula that is surrounded by a sheltered bay, making it an ideal seafaring city. The surrounding area is comprised of a series of islands. From Colonial days to the beginning of the Civil War the economy was reliant on commerce through the port and plantation farming. In the years just prior to the Civil War Charleston was the only American city in which the majority population were enslaved. There was virtually no middle class, only rich, white slave owners, poor free whites and enslaved blacks. As we drove around the downtown area we saw dozens of huge mansions, most of which have been restored. We spent about an hour and a half walking around downtown, mostly at the Charleston Market, which has been in existence since Colonial days. We got several geocaches, getting a total of four new finds. After spending most of the afternoon in central Charleston we went to North Charleston to visit the Elks Lodge. This is an old lodge, Number 242, and has a membership of over 1,400. They have a nice, newer building, that has a big barroom, a huge ballroom, and a ten lane bowling alley. There were only about a half dozen members in the bar, but for the most part they were pretty friendly. We had a couple of drinks and were able to get a lodge pin for our banner. After the Elks visit we headed back to the coach, had dinner and watched some TV for the remainder of the evening.

Tuesday, October 3^rd, we left the coach about 12:30, after lunch, and headed out to do some more exploring. We first went north of the RV park to an area along the Ashley River where there are several restored plantations. We stopped at two, the first was the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and the second was Middleton Place Plantation. In both cases we only went into the information center, and at Middleton Place the gift shop and museum. We had hoped to be able to see more, but both places were very expensive, with basic admission being $25 to $28, which only got you onto the grounds. To see the house was another $10 or $15, a ride around the grounds another additional fee, and so on. In both places the “full tour” was close to $60 and required five or six hours. We just weren't that interested in the history. It was interesting to learn that both of these plantations, as well as many of the others close to Charleston, were primarily rice plantations, not cotton.

We then drove across Charleston to the island of Mt. Pleasant, where we spent a couple of hours exploring, looking at houses and doing some geocaching, getting two new finds and one DNF. Mt. Pleasant was founded shortly after Charleston, around 1790, and now has a population of over 70,000. It is mostly a bedroom suburb with a lot of dining and night life. Just over the bridge is Patriot's Point, a large park containing many military monuments. It is also where the USS Yorktown is berthed as a museum ship, along with a WW-II era destroyer and submarine. South of Mt. Pleasant is Fort Moultrie and just off shore is Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. An inn in Mt. Pleasant was the site of the meeting where the declaration of secession for South Carolina was signed. After exploring Mt. Pleasant we fought the rush hour traffic and headed back to the coach. We had dinner and watched TV until bedtime.

Wednesday, October 4^th, we left the coach about 12:30 and drove into Charleston for lunch. We drove to a little hole in the wall north of the main part of Charleston, out in the seaport and docks area, called Martha Lou's Kitchen. When we were at the Elks Lodge on Monday we had asked a couple of people where we could go for good, authentic southern soul food, and both people came up with the same place, Martha Lou's. The next day I was reading some of the visitor books on Charleston that we have picked up and three of the books mentioned Martha Lou's. It is a rundown, pink building with a bunch of graffiti style art on the outside. Inside it is the size of our motor home living room, with a half dozen tables with everything looking like it came from Goodwill, or the alley. The menu has what is available for each day of the week, a choice of various meats and special sides for each day. Almost everyday featured fried chicken and a fish, a couple of the days featured “Mystery Meat” for the day. There was one price, $14 which included a meat and three sides and a drink. I had today's fish, which was Whiting, along with baked mac and cheese, corn bread and bread pudding. Jackie had a fried pork chop, collard greens, baked mac and cheese, and bread pudding. We both had sweet tea, which was REALLY sweet. The tastes of the food were outstanding. The corn bread was a little overdone, but very tasty and sweet. My fish was perfect and Jackie's pork chop was tasty, if also a little overdone. If you want the real feel of the south and end up in Charleston, Martha Lou's is a MUST go.

After lunch we drove out to the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site, located on the north side of Mt. Pleasant. Charles Pinckney was a very influential South Carolinian who served in public service for over 40 years, starting when he was a 21 year old lieutenant in the militia during the revolutionary war. He served multiple terms as governor of South Carolina, served in both the State senate and house, and as a U.S. senator. He was also ambassador to Spain after the war. The historic site is where Snee Farm was located, one of the smaller of the families properties and not one of the large plantations. However, there was a restored house on the site and some very interesting historical references. We had a good time there and soaked up the history of the area. After the site we did a few geocaches, getting three new finds, including another milestone, find number 8,900. Yea us. We then headed back to the coach and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, October 5^th, another travel day. We left Hollywood about 10:30 and started towards Hardeeville, South Carolina, about 80 miles south. After a fuel stop we arrived at the Lake Jasper RV Park around 12:30 and quickly got settled into a nice spot. Although we are staying in South Carolina still, we are only about 15 miles north of Savannah, Georgia, another of our bucket list places to see. We are going to be here for four days. After we got the basics set up for the coach we packed up our laundry and headed to a nearby laundromat to do our wash. When we were done we stopped at Walmart for some supplies and went back to the coach. We got everything put away and finished setting up, had a nice chili relleno for dinner, and then watched some TV until bedtime. We do have some concerns with weather as a late season tropical storm has emerged in the Caribbean which is heading north and is expected to make U.S. landfall by Sunday, somewhere on the Gulf Coast. Current tracking shows that it will just miss us to the west, we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Friday, October 6^th, we left the coach after lunch, about 12:30 and drove the 15 miles south to Savannah, Georgia. Our first stop was the Savannah Welcome Center where we got onto a city tour trolley. This was a great decision as the ninety minute tour covered the entire two square mile historical district of Savannah, so we got to see all the sights and also hear some of the history and trivia surrounding the city. Our tour guide and driver Wendy was a Savannah native and had lived here all of her life. She was knowledgeable and funny and we really enjoyed the trip. Like Charleston, Savannah has been a major city since colonial days and has both Revolutionary and Civil war histories. It sets 20 miles north of the Atlantic on the Savannah River, which is navigable by large ships, making Savannah one of the largest and busiest East coast seaports. The population is about 140,000 with about 350,000 in the metro area. Savannah is the home of the Savannah College of Art and Design, which is one of the best, and most expensive, art and design schools in the world. Their campus is spread all over the city, mostly using restored and remodeled buildings from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. On the tour it seemed like every street had a SCAD building or dorm.

One of the interesting features of the city are the squares, green spaces around which the old buildings and houses were built. Originally the city had 25 squares, but three were lost in the 50's due to urban development. This has stopped as the city now has extremely strict rules regarding the historic district which put a stop to new construction for the most part. The driver pointed out lots of locations from two of the more famous movies shot in Savannah, Forrest Gump and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The Midnight movie was a true story and a very interesting film that we are going to have to find and see again. We drove by the Williams mansion a couple of times in the tour. The tour also had several “characters” who came on board at various stops to do short presentations, including Forrest himself, a pirate and a slave women. After the tour was over we took the car and drove around, going back past some of the areas that were of interest to us. It was a bit of an on and off rainy day, so we didn't walk around too much. We did get two geocaches, our first Georgia caches. About 5:00 we started back towards home, where we had dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Saturday, October 7^th, we left the RV park about 11:00 and once again headed for Savannah. We found a parking lot downtown, near the City Market shopping and dining area, parked the car and started walking around. After a half hour or so of shopping we stopped at one of the local restaurants for lunch. We ate at the City Market Cafe out on the patio since it was a nice day. Hurricane Nate had stayed way to the west and is scheduled to make landfall somewhere around New Orleans tonight, but it is far enough away to have little or no impact on our weather here. The food at the cafe was OK, not bad, not great, just average. I had a sandwich that they called a muffaleta, which is the New Orleans sandwich I grew to love a few years ago. It had the ham, salami, provolone, and olive spread, but it was not served hot and not on an Italian loaf like a real muffaleta. It had the tastes, but not the overall goodness. Jackie had a giro and said it was OK too.

After lunch we spent the next two hours walking around downtown Savannah, going into shops and exploring. After we were done with the City Market area we walked down to the riverfront and did some more shopping. While we were walking around we also did a couple of geocaches. About 3:30 we walked back to the car, soaking wet from the humidity, and tired, but we had fun. We got in the car, fired up the A/C and drove the 17 miles downriver to the Tybee Island area. Tybee Island is a resort area located on a barrier island that sets right next to the mouth of the Savannah River. We did some drive-by tourism, looked around and did a couple more geocaches. They were having their annual Pirate Fest celebration this weekend, but it looked way to crowded and it was getting late, so we skipped it and headed back north to the RV park. Once we got back to the coach we chilled for the rest of the evening.

Sunday, October 8^th, we had a relaxing morning with the newspaper and coffee. We left the coach after lunch, about 12:30, and took a drive down to Hilton Head Island. Hilton Head is a barrier island on the south coast of South Carolina and is well known as a haven for the rich and famous. Lots of high end hotels and condos and expensive beach houses. We only spent an hour or so driving around looking at a few houses. Unless you own a house or stay at a hotel you can't get near the beach, so we only got a glimpse of the ocean. This area got devastated a year ago when Hurricane Matthew scored a direct hit, but there was little visible damage today. We did a couple of geocaches then started back towards home. On the way back to the RV park we stopped and Jackie got a haircut and we did some grocery shopping. Once we got back to the coach we relaxed the rest of the night.

Monday, October 9^th, Happy Columbus Day, and another travel day. We had the coach packed up and were on the road by 10:30. We are headed south 150 miles to Callahan, Florida, a little town a few miles northwest of Jacksonville, Florida. After a lunch stop we arrived at Kelly's Countryside RV park about 2:00, got parked and set up. It was very hot and humid today and we were tired from traveling, so after we got set up we just relaxed the rest of the day. We will be here in Callahan for three nights.

Tuesday, October 10^th, we had a fairly easy day. We did some chores in the morning and I made us some muffaletas for lunch. The last grocery we were in the other day had the olive salad that is essential to making the sandwich, which also has salami, provolone and several types of ham. It is all then pressed and warmed in a sandwich press. They came out great and we had leftovers for dinner too. After lunch we went out to do a little exploring and caching. We are parked halfway between the small towns of Hilliard and Callahan, Florida. Although the stats show Hilliard with about 2,500 population and Callahan with about 1,200, Hilliard appeared to be withering while Callahan looked much more thriving, with new stores and nicer homes. We were able to get eight new geocache finds, and one DNF, and got our first Florida caches. We are now at 49 states we have cached in and we are not likely to get the magic 50 any time soon as the one state we have not cached in is West Virginia, and I am not sure when, if ever, we will get back in that area of the country again. About 3:00 we called it a day and went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Wednesday, October 11^th, we left the coach about 11:00 and headed into Jacksonville for a day of exploring and geocaching. We have been to Jacksonville before, but it was in early 2006 when we made our last trip to Florida with the coach. Our first stop was a downtown restaurant called the Metro Diner. This place had been a Diners, Drive-ins and Drives feature and we like to go to DDD restaurants when we can. There are actually three locations in Jacksonville, but the one we went to was the one Guy Fieri went to on his visit. It is a very small place with limited parking, but we found a space on the street right next to it and got a table right away. I had the meatloaf plate, which had mashed potatoes and squash, and two big pieces of the best meatloaf I have had in a while. Jackie had the steak omelet, which was huge and stuffed with shaved steak just like they use in a Philly Cheesesteak. She said everything tasted wonderful. The menu was such that I could go back every day for a week and try something new each time. Great place.

After lunch we set out to do some geocaching. I selected a random geocache that was on the map and located near the downtown area as our first cache. We went to the cache location, which was in an industrial area just off the riverfront and downtown. We found the cache after a short search and were signing the log when a guy came out of a building across the street and came up to us wondering what we were doing. It was not an upset type question, but more a curious one. We explained we were geocaching and he told us that he and the couple other guys who had seen us figured that's what it was. He was familiar, but didn't cache himself. He then told us that the building across the street was part the company he worked for called Sally Corporation. That didn't mean anything to us, so he explained that they built robots, that's how he started the explanation. He said that they gave tours on Tuesdays and Thursdays and maybe we could come back tomorrow for a tour. We told him that we were leaving in the morning, but appreciated the offer. We talked a little about our lifestyle and full timing. He then said, “Well, why don't you drive around to the front to the building and I'll give the nickle tour today.” We figured, what the hell, I like robots, why not.

We went around to the main entrance of a very nondescript commercial building and went inside. He introduced himself as David Jones, and said he was one of the senior staff at Sally. He told us that Sally was a 40 year old company that designed and built what he called “Dark Rides” for amusement parks as well as animitronic characters for the rides and for other commercial uses. It turns out that dark rides is the term used for amusement park rides that are fully enclosed in a building. You usually ride in a vehicle of some sort that goes around on a track through various parts of the building. Good examples are the Raiders of the Lost Ark in Disneyland and the Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios. The Sally Corporation, which is named after their very first robot character from 40 years ago, builds these rides, helping with the design and then building all the characters used in the ride. Their current emphasis is on interactive rides where the people in the car have laser guns which they use to shoot at various characters and elements within the ride as a game, getting scored on their shooting skills.

David walked us through the entire facility, showing us little diorama models of some of their rides, a black light shooting gallery that demonstrated their laser gun technology. He even had us go some shooting. I won. We got to see a lot of characters being built as well as completed ones. We saw the mechanical construction areas, the molding areas, the electronic labs, the design labs, a really comprehensive and informative tour. We were in the place for about an hour and had a wonderful time. The company has built rides all over the world, dozens in the U.S., in Europe and Asia. Later, when I looked up the company online, I realized that we had been on the ET ride in Universal Studios Hollywood way back in the early 2000's and that was one of Sally Corporation's efforts. We always tell people that geocaching takes us to places we wouldn't ordinarily see and today was a primo example of that theory. If you ever get to Jacksonville, look up Sally Corporation and see when they are giving a tour, it is well worth the time.  After our wonderful tour we went back to exploring and caching, getting a total of three new finds and one DNF for the day. We drove east all the way to the beach so we could take one last look and wave goodbye to the Atlantic Ocean. Tomorrow we start west and likely won't see the Atlantic again for a while. After driving around Jacksonville for a couple hours we headed back to the coach, stopping at Walmart on the way home. We spent the rest of the evening with the TV.

Thursday, October 12^th, another travel day. We had a long ride today, about 230 miles, so we got an early start. We were on the road at 10:00, found our old friend Interstate 10, and started west. Shortly after passing Tallahassee, the Florida Capitol, we crossed into the Central Time Zone, getting an hour back. We arrived at the Alliance Hill RV Resort near Marianna, Florida, about 2:30 local time and got settled into a nice spot for a three night stay. Marianna is a small town of about 5,000 located 60 miles west of Tallahassee and 50 miles north of Panama City, Florida.

We are now done with our southbound travel and heading west, beginning our trip back to our “home” in Nevada. This marks a good point to close out this chapter and get it published. We still have about six weeks of adventures before we get home, so stayed tuned for more. Until the next time, remember to treasure your friends. They are people who know you really well and like you anyway. See ya soon.