Myrtle Beach, Wilmington and Knightdale

We're back home in Knightdale now after spending a night in Myrtle Beach, SC (just for the fun of it) and another night in Wilmington, NC where we toured around the downtown waterfront area shops and basically goofed off. It was a short three-week trip but we had a lot of fun and met some nice folks. We'll probably be at home until early March when our next big trip will begin. Stay tuned...

Charleston, SC

Our next stop on our leisurely trek home is Charleston, SC. In the morning, we visited Boone Hall Plantation and, since our time there was limited, we enjoyed a talk and tour of the Slave Street area of the plantation. We plan to return there on our next trip to Charleston so we can see the house. It was a beautiful place...even in the Winter.

After lunch, we took the ferry from Patriot's Point out to Fort Sumter where the Civil War began. Fort Sumter is located on an island in the mouth of the Charleston Harbor and has been nicely restored. The National Park Rangers gave an informative talk on the construction and history of the fort.

BTW, the nice RV park we stayed at near Charleston had a lake with some of the most unusual (e.g. ugly) ducks in it that we've ever seen. I just had to include a picture of one.

Tybee Island, GA

Well, it's time to head home...slowly. Our first stop on the way home is at Tybee Island, GA - just East of Savannah - where we'll celebrate the last few days of 2008. After we arrived yesterday, we drove out to Fort Pulaski, one of the many restored Civil War fortresses along the Atlantic coast.

This morning, we went out to explore the Tybee Island Light Station and Museum. This brick lighthouse was first constructed in 1733 and the upper 94 feet was added in 1866. You can see why this is considered Georgia's oldest lighthouse. The view from the top is breathtaking. We celebrated New Years by watching the coastal fireworks from the RV park. Goodbye 2008, you were a very good year and Hello to 2009!

St. Augustine, FL

Now we've headed east and, after an over-night stay in Lake City, we arrived in St Augustine, FL on Saturday, 12/27, where we'll be staying for a few days. After getting the RV set up, we drove out to the World Golf Hall of Fame to see what the 'real' golfers have accomplished. This is quite an impressive place loaded with golf memorabilia dating from the founding of the game plus a wide variety of trophies and awards. A definite must-see for any golfer!

On Sunday, we started our tour of Historic Downtown St Augustine at the beautiful pedestrian mall with its collection of unique shops (we even found some chocolate gellato...yum!).
After lunch at Harry's, we toured the awesome Lightner Museum with its diverse collection of antique furniture, glass and other old stuff.


To end the day on a slightly different note, we stopped at the famous (infamous?) Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Museum where we saw some of the more unusual things to be seen plus a lot of...well...dumb stuff.




On Monday, we began the day with a climb up the nearby St Augustine Lighthouse (well, Susan wimped out and watched from the ground) and enjoyed a gorgeous view of the area from the top. After another delicious lunch at Harry's (we highly recommended it), we took a leisurely, scenic cruise of the harbor.

Fountain, FL

Today we moved on down to the Panhandle of Florida to spend some quiet time. After setting up our portable Christmas tree in the RV, we soon thought we'd moved into the Bermuda Triangle or something when we discovered that not only did our DirecTV not work, neither did our WiFi connection (e.g. no Internet) or our indoor-outdoor thermometer. As it turned out, the DirecTV receiver had just died (we had to drive to Panama City to buy a replacement which worked fine), the WiFi worked fine everywhere else (it must have been some setting on their server) and the thermometer fixed itself once we got home. On the bright side, the RV park was nice, the other campers were friendly, the weather was beautiful and the Christmas pot-luck dinner held by the RV park was delicious. We hope that your Christmas was as nice as ours was.

Macon, GA

We started our stay in Macon by taking yet another historic homes tour (am I seeing a trend developing here?) where we visited several nicely restored antebellum homes including the Sidney Lanier Cottage, the Cannonball House and the Hay House. Of course, all the homes were decorated for the Christmas holidays.

In the afternoon, we went into downtown Macon and visited the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. There we saw everything from vintage instruments, clothes and equipment once played and used by entertainers like Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Chet Atkins and many others from all type of music. Even old-time music was featured with tributes to folks like Gid Tanner and the Skillet-Lickers.

Milledgeville, GA

Yesterday, 12/18, was spent taking the historic walking tour of Milledgeville. We saw some neat places like the Old State Capital, the old Governor's House, St Stephen's Church and several old homes. We relaxed and enjoyed some lunch (and a good cold beer) at a local pub called The Brick. Yum! We finished off the day by touring the Lockerly Arboretum.

Today we drove the car North along highway 24 where our first stop was the quaint little Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton where we were greeted by a statue of Brer Rabbit (you may recall that he was born and bred in the briarpatch). From there, we went up into Madison and explored some local shops and historic homes.