Heading Home

Leaving Aberdeen, NC, we headed to Virginia Beach to reconnect with some old friends, Steve & Elyse.  It's been too long since the last time we were together.  They picked us up where we were camping at First Landing State Park, and we had a great dinner together.


The next morning we packed up and headed across the Chesepeake Bay-Bridge to the Cape May Ferry.  Home by 3pm and all of the mail!

Jordan goes camping in our RV!

Finally.....after two weeks of sleepless nights, Jordan finally gets to go camping with Nana and Papa in BIW.  With his daddy, he was waiting, and off we drove to Jordan Lake.....What is a more fitting place for his first camp out.  We took hikes, roasted marshmallows, and checked out nature.  But first, Jordan helped get the RV all set up.


We even had a special birthday cake for Nana!

Following, we had a week of play and snuggles.

Charleston for the BIG event

OK, it's official....Ruthie is now 65....What used to be the age of retirement, is now the age of fun!!

And to celebrate, we left our motorhome at a nearby campground, and moved into a really nice B&B at 15 Church Street in Charleston....thank you Jack and Analise.  We then walked all over the city, checking out all the great old buildings and the fine restaurants.

The actual 65th celebration was at Magnolia restaurant.  Great food, service, and even a table with a view.




For our third time in Charleston, we thought it was time to get out to Fort Sumter...so we boarded the boat and headed out into the harbor.  Checked out the remains of where the Civil War started.  Even had a 65 gun salute for Ruthie's birthday!

Hunting Island, South Carolina

Spent 3 days here at Hunting Island State Park, enjoying the perfect weather and a terrific campground. Two years ago when we were last here, we had a primo campsite right by the ocean....well it was primo until the full moon high tide forced us to seek higher ground.  So this time, we camped inland just a bit with only a 100 yard walk to the beach.

Biking is the best activity for this island.  During low tide, the sandy beaches of packed sand make a perfect bike ride between the driftwood (or should we say drift trees?).  This part of South Carolina is loosing 15 feet of beach annually, shrinking the shoreline. There are also great biking trails through the woods, following the lagoon, and to the lighthouse.

Also got to use our new binoculars checking out the Bald Eagles, the Osprey, and the many shore birds. Hunting Island gets our 5 star recommendation for camping...especially in March.

We sure like the price of gas!

Crossed the border into South Carolina and was greeted with regular gas at $2.09.  NICE!  So we stopped for a fill-up; with only 1/8 of a tank left in BIW, and the bill was only $130.  It's time to head cross country.

Fort McAllister

Morey found this Georgia state park on the AAA map; another one of those little brown squares.... Thought it would be good for a couple of nights and a visit to the fort.









Glad we made the stop.  A very nice Georgia campground on a very historical piece of property.  Turns out that there is a fort at Fort McAllister; and a very important one during the Civil War.  It protected one of the main waterways into Savannah, so that the Confederacy could obtain supplies from their European traders. The earthen fort turned out to hold up much better against poundings from the Union ships including the ironclad Montauk.  In fact Fort McAllister was not captured until Sherman showed up at the end of his "March to the Sea", and the fort was finally captured after being overwhelmed by almost 5,000 Union troops.


The park allows us visitors to walk around the nicely restored grounds, checking out the cannon and gun emplacements.

Back to Jekyll Island, GA

Purchased in the late 1800s by Wall Street tycoons, JP Morgan, Rockefeller, Crane, and more, Jekyll Island was for the rich and famous who established a hunt club here.  A hotel was constructed where all of the meals were cooked and served (supplied with whatever meat was caught for the day), and "cottages" were built; most without kitchens and dining rooms.  A grand place that turned into disrepair following WWII.  The state of Georgia purchased the island and has been restoring it back to its glory days; although now non-rich and non-famous can visit.

Biking is the number one activity on the island with over 30 miles of biking; all on paved but off the road trails, winding through the landscape.  We biked the entire island including the distant east end where the ocean dunes protect the island from storms.



We also took a trolley tour with stops at a number of the "cottages". Crane's cottage was the most palatial with 18 bathrooms (think he got a deal on the bathroom fixtures?!)

Crane's cottage

The one and only campground was noteworthy due to its "older" showers that poured out the water...remember the days before "water saver" shower heads?  The good old days!
A great location right on the bike route.

Cumberland Island, Georgia

Cumberland Island was purchased in the 1880s by Thomas and Lucy Carnegie.  They were excluded from Jekyll Island (the next island north on the coast), so decided to show they could one up Jekyll, and they did.  They built the Dungeness, an estate winter residence.  Then as each of the nine Carnegie kids came of age, they received a mansion for their very own and $10,000.  Not a bad thing!


In 1972, the Carnegie family decided to donate their holdings to help create Cumberland Island National Seashore.  This stopped plans for development that would have made this rustic island into a clone of Hilton Head.

Today, this island is almost untouched.  There are a few remaining private residences on the island, but for over 90% of the land, nature has taken it back.  There are pristine beaches, palmettos-live oaks-pines and more with the vegetation back, 150 wild horses, and some former mansions including the Dungeness (now in ruin) and Plum Orchard.

We were fortunate to be part of only 300 people to be allowed daily, to tour the island.  Took the ferry along with many backpackers who were even luckier to have secured camping permits for a couple of days in this island wilderness.  Booked the Lands and Legacy tour, where we drove the island's narrow sand road to visit the remains of earlier times.

Stopped at Plum Orchard mansion where Margaret, one of the daughters of Lucy Carnegie, spent her winters.  A pretty amazing and very intact home, still displaying all of the original wall coverings, lamps, and some of the furniture from the gilded era.  We even went into the basement where there was an ice maker and refrigerator (not icebox), long before most people even had electricity.

Following, we headed  south to the ruins of the Dungeness mansion.  A haunting but wonderful place.  Too bad this mansion was destroyed by fire.

So, what else is there to do in St. Augustine?

The 450 year old Spanish fortress is grand, the streets of St. Augustine are fun to walk and shop.....But having been here a couple of times previously in the last few years, what ELSE is there to do?

First, we camped on a new loop at Anastasia State Park...now that's exciting; it was our new "Primo" site.  This state park offers great camping sites, a short walk to the Atlantic beach, and a great Saturday farmers market.  NICE !

Second, and really the best new addition to our St. Augustine adventures is that we invited our friends, Manny and Linda to join us....and they did!  So we traveled together including in kayaks! And while kayaking we watched two pelicans doing tandem fish dives.  Exciting.

And then there is driving to Ravine State Park on a beautiful day, and walking trails among the azaleas.

We even met and talked to the "Babe" (discovered Babe Ruth used to spend his off times down here in this area).





Other activities:  Having lunch at a Taco food truck and getting a haircut at Price's barber shop again.  (All of the mounted animal heads and stuffed fish are still there.)

Even a rocket scientist (or Aerospace Engineer) approves

Have been to Cape Kennedy many times over the last 35 years.  No manned flights have happened since the Space Shuttle was phased out in July of 2011 with the final flight of Atlantis, STS-135.  The US has been sending up our astronauts via the Russians, and Mars is now in the far future (hopefully not past my lifetime). So, why bother touring the space port?  Am I a cynic?


Good news.  There is a lot of space stuff going on.  New heavy lift rockets; the US is back in the manned flight business in 2017 with SpaceX and Boeing, and the plans for the Mars missions are beginning to take form.  And if nothing was going on, the concessionaire who took over the Cape Kennedy Tour, has built a Disneyesque theme park.  The star of the park, Shuttle Atlantis, which has a specially built building to display this space vehicle's final resting place.



We saw some great exhibits, including the future Mars RV that Morey was checking out when it is time to replace BIW.

Took the "Then and Now" tour, which took us to many of the older Cape Canaveral sites including the blockhouse and launchpad where Alan Shepard rode the Mercury-Redstone on a 15 minute suborbital flight.  The first one for the US.



Continued on the tour back to the Saturn-Apollo complex.....
and discovered where the unused Saturn V rocket went, when the Apollo moon program was cut short by lack of funding.  The largest, most powerful rocket now resides suspended from the ceiling in the new Saturn-Apollo tour complex (sans engines and fuel - good thing).

Yes, this former Aerospace Engineer, has pulled out his slide rule and calculated that Cape Kennedy is a Florida attraction not to be missed.