February 26
Since Georgia coastline is not that long we decided to take the old highway for a more scenic route. We stopped in Madison where Tim went for a tour of church museum, most likely the oldest church in the area while I stayed in the camper and searched for things to do in Savannah. We spent the night in a Walmart parking lot in Richmond Hill.
February 27
This morning we drove to the Savannah Visitors Center and arrived just as they opened. We picked up information and bought our parking pass ($14 which allowed us to park in this lot for 48 hours including overnight), bought an Old Town Trolley Tour ticket and hopped on the trolley for our ride through Savannah. Our tour guide was very informative and we learned quite a bit about the history of the town. We got off the tour early as we wanted to walk around. You could actually hop on and hop off but that did not work out for us.
We did a lot of walking, looking at old buildings and checking out the shops. I had anticipated that the visitor Center where we had parked was much farther away than it was but luckily it was not. Had a good day.
February 28
Sunday morning, we walked to "Late Church" for the 9:30 am service which was held in the old Lucas Theatre. It was a lovely service.
Today we decided that we would do some tours, so we first visited the Davenport House Museum (sometimes the tour guides give more information than I desire), then we walked down to the Andrew Low House (where I attempted to hurry up the tour guide), but before heading to our next house we first walked through Forsyth Park. Forsyth Park was very nice and it being Sunday and the weather being nice there were many families enjoying the park. Lastly we walked back toward the river to the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum. Here we saw numerous ship models, all to the same scale and most of them made by the same man, from throughout the years. The intricacy of the ship models was amazing, some with cut outs so you could imagine what it was like on the inside of the ship. The home in which the museum was had at one time been owned by a very wealthy man and it was, in its time, the place to go for a good party.
Supper tonight was at The Olde Pink House which was built in 1771. If you want more information you can check it out online. We enjoyed a very lovely supper, and I even tried fried green tomatoes which when dipped in buttermilk and covered with a coating and deep fried taste pretty good especially when you pare it with mixed greens and bacon (fried to perfection) and a simple and not too strong dressing. I would definitely order that again. All in all it was a wonderful supper in a nice setting and with a wonderful guy (thanks sweetie).
Thankfully the break from walking while enjoying our supper helped to revive my painful feet so that I could walk back to the camper with little difficulty.
Savannah has become a nice tourist destination and I would recommend anyone passing by to take the time and stop and enjoy this place.
February 29
Hey we only have this day once in four years and here it is for us to enjoy. Today we drove up to Colleton State Park and spent the afternoon journaling and reading beside the river and enjoying nature. Beautiful little park, next to a river. If we had a canoe or kayak we could have gone up and down the river.
March 1
Today we drove further inland to Dreher Island State Park. A beautiful park that is made up of several islands connected by bridges. After our lunch, and a nap (we must be getting old, or maybe younger, little ones always need their naps), we got out our bikes and toured the park. Used first gear quite a bit and also got to coast quite a bit. Beautiful pine and oak trees and surrounded by water (duh, I did say they were islands). What a nice bike ride!
Later while walking around the mostly empty campground we passed by an open tent and what did we see, a large screen television with a fireplace underneath. In a tent! First time I have ever seen that. We enjoyed another campfire next to the lake before slumbering off to bed.
March 2
On our way to the next park, while taking the scenic route,we stopped to tour around the Rose Hall Plantation Historical Site, an old home that was once the home of a governor who owned a plantation and had 170 slaves. It saddens me to think back on what life for the slaves would have been like. It saddens me to know that people once owned other people, and in some places they still do so today. No one person is better than any other, we are all created equal in the eyes of God.
We ate lunch next to a home where President Jefferson Davies once ate lunch. Is that not really cool? Not. Why do people make such a big deal of or put so much importance on other people? As I just said, we are all created equal, no one is more important than another.
Croft State Park is nice, it would be very beautiful in the fall with all the fall colours. The lots and roads are gravel so not the best for biking, at least the kind of biking I prefer. Tim likes these trails, our boys would love them, so he took a ride and even though he needed to travel in the lowest gear and he was huffing and puffing he loved it.The trails are for walking, mountain biking or horseback riding. We walked on one of the horseback riding trails and imagined how nice it would be to ride these trails on horseback.
We heard some sad news today about a young neighbour whose life is no longer. We grieve for his family and are upholding them in our prayers.
March 3
Since there is not much to do here, besides hiking and biking and fishing, and we have no cell coverage, we have decided to move on to visit some dear friends whom we have not seen in a long time. We did enjoy a short trail walk in the morning before heading out.
We drove to Hendersonville where we met Charles & Kendra at his work and were given a tour of the building. Kendra followed us to our RV park to drop off the RV. She then toured us around before we picked Cody up from school. We went for coffee, I had hot chocolate, while we waited for Cody to get his hair cut (only the sides as he is trying to grow a man bun). I know, he will most likely regret this hair stage of his life someday.
We picked up Charles from work and went home to make supper. Supper was delicious, a Kung pow chicken stir fry. We enjoyed the evening visiting and catching up. Their children have grown and all have jobs and it just feels like old times.
C & K returned us to the RV where we settled in for a chilly night. Our little space heater kept going all night long.
March 4
Looking forward to a good day experiencing some of the sights of Hendersonville. Our tour guide arrived in the morning and we began our day. We stopped at Flat Rock Village Bakery, a nice little place, for coffee, tea and baking and a good visit before checking out the gift shop. Driving a short way we took a really nice hike at Carl Sandburg park. Carl was a poet and his wife became a well known goat farmer. When he died she donated their property to the state and it is now a wonderful place to hike and it still has goats and other farm animals and is used to educate young students.
Lunch was consumed and very much enjoyed at West First Pizza. My pizza had thin slices of Yukon gold potatoes, a sweet marmalade, some kind of cheese and greens and it was delicious. Later that afternoon we drove up to Jump Off Cliff to enjoy the view.
Kendra made zuppa tuscana soup (like Olive Garden only better) for supper and it was amazing. I am looking forward to getting the recipe and attempting to make it at home. We enjoyed a lovely evening of visiting before returning back to the camper.
March 5
This morning we worked on a minor repair inside the camper, did a bit of laundry and caught up on stuff. Our lovely tour guide, Kendra, drove us up to a Visitor Center in the Blue Ridge Mountains and from there we did some driving through and around and up and down. We walked the Hickory Nut Falls Trail, a fairly short walk up to the falls, which was very nice. Stopped at what I thought was a wayside picnic area to take some pictures and once we had already passed the open gate we saw the sign saying it was private property. Fortunately for us the owners were there and allowed us to come on in and take some pictures. The owner said his grandparents and parents and himself as a child used to come to this property to picnic and when he saw it was for sale, he purchased it. Back in the day you could rent a parking spot for $1 and a picnic table for another $1. With the stream running through the property I can imagine how nice it would be on a warm summer day to come with a picnic and go for a swim.
We returned to pick up Charles and for Kendra to get changed (for the concert) before heading out for supper at Tupelo Honey Cafe. After supper we were able to watch Kendra play the violin with the Blue Ridge Orchestra. We had never seen her play before so it was a real treat. Thanks for the opportunity. After the concert we went out for dessert and enjoyed more visiting.
March 6
We have a new tour guide this morning, Charles drove us to the DuPont Park where we enjoyed a lovely walk and a couple of different waterfalls. It was a perfect day for hiking, the trails were almost empty and the scenery and company was great.
We had lunch at an Irish restaurant, Hannah Flanagan's, in downtown Hendersonville and had a treat at a local ice cream joint. The guys had a nap in the afternoon while we waited for Kendra to return from performing at another concert. Supper was BBQ, which was delicious at Flat Rock and we spent the rest of the evening visiting.
March 7
Last full day in North Carolina. We spent the day with Kendra at the Biltmore. The Biltmore is a large estate that was built many years ago and is now open to the public. For more info you can use Google.
Kendra made green chilli soup for supper which of course was delicious. Spent our last evening visiting. It was a wonderful time being here with great friends, and we also were able to spend some time with their boys who have grown up a lot since the last time we saw them. It was such a good visit that we hope to do it again with not such a long time period in between.
March 8
On the road again. We headed North through Asheville, drove through Tennessee, Virginia, and into Kentucky. Beautiful weather and beautiful scenery. Stopped a couple of times at roadside vistas to enjoy the view. I was feeling very tired today and I am not sure why, there were times I could hardly, or not at all, keep my eyes open. We stopped in Lexington to pick up some Dominos pizza before heading back on the road. We made it as far as Louisville, or technically a suburb to the East where we found a Walmart and enjoyed a peaceful sleep.
March 9
Back on the road and heading for home. The weather yesterday and today has been very warm and loving it, although it began to cool down a bit with the few little showers we encountered. Cloudy all day but perfect for driving, although it did kind of clear up towards evening. I did manage to finish reading another book and I did not guess who done it, kudos to the writer.
To recap; we left Asheville, NC on Tuesday and drove through Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. On Wednesday we left Kentucky and drove through Indiana and Illinois.
We have not always had the best of luck with our GPS system. We prefer our Garmin but for some unknown reason it would not turn on for this trip so we have had to rely on the TomTom and we don't like it. In Florida we were informed that there were certain toll roads that did not take cash or credit but instead you needed to have a special card and since we did not buy that pass card we instructed our TomTom to avoid toll roads. This worked fine for Florida and for the next states that we passed through but did not work so well today. We had forgotten about our instructions to the GPS so when we reached the city of Rockford we followed the voice and went left instead of right. The TomTom took us all the way West around the city before sending us back into the city and then North before we reached the proper highway. There were many other roads that TT could have taken us on to avoid the toll road. We really wish our Garmin was working or that we still had data from our cell plan.
We purchased Roam Mobility hoping that it would give us data, thereby saving us from stopping at McD's or places like it. For the most part it worked, although there were still places where we had no service at all and the data was never 4G. We were able to tether our iPads and keep connected with our emails and Facebook and such and I was able to post to my blog, although I will have to check it at home to make sure the photos show up. But then we had no data, even though we still had a month left on the plan. We had wifi so I could connect to the Roam Mobility web site and I called them at the same time. After speaking with a representative I choose to top us with extra days of data since we were informed that we had used up all the data. I was assured that I still would have the rest of my plan to use for talk and text. Well, the representative misinformed me. I attempted to make a phone call and found out that I no longer had a plan. After calling and being disconnected twice I was finally able to speak with a representative who informed me that I had no plan to which I explained the whole situation and she was able to get me connected again to my old plan. This is all will say here but Roam Mobility will be hearing from me when I get home. Obviously their employees need some more training.
Right, back to our detour. We were getting hungry and since we did not want fast food or pizza (even though I like pizza - we had it yesterday for supper and the leftovers for lunch) we decided we wanted some home cooking. We found "Jessica's" and went in, sat down and ordered. The menu listed items as homemade but when our soups arrived and we tasted them I knew there was no homemade involved, both were bland and tasted like they came from a can. Then came the fried chicken and meatloaf both with red skinned mashed potatoes. We each ate some and concluded that maybe this restaurant was not such a good choice. Soon after, as were were driving down the interstate, I was very thankful that we had facilities on board which is all I will say because I think you know what I mean.
I think maybe all this driving is making me a tad bit grumpy and full of complaints. Not good.
Oh ya we did enter Wisconsin right after supper. We found a relatively quite service station to spend the night and got to bed rather early.
March 10
Tim figured that since we went to bed at 8:30 pm Central Time, and our bodies were still on Eastern Time (9:30) we could easily get up at 5:30 am CT. I was not as easily convinced but did manage to pull myself out from under the warm covers, take a warm shower, have some breakfast and we were on the road by 6:15 am.
When Tim checked the emails this morning we heard the sad news that a dear friend of ours had passed away. We know that he is with his Lord in heaven and we will see him again. We cry with the family as they grieve his loss.
Later today when checking emails we heard of the loss of another dear friend.
We left Wisconsin and entered Minnesota and drove right on through with just a short stop at a rest area to make and eat our lunch before continuing on. We arrived in Fargo, North Dakota in the mid afternoon where we stopped at Costco to buy some tortillas and since it was still early we knew we could make it home, so off we went.
We breezed through the border, which was nice and were happy to be back in Manitoba (except for the bad roads). Knowing that our cupboards were fairly bare we stopped at the grocery store for a few things before heading home. And since it was above freezing we pulled up to the house and emptied the RV of all our stuff.
I loved our trip, we made many good memories and saw a lot of different places and visited with dear friends. Thanks to those who read my blog since it is mostly for myself to remember what we did.
