Route 66, Cadillac Ranch and Palo Duro Canyon

I started the day by driving out to Adrian Texas which is a about 45 miles from where we are staying. Adrian was the mid point of Route 66. It was mid way between Los Angeles and Chicago. 1139 miles from each city. Kathie was working on a new course that she will be teaching and James was working on his chemistry so I went alone.

I stopped in at the Mid-Point Cafe and talked with the new owners. They are working hard on getting everything set-up for this years tourist season. When their web site is up and running I will post a link to it.

On the way "home" I stopped at the Cadillac Ranch. They have 10 Cadillacs of various vintages planted nose down. People stop by and take pictures. Graffiti is encouraged so there are people including many families out there spray painting the cars. As I was walking up to the cars I could smell the spray paint from quite a distance. There is a large pile of empty spray cans by the cars. Some people are too lazy to put their empty cans in the pile and throw them all around the farmers field. The field is very muddy with the red dirt/clay that we have been seeing for the last couple of days. Someone had left 5 or 6 pairs of white runners, that had been worn into the cars, at the side of the road because they to muddy to clean.

After lunch we drove through Amarillo's historic Route 66 district. A lot of the shops were closed. Some of them are closed for winter but a number of them are closed waiting for better times. Most of the small towns we have been driving through look like they are having a tough time.

We had thought that we would spend the afternoon walking around the historic district but there was not a lot to see. The person at the registration desk had recommended the Palo Duro Canyon which is not far from town. It is the second largest canyon in the US. It is 120 miles long and up to 800 feet deep. We drove out and had a look. This is a panorama of 6 images.

They have a 16 mile road that tours the canyon and they have campsites, trails for hiking, biking and horse back riding. It looks like a nice place to spend a week or so. The road down is steep (10%) and twisty but there were some large trailers in the campsites.

As you can see from the pictures is was sunny (and warm) here today.

Rain and Wind

Driving to Amarillo today we had a lot of rain and wind.  The NOAA information for the area we were traveling in was 35 MPH with gusts of 45 MPH.  But we seem to have come out on the other side and it is was sunny this afternoon and is supposed to be sunny and warm tomorrow.

Paul decided he wanted to come to Amarillo so that we could drive part of the historic Route 66. We have already done that.  The road into the campsite is part of the old route.  Perhaps we'll explore more tomorrow while we are here.

This is the first campsite we have been in where there is a patch of artificial grass at the campsite.  I guess it cuts down on the mowing :-)

Day to Relax and Plan - Pictures

We took the day off today. We went shopping and spent the rest of the day around the campsite. We also planned our next week or so.

The other day when we were in Texarkana there were some old barns and houses within walking distance:

On the road by the building was a dead rattle snake. And you wonder why I prefer to wear boots and jeans when out taking pictures.

Down the highway about a kilometre was another old house and barn:

On the way down there was another dead rattle snake, so I walked down the paved shoulder of the road instead walking through the grass in the road allowance.

When I got back to the trailer I took this picture. Later that night we were in the tornado watch area.

I have been watching the tornado warnings since we got to Tennessee. I checked them before we got to Texarkana and the forecast for that area was sitting at a risk rating of 2 (out of 10). A 2 rating says - "Very low chance of tornado, but hail and / or strong wind gusts possible". You can imagine my dismay when I got up the next morning and the risk rating had jumped to 6 (moderate risk of a tornado). We now have figured out the weather radio system and will use that if we run into this kind of weather again - probably tomorrow.

This old house I got awhile back when we were in Georgia.

The weather here is cooler, about 15 today, but breezy. Most of the day was sunny but late in the afternoon there was another thunder storm with a chance of a weak tornado and hail.

Answers and Questions

And the answer is 16. The question was how many time zone changes have we been through since we started in July. This does not include the two time changes for daylight / standard time.

The question is "What would you do?

We were in Texarkana for the last couple of days. There was a huge storm that was 400K wide (250 miles) and 3,000+K long. The storm is generating huge thunder storms and tornados. We were on the eastern edge and the storm is moving east very slowly. 400K to the west is clear of the storm. Kathie and I were up until 2:00 am last night watching the computer screens because there was a tornado watch in the area. If it gets upgraded to a tornado warning the sirens go off and we abandon the truck and trailer and hide out in the washrooms until the storm is over.

So would you 1) stay where you are, 2) drive east or south east and hope to miss the storm (but then you might be late for Spring Training in Arizona) or 3) drive west through the rain (but miss the nasty part of the storm because they get worse later in the day). When we were in Quebec City we chose to stay put and Hurricane Irene when right over us.

We drove west through the storm and we are now in Wichita Falls Texas. We had wet but a nice drive along highway US 82.

On the east side of the storm the weather was very warm. Here is is cooler but still sandals and shorts weather right now.

Our Thoughts Today 2

Today our thoughts are with Nancy in Texas who goes in for a set of tests to find out how successful her Chemo therapy has been. We are also thinking about our friends Keith and Carol who are going through treatment for Thyroid cancer. We have not heard how Keith's treatment went at the beginning of the month. We hear that Skeena is doing well and we look forward to seeing her and the rest of her family in May.

Pictures - Graceland, Barns and Playing

Here are some of the pictures I took at Graceland.

This is in what used to be a racquetball court. These are some of the gold records.

This is the Stutz Blackhawk, Elvis's favourite car.

And of course the Pink Cadillac.

Today I went to Oklahoma and got some broken home pictures:

When I got home I started playing and got these shots of a bumble bee.

Another great day - it was 22 when we got up and we saw a number of people mowing their lawns.

Texarkana in the sunshine

Drove from Memphis to Texarkana today. We took the 40 to the 30. Sorry Ken, we stayed on the interstate. Probably the bumpiest interstate we have been on.

We stopped in Texarkana - drove through the Arkansas part of town and into the Texas part. Then we just relaxed in the sunshine and watched a video on the computer.

More Elvis - I miss Steve

This morning we spent watching a thunder and lightning show that went on for several hours. We had rain with periods of heavy rain. The forecast said it would clear up this afternoon so we watched from the the show from the trailer. One of the strikes was close enough to vibrate all of the windows in the trailer. Graceland is within walking distance and we can see the parking lot from the trailer so it did not make any sense to drive, walking in the lightning storm made even less sense.

While the storm was going on I decided to go to the local barber and have my hair cut. Most of the people living around here have different hair than I do. I don't think the haircut is that bad. Kathie has requested that I wear my hat until my hair grows out. I am going to go with James's strategy from now on - get it trimmed so I can grow it long and not have to worry about getting it cut on the road. Steve is my barber.

We went to the Elvis memorial this afternoon. We toured Graceland, two of his planes, his automobile museum and saw a couple of videos of him in concert. We saw where they broadcast the Elvis radio station from. The most impressive part of the displays was the gold records and other awards he received. There were rooms filled with gold records, grammy award nominations, international awards. The Stutz Blackhawk in the automobile museum was also interesting.

The sun has broken out and it is still warm. It was 20 celsius when we got up this morning, so sandals and shorts for the day.

Graceland

Moved from Nashville to Memphis today.  From country music to Elvis, from Hazzard County to Graceland.  The drive had lots of big trucks but wasn't too bad overall.  The weather today was warm and sunny (somewhere in the 80s).

We are staying at the Graceland RV Park.  The park is located behind the Heartbreak Hotel, which is, of course, at the end Lonely Street.  When we checked into the park, the radio was playing on the Elvis station (a radio station that is "All Elvis, All the Time").  There are Elvis cruises and even an Elvis Cirque du Soleil,

Tomorrow we will tour Graceland and then maybe have dinner out.  There is a local restaurant that picks you up at your campsite in a pink limo if you are eating there (and the food is reasonably priced).

Short Day

Today was a short travel day. We looked at how long it would take to get to Memphis and decided to take two days to drive there. Our short day has taken us to Nashville. We are staying just down the road from the Grand Ole Opry on Music City Drive. Unfortunately there is nothing going on tonight.

There are all kinds of hotels, campgrounds and other attractions in the area. Cooter's Dukes of Hazzard Museum is just down the road. The "older generation" went to have a look, and we spent about 3/4 of an hour looking at pictures and memorabilia from the show. You could even get your picture taken in the General Lee or Daisy's Jeep, Dixie.

We crossed another time zone today. So how many time zones do you think we have crossed since July? We also had the time change on Sunday. Our internal clocks are kind of screwed up. When is dinner?

Here is one of the images I got yesterday in Alabama.

Of course now we are in Tennessee I had to get some pictures today from here.

We had another nice day about 80. I should have been wearing my boots and jeans when I was out taking pictures because I don't like walking through ditches and long grass in shorts and sandals, but I forgot to change before I went out.

Catch Up Day

Happy Birthday Mandell (a day late).

Today was a catch-up day. When we drove through Alabama on our way east I went to the Pensacola Air Museum instead of going back to Alabama and taking pictures. Then the weather forecast said it was going to get nasty in the area and we took off south. Today we are in Georgia on the boarder with Tennessee and we are about 30 miles from the Alabama boarder. Today was my day to get my pictures of Alabama. They will get posted tomorrow.

Today was also the day to get the oil changed and get a tire fixed. Yes we had another one go on us. At every coffee and lunch stop James takes the temperature of all of the tires. One of the trailers tires was consistently much hotter than the other tires. It was down about 30 pounds - so we pumped it up using a bicycle hand pump - that took a while. We started looking for air to pump up the tires at gas stations along the way - we did not see any - how do people inflate their tires these days - especially trailer tires?

The next day it was down again - so I pumped it up. At the end of the travel day, James and I swapped it out for one of the spares. It turns out we had picked up a screw. The place I went to, Mack Smith Tires in Rossville, was about a mile from the campsite and they also did my oil change so it was very handy and saved me from driving into Chattanooga. I will be picking up a compressor for the trailer so I don't have to pump them up by hand again.

It was very nice here today in the upper 70's.

Tomorrow we will move up to Nashville and I will get some pictures of Tennessee.

Cool name

Both my parents posted last night and were arguing over who had to post so I decided to stop the argument by posting so neither of them had to. Today we are in Georgia, if you want a more accurate description of where we are (map-wise) look up Chattanooga Tennessee because that is the town we are staying in. Before you ask it is a border town. The place we are staying in is rather nice, no paved roads but they are smooth and flat as are the sites which are all pull throughs, and they either have good wifi or I am getting really used to bad wifi and their's is average. Another cool thing about the site is that we are staying at is that it is the site of a civil war battlefield. Which brings me nicely to what is new with me (going all the way back to early february) in Eldar mythology in the 40k universe those who die in battle come back as hawks for revenge on those that killed them marking them out in future battles. The warriors that embody this aspect of mythology are the Swooping Hawks Aspect Warriors. In one of my earlier Warhammer spending sprees I bought an Autarch with Swooping Hawk Wings (a useful piece of wargear) but I had no squad to attach him to because they did not have Swooping Hawks out yet. At one of the few GamesWorkshops I have been to they did have Swooping Hawks so I decided to buy them (you know how it is a few dollars cheaper to buy Warhammer stuff in the US). By now you've noticed that I am rambling but if you know me you know I do that a lot and now you've noticed something a little off about my style of writing which all my english teachers call stream of conscience but please note that this is slowed down because there would be another three topics if I just went off that, my mind is very jumpy and will jump to jokes at the oddest things which is why I occasionally laugh at nothing.

Pictures from Biltmore

Here are some pictures I took of Biltmore today. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the house. From the campsite we can see the Builtmore Estate.

From the campsite you can see the estate so I took some pictures from here.

If you click on the picture you can see a larger version. The inn is on the left at the top of a hill, the village is below the inn to the left of the hydro pole in the picture and the house is on the far right. It is 3 miles from the front gate to the house and 5 miles from the house to village. The speed limit is 30 mph on a lot of the roads.

The Inn - this is a 4 Diamond rated hotel. It is one of the top 500 hotels in the world.

These two pictures are Antler Village. They include the winery, outdoor adventure, brew pub / restaurant, creamery, black smith, and farm. You have to drive past the bass lake to get from the house to the village.

This is a picture of Builtmore from the campsite. This is the back side of the house.

This is the house as you approach it from the front. The original stables are hidden by the trees on the right. That is where we had lunch.

So there are 4 acres of floor space in the house, about 175,000 square feet, a private railroad was built to move the bricks made on the property to the house during construction, a pipe organ in the dining room and two rivers runs through the property. The pool in the house had underwater lights before most houses in America had electricity.

It has at least 14 parking lots and 15+ shuttle busses run about every 5 minutes from the parking lots to the house or village. A number of parking lots were full today. They have staff dedicated to guide you to the next available parking spot.

A day pass was $45 each. They have yearly passes ($125) and for $145 you can ride the bike trails or an equestrian pass ($200+) that allow you to ride the horse trails. They also have special tours, fly fishing lessons, Land Rover Driving School, Segway tours, skeet shooting and more.

We were there on a sunny warm winter Sunday - so it is off season and it was very busy. I can only imagine how many people would be there in the summer.

A visit to Biltmore

Today Paul and I went to visit the Biltmore House (built by George Vanderbilt in 1895).

It is huge, it is the largest house in the U.S. - it has over four acres of floor space, that means I could fit about 100 of my houses into it.  It has 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.

The grand staircase has a four-story chandelier.  The staircase is spiral and all cantilevered.  The formal dining room's ceiling is 70 ft high.

In the basement is the workout area.  There are change rooms for the men and the women (the servants would bring your clothes down to the rooms for you).  There is a couple of bowling lanes, a swimming pool (10 feet deep), and a gymnasium.  

There is a bachelor's wing with the billiard room, smoking room and gun room.   The library has books from floor to ceiling and the owner was lauded in the papers as being the best read man in America.  

The servants each had their own rooms that were almost as large as my bedroom.  The servants dining room had a dining room maid to serve them their dinner.  The clocks were all synchronized with one clock tower (normally only seen in factory settings).

The grounds were originally 125,000 acres and were gardens and parkland and have American's first managed forest.  It now sits on 8,000 acres.  What was previously the dairy is now the winery and that is 5 miles from the house.  The estate currently has more than 1,700 employees and is  a National Historic Landmark.

Asheville NC

The day started off with a nice back roads drive from Highway 95 to 85 (for once Lizzie did not lead us astray). Highway 85 is much more mellow than 95 with fewer trucks. 

Then, we got onto highway 40 and traveled west across North Carolina. We are in the mountains at 2,000 ft. The scenery here reminds us of Quebec. 

It is sunny now, but supposed to get down to 1C tonight.  Tomorrow will be warm and sunny again. 

Heading South

Happy birthday to my brother Malcolm.

We have now turned around and we are headed south. We started the day in Delaware and were soon in Maryland. We continued in Maryland for a while and then as we were crossing a bridge we were in the District of Columbia for a few seconds and then into Virginia. At the end of the day we crossed the boarder into North Carolina and we are staying just inside North Carolina.

While we were driving past Andrews Air Force Base we saw one of the Presidential planes taking off. Kathie tweeted the news and every few miles after that a black SUV with blacked out windows would drive by us (coincidence, I don't think so).

When we were driving through Washington there was a sign for a rest stop and tourist information area. We took the exit and there were no signs as to where to go next. We drove down the road and saw nothing, we turned around and got back on the interstate.

While we were driving in Washington there were 10 - 12 lanes all headed south - where where all those people going?

We spent more time in Richmond Virginia than we had planned. We took Interstate 295 which is supposed to go around Richmond to avoid the traffic. I95 goes straight through Richmond. Part way around there was a sign that said I295 Closed at Exit 28 use Highway 64. If we had known that earlier we would have taken I95. When we got to exit 28 the highway was completely closed and there were 5 lanes being collapsed into the exit lane with absolutely no traffic control. Then Virginia DOT did not have any signs about where the detour went (they must be taking lessons from Quebec DOT). A couple of wrong turns, a u-turn and a traffic jam on Highway 64 and we were on our way thanks to Kathie, Lizzy (our GPS) and the iPads.

Everything is flat around here, I think the highest points we have been since we left Texas are the bridges. I have never seen so much water. There are swamps and rivers all over the place. We have spent nearly as much time on bridges as we did on ferries on our first loop. We have also been helping the US with their deficit - we have been paying tolls all on a number of different highways since we left Texas.

We are headed south for the warmer weather. Today was warm but tonight is supposed to be cold (0C) so we will move further south tomorrow.

A Few Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures that I got over the last couple of days.

The first one I took in New Jersey this morning.

This barn was in 40 mile strip of Maryland between North Carolina and Delaware.

One of the things I look to avoid when taking pictures of old barns is modern devices in or around the barn or building. Plastic is almost impossible to avoid. Today I got one farm building and when I got home there was a new truck at the back of the building. I have made an exception for the picture below. True it has a satellite dish in the front but it has an outhouse in the back so one sort of cancels out the other.

It has warmed up here as it was about 22 today, but very windy. Driving back from New Jersey this morning there were a number of semi's parked (hiding from the wind) under overpasses. I was glad that I was not towing the trailer as the truck was being blown around.

Funny Bumpers and Rooftop Porches

Today I got up to New Jersey and got pictures of some barns up there and on the way back I got some pictures of barns here in Delaware so now we head towards Tennessee and Alabama where I don't have any pictures yet. I will post some pictures from today later.

Since we got to North Carolina we have seen trucks with "funny bumpers". The have a oblong piece and a number of upright pipes. It turns out that they are for holding fishing rods. They take the trucks down on the beach up to the water and cast their lines into the water and then sit in the truck waiting for the fish to take a lure. It looks like they can have 5 or more lines in the water at a time.

A lot of the houses on the Outer Banks have either rooftop balconies and or observatories at the top of the house. I just wonder what the Saanich inspectors would have to say about some of the balconies we saw. The balconies allow the owners to see the ocean over the sand dunes.

The houses are really interesting here as there are no "boxes". Most of the houses are different, some of them have turrets, other are completely round and there are many interesting shapes. Most of them are "built" from the second story up so the storm surges don't damage the house. One even had two boats in the garage so I guess he is really prepared.

Beside the road on the Outer Banks there are loaders and other heavy machinery. They leave machinery there so it is handy for clearing off the the sand that gets blown onto the road from the sand dunes.

One of the things we have been told is the population of the Nags Head / Kitty Hawk area grows from 30,000 in the winter to 300,000 in the summer. Many of the businesses are closed or on reduced operations. It was funny to drive by the Arby's that had a sign "Closed for the season".

The other thing we noticed was a number of businesses that were closed because of hurricane damage. Near the campsite there was a Shell gas station, a restaurant and small grocery store. All were closed due to storm damage. About a third of the gas stations in the area were closed with what looked like storm damage.

Outer Banks to Delaware

We moved on today.

Driving north on the outer banks we drove up to Virginia and crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.   What a neat thing.  There is a bridge span, then you go under the ocean, then up to another bridge span, down under the ocean again and then up to an elevated bridge span (for the fishing and pleasure craft to go under).

We thought from a quick look at the map that we went from Virginia straight to Delaware, but we actually had 40 miles of Maryland to go through as well.

The drive was medium in length but was stressful on Paul as there were many stop lights - and the truck/trailer need time to stop.

But the day was sunny, and warmer than the last couple of days, and we are here in Milton DE for a couple of nights.

Kitty Hawk

We started off today by going to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers National Memorial . They have replicas of the gliders and the plane they flew in 1903. There was a presentation showing the plane and the development of the controls. They had some of the original documentation a complete history of the development.

Here is a picture of a replica glider they used in 1902.

After testing that year they went back to Dayton and re-wrote the book on aeronautics, they built their own wind tunnel and then when no one would sell them a motor - they designed and built their own. Since no one had built a airplane propeller they had to design and build their own. The fabric they had was too wide for the wings they built so one of the brothers borrowed a sewing machine and resewed the fabric for the wings.

Here is a picture of the 1903 plane.

Here is a picture of me at the monument for the distance of the first flight from the point at which it took off.

After the Wright Brothers we had lunch at the trailer and then Kathie and I went to Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It was about 50 miles along a long string of sandbars they call islands around here. Hurricane Irene apparently cut an inlet through the island in August.

When got back I took some pictures from around the campsite. The first one is the trailers reflected in the lake. This is the first time since we have been here that it has been calm - yesterday there were almost whitecaps on the water.

This is looking across the lake at the sunset.

It was another good day - it has been cool here but it is supposed to warm up over the next couple of days.

Catch Up Post - Campsites

Our post from Willow Tree RV Resort said we were about to go to a dinner hosted by the owners, we forgot to say anything about it. They BBQ'ed a pig and some chickens. I am fairly serious about BBQing, I have 4 BBQ's and I have two of them with me but at least I don't have to tow any of mine behind the truck (yet). The people doing the BBQ were staying at the resort. The husband drove the motorhome and the wife drove the SUV towing the "cooker". Once the BBQ is started, they only lift the lid twice in 8 hours, to load more charcoal. Needless to say the pork was really good and the chicken was even better. After dinner they had young Tonya entertaining the crowd with a series of questions about southern expressions with prizes for correct answers.

Last night we were at Twin Lakes Campground and Marina in Washington North Carolina (the have a sign in town that says "Welcome to the Original Washington"). It was a very large campground and it has lakes and water channels. We caught them during their winter season where the office is closed on Sunday and Monday. We are expecting a call tomorrow to find out how much it cost us to stay there. I think we were the only over-nighters that were there last night.

Tonight we are at The Refuge On Roanoke Island. It is a small campsite with a lake and boardwalks over the swamp. We are one of 4 groups that are staying here tonight. This area was hit hard by Hurricane Irene last August. The whole campsite was flooded with 26 inches of water (which means the water was about 5 feet higher than it is now). There are a number of sites that are leased on a yearly basis and those sites have wood patios and stairs to the trailers etc. All of that was washed away into the lake and swamp along with all of the picnic tables.

I must have done something right because the batteries are now charging properly. The RV repair place we called on Saturday morning to check the charging system finally phoned this morning (Monday - their ad says 24/7) - not much help.

Today's Pictures

As we drive along we are always looking for barns. I am trying to get pictures in every state. Sometimes they are hard to find or not in the area. Other times they are easy to find but getting 50 feet of truck and trailer far enough off the road to let traffic by is sometimes impossible. Today we moved from South Carolina to North Carolina and just after we crossed the boarder there were a number of barns that I wanted pictures of but there was not enough room to get off the road. When I saw this one I stopped in the middle of the road and took a series of shots. There was no traffic so I got lucky.

Once we got to the campsite and were set up I walked down the road and got more pictures. Here is one of an old truck in the middle of a field.

The campsite we are in is also a marina and there are canals all over the place. We don't have a map of the campsite because we have not registered so I don't know how the marina slips work the the campsites. The office is closed on Sunday and Monday - maybe we won't have to pay.

The houses in the area are built on stilts. The house in the picture below is typical of the houses in the area. This end the "basement" is covered with lattice and the far end is the garage. Based on the housing design I am assuming they get frequent floods in the area - given that I don't want to spend too much time around here.

Off to Kitty Hawk tomorrow and the First Flight Museum.

Bye SC, hello NC

Today we left one of the nicest campsites we have ever stayed in. If you are traveling in South Carolina, make time to spend a couple of days at Willow Tree RV Resort. 10/10 is not enough, more like 15/10. 

It rained a lot last night and the temperature dropped. There is a cold front moving in but it's not supposed to last very long, just a couple of days. So we decided to head north regardless. The forecast includes the four letter "s" word (though not much of it).  Hopefully we will miss it. 

We have stopped for the night just outside of Washington North Carolina. 

Savannah and Waiting in the Rain

Today we have been sitting around watching it rain. Kathie did the laundry and worked on her thesis, James helped with the laundry and read and I waited for the repair guy to come by. He still hasn't. The batteries in the trailer are not charging and everything is controlled by the 12 volt system, the fridge, air conditioner have 12 controls and all of the lights and fans are 12 volt. Last night the batteries were down to 9 volts which is not good enough to run anything. This morning I took the control panel apart and jiggled some wires and it started working again, but I want someone who knows what they are doing to check out things.

So here are some pictures that I took in Savannah.

This was inside the Pink House Restaurant - a Ken Beazley inspired shot.

This picture is the holes in the floor in the First African Baptist Church. The congregation were part of the Underground Railroad and under the floor was a 4 foot high space where they could hide slaves that had escaped and were headed to New Brunswick and freedom.

Today was another great day sort of - I just changed out of my shorts into my jeans but I did that after sitting in the hot tub for awhile.

This evening the campsite owners are have a pig & chicken roast / pot luck. We are going over in a little while with our contribution and to eat our share of slow roasted pork.

Myrtle Beach

We had another great day. We all made use of the trail around the lake this morning - James walked it, Kathie walked it a couple of times and I jogged it. Kathie and I then stretched and I then jumped into the hot tub for a while.

In the afternoon Kathie and I went into Myrtle Beach to see what it was like. We could have stayed here. On the Myrtle Beach strip there were restaurant after restaurant with huge parking lots and an occasional store selling beach stuff. We did dip our toes in the Atlantic Ocean.

After we got back James and I rode around the lake a couple of times looking for the turtles he had seen earlier in the day.

So another great day - although the locals were wearing jeans, boots and jackets - it was 25, and we did have some light rain this morning.

Nice Campsite

Okay, this is RV'ing luxury style.  We are staying at Willow Tree RV Resort and Campground at Longs, SC (near Myrtle Beach).  The site for our trailer is as big as the backyard at home.  

Our view is over the lake.  The lake has a 1 1/8 mile walking path around it with nature walks off of that.  There is a white sand beach and swimming area at one side of the lake.  There is a beach volleyball court, horse shoes, shuffle board and a large fenced kids playground.   There are three pools, an exercise room, a games room as well as a laundry room.  

So now, I'm sitting here just waiting for the hot tub to finish warming up - oh yeah, our site has its own hot tub.  The minimum stay for a site with a hot tub is three days.  We decided we could fit that into our schedule.

Savannah for the day

We started out day with a walking tour from Savannah Belle Tours.  Michelle took us through a number of the squares that make up Savannah's historic district.  The squares each have their own story and history and it was a very interesting tour.  One of Paul's favourite was the trees in the square by the courthouse and gallows where no spanish moss grow.  For it is said that spanish moss will not grow where innocent blood has been spilled.  My favourite was Johnson square.  It was the kitchen square originally where you needed to go if you had something to cook in ovens.  Not surprisingly a couple of the major fires that destroyed much of Savannah started here.  James just liked all of the random facts that the tour guide knew.

We had lunch at the Pink House and then went to the First African Baptist Church.  This is the oldest black church in North American and was also a stop along the underground railroad.  We went down to the basement and saw the air vents in the floor that allowed air to flow to the runaway slaves.  The tunnel lead out to the river where the slaves crossed at night.  The entrance to the underground railroad area is not known as at the end of that time, the members of the day sealed it up and it remains hidden. Paul was also interested to hear that John Mellencamp filmed a music video and was baptized here.

Our Thoughts Today

Today we are thinking about our friend Keith in Victoria who, today, is starting 3 days of radiation therapy for thyroid cancer. Our thought are always with Nancy in Texas hoping her treatment is going well. We are also thinking about Skeena and hoping she is recovering as well.

Friends are not always within our sight but always in our hearts.

Quick Post - More Planes (Jets) - No Pictures

As we were packing up this morning the airforce F15 must have been heading out on a training mission. Five or six of them took off within a couple of minutes. We heard them coming but the clouds were so low we could not see them. They were screaming just over our heads and right over our site to the point were James had to cover his ears. Kathie and I were peering into the clouds trying to see them to no avail.

As we were driving north we noticed that the palm tress had disappeared and we now have oak and pine tress. The trees have Spanish Moss hanging from them.

We have moved up to Savannah, Georgia, the campsite is south west of the city.

Planes, Vapour Trails and Fog

So what to do what to do. I am in a campsite right underneath a flightpath to an international airport and I am just sitting around the campsite.

I noticed that some of the planes had vapour trails coming off the flaps. And then the fog rolled in and the planes were appearing out of the fog. You could hear them coming and then they would be right there.

So out came the tripod and I started shooting.

The first two are Out of the Fog. We heard them long before they appeared and the poof they were right in front of us.

These two had great vapour trails:

This last one was coming out of the fog and it has vapour trails. If you click on the image it will show you the large version.

Darn Daytona

We started the day with a great plan, we were going to drive to one of the state parks just outside of St Augustine and stay for a couple of days to look around the oldest continuously habited white settlement of North America. It is only 45 miles north of Daytona and with the race being delayed there was no room at the inn or the campsite or any other place in town. So we moved on.

We are staying just north of Jacksonville, Florida and even though we drove farther that we had planned we still only drove for a couple of hours.

Our campsite is on the flight path for the Jacksonville airport. There must be an US Air Force Base as well. Here is a shot of an F15 from our campsite (it is not cropped).

When I was out shooting birds yesterday one of the birds I did not get a good shot of was a Little Blue Heron. There is a small pond behind our campsite and after lunch I walked over to it and here is my Little Blue Heron:

So another great day, even with a few showers to cool things off, the air conditioning is on.

Another Good Day

I got up early this morning and drove down to the Black Point Wildlife Drive in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The area is a mix of swamp, tidal flats and palm and pine trees. They have a bird check list with 330 birds. They also have bobcats, alligators, manatees and a host of other animals. The drive is several miles long and took me about 2 hours.

Here is a White Ibis:

Here is a collection of Egrets and a Roseate Spoonbill. There are Great Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Snowy Egrets (maybe they would be at home in Victoria).

Here is a TriColour Hern:

Here are a couple we see in Victoria.

Today was a boots and jeans day because I started the day in the swamp and because it has cooled down over the last couple of days. Friday it was 34 Celsius here and it has dropped to 18 so it feels quiet cool. We did not get hit by the rain that shut down the Daytona 500, but we did get some light showers.