"...I decided to visit California for a year or two to see its wonderful flora and the famous Yosemite Valley. All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander."
--John Muir (1868)
St. Augustine's Spanish fort overlooks the beautiful harbor
A short couple hours drive took us to St. Augustine, Florida where we had a camping space reserved in Anastasia State Park, just across the harbor from the old city. St. Augustine has been a tourist town for hundreds of years and they really know how to do it. The old Spanish fort lies right on the water and next to the very walkable streets. We caught a tour of the fort before dark and set up our camper for the week.
Settled into camp for the week
For a small city of about 13,000 people, it has a wealth of restaurants (over 220 according to TripAdvisor) and we managed to sample a few during our stay. Denis worked during the week and Lynnae managed to fill her time with exploring the beautiful beach with Tucker, doing grocery shopping, laundry, riding her bike and visiting the town.
She toured the incredible Flagler College campus, which is housed in the Ponce de Leon Hotel built by Henry Flagler in 1888.We have both been reading a great book about this fascinating man called The Last Train to Paradise about his construction of the railroad line that essentially created the Florida we have today. Flagler was a partner of John D. Rockerfeller in Standard Oil who took his fortune and started a second career as a land developer and railroad man. He built the railroad from Jacksonville to St. Augustine, fell in love with the town and moved there, building a few very high-end luxury hotels to draw the richest tourists of his day. The Ponce de Leon was the first hotel to have all electric lights. Fron St. Augustine, he extended the railroad to Palm Beach and built a mega hotel there which created that city from basically swampland. When he extended the railroad to Ft. Dallas in 1898, it had a population of about 300. The name was changed to Miami a few years later. In 1905, Flagler started his most ambitious project--building a railroad to Key West. It took 7 years and cost hundreds of lives, but it was an engineering marvel for it's time. The railroad was destroyed by a hurricane in 1935 that is still considered the most powerful storm ever to hit the US mainland with winds of over 200 MPH. Read the book, it's fascinating.
White Egret building a nest
Rescue or Sacrifice?
BIG guys
Our last day in St. Augustine, we visited the world's famous Alligator Farm right across the road from our state park campground. Home to nearly 1000 alligators and crocodiles as well as many birds, turtles and little primates, it is a small zoo that is really quite fascinating. To see 15 foot alligators from just a few feet away is pretty cool.
What are those turtles doing, Mommy?
We will definitely go back to St. Augustine someday, hopefully during the holidays when the entire city is draped in white lights (it is considered one of the top few cities in the world as measured by white light displays--not sure who actually keeps track of that).
Next stop--Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center!
After leaving Savannah, it was a fairly short couple hours to pick up bar-b-que at the Georgia Pig, which lived up to its reputation for great food and weird vibes. Another short drive got us to the Walkabout RV Park in Woodbine, GA--a small, old RV park recently bought by a couple from Australia. It was simple and quiet and had its own boardwalk and gazebo on the Crooked River (courtesy of the defunct housing development next door, "The Landing at Crooked River"). We relaxed for much of the week (the dining choices and attractions in Woodbine were limited) while I worked for my first week on the road--more about that in a later post.
One of the unique events in Woodbine is the Woodbine Opry. What started out as a fundraiser to renovate the local high school has turned into a weekly get-together for traditional music--bluegrass and gospel on Friday and electric country on Saturday. We went to the bluegrass night and I have to say it was friendly and homey but the music was just ok. The people were as down-home and real as could be and it clearly was the social center of Woodbine (pop. 1400). Saturday night we again went to the old high school to hear country and hopefully dance (after another bar-b-que dinner, this time at Captain Stan's--rated #1 of 1 restaurants in Woodbine on TripAdvisor and the self-proclaimed oldest tavern in Woodbine). Well, country night was a blast! The band was funky but good and the whole town was out there dancin' up a storm. Then, Denis and Lynnae showed up, with their Fred Astaire city-fied country swing and cha-cha dancing and brought down the house. By the time we left people were hugging us and inviting us back. We won a home-made cake in the raffle and one woman told me "Honey, Ah jus' love lis'nin' to y'all tawk" as we were pulling ourselves away. All in all, a wonderful time at the Woodbine Opry.
On Saturday before the Opry, we spent the day on Cumberland Island. A long story in itself, this place was once owned by the Carnegie family, now a National Seashore where some of the family still live. It is amazingly beautiful and alive with history. You have to take a ferry to get there and there are very few cars on the island but over a hundred wild horses. The beach is so long you can't see from one end to the other due to the curvature of the earth. When we were on it we saw two other people and hundreds of birds as far as we could see. Pictures don't do it justice. It's amazing to think that in the 70's this island was almost strip mined for tungsten. And to top it off, on the ferry ride back to the mainland, dolphins were surfing in our boat's wake!
Lynnae also visited the Okeefanokee swamp while I was working one day and she may write about that adventure herself.
At last, this post is being added with the above pictures on March 28. (The puzzle of adding pics is now more completely understood by me.) Anyway, at this point the idea of touring without Denis and/or Tucker was new to me. With a little effort, I made it over to Okefeonkee Swamp/Wildlife Refuge. It was informative and fun in its way. The walking property was open and had guided trails explaining some of the history, along with the prominent fire in 2011. It was an introduction to the birds and landscape of our southeastern U.S., along with the efforts of those who had gone before us to tame that land. Swamp life goes underground when there is a threat of fire; when native Indians returned after fires ignited by lightening, they continued to practice their skills of learning to reap the abundance of the swamp. When modern civilization foresaw opportunity, they tried to drain the land but ran into mother nature's natural resistance: the rivers that the canals were to dump moisture into, did the reverse and flooded the canals, no matter how much effort was applied. The project of a fruit/vegetable farm was abandoned, leaving behind piles of land and grooves for water, changing the landscape and providing us with a visual to the history of the area.
A couple links to learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okefenokee_Swamp
http://www.fws.gov/okefenokee/
After a (mostly) uneventful drive from Plymouth (10 degrees), stopping for the night in "beautiful" Carney Point, NJ and somewhere in the middle of North Carolina, we made it to our first real destination, Savannah.
We did have our first Southern meal in Smithfield, NC at a place that was like a cross between a diner and a church social called Hoyt's Lake. The people were all very nice, there were huge pitchers of sweet tea on the tables and they served up glasses of crushed ice. The hush puppies, fried catfish and shrimp were awesome, but our cholesterol went up noticeably after that meal. Savannah has been great with 60-70 degree weather (sorry to mention that to y'all in New England) and a beautiful state park campground that is so quiet and peaceful with Spanish moss hanging all around us. We've taken a walking tour with a southern gentleman, eaten well and shaken out the trailer so we feel pretty at home in it.
Waterfront park in Savannah
We're leaving today for a week in Woodbine GA, which is just on the border of Florida and near the Cumberland National Seashore--this used to be Carnegie's private island and the only access is by ferry. We'll set up there and watch the game, stopping on the way at the "Georgia Pig" in Brunswick to pick up some famous bar-b-que. Go Pats!
St. Augustine has been a tourist town for hundreds of years and they really know how to do it. The old Spanish fort lies right on the water and next to the very walkable streets. We caught a tour of the fort before dark and set up our camper for the week.
