Last Stop: Savannah, GA (10/13-10/19/2023)

We made it to our last stop without incident.  The night before we left Wilmington was interesting though.  We had gone to bed around 10pm as we had planned for an early departure.  Our neighbors had picked that evening to party hard with raging country tunes and apparently multiple tequila shots.  Quiet hours in a campground are respected by most.  In all of our travels over the last 3 years, this had not happened another time. 

We gave it until 11:15pm and then I called the after hours management number.  Ring, no answer!  They partied on.  We were not too keen on a confrontation with two drunk dudes at night so we called the police non-emergency number.  It was that bad!  I eventually left a voicemail message on another property management number and someone texted back to confirm the offending campsite.  About 30 minutes later the music was turned off and they must have gone inside to sleep it off.  Not sure who made it happen but we were looking at a 5 1/2 driving day on a short nights sleep.  Just gotta roll with it. 

Fuelin' up!

We arrived at Skidaway Island State Park campground.  The drive into the park could have been a shot from Gone with the Wind.  The beautiful moss covered Oaks indicated that we had finally reached the coastal southeast from out start in the coastal northeast back in September. 

We parked Ruth in the larger parking lot and took the Jeep back into the campground for some reconossaince as we had read reviews of narrow, curving roads with low trees in the park.  We agreed on a strategy and Mike expertly backed Ruth in to our spot.  No trees, rooftop air conditioners or paint were harmed.  We got basic set up complete right before it rained.

The next morning the sun had returned. We headed downtown to the Forsyth Park Farmer's market and to reacquaint ourselves with Savannah.  The market was in a beautiful setting so we made a leisurely walk of it and then grabbed some breakfast at a litte cuban bodega off one of the side streets. After spending the afternoon at the campsite we decided to check out the Saturday night scene in Savannah.  It was a lively walk along the riverfront. We saw a freighter docking while we stopped to watch some live music, had a nightcap at B. Mathews Eatery and headed back home. 

There were some reasonably interesting trails within the park.  We took our bikes for a little "off road" ride one day and then hiked another day. Both times we were treated with nice shade and pretty marshland views. 

On our other trips to Savannah, we had never driven out to Tybee Island.  This time, we loaded up our bikes and planned to ride the bike route we had researched there.  On the way we stopped at Fort Pulaski National Monument, a well preserved and significant landmark of Civil War history.  We then continued to a lovely beachside lunch at The Deck Beach Bar and Kitchen.  We got on our bikes and explored the island on well marked secondary roads which took you through neighborhoods and the cute beach front down of Tybee Island.  As it was off-season and a weekday so the traffic was very light and we had the roads to ourselves. 

To cap off our tour of many lighthouses on this trip, we continued our bike ride to the Tybee Island Light Station.  The museum was closed so we just admired from afar.  We also happened upon the large concrete battery remains of Fort Screven. It was an integral part of America's Coastal Defense system and played an important part in the history of our country, including the Spanish American War of 1898, World War I and World War II.

Our last day was spent cleaning, cleaning, cleaning to get Ruth ready for her winter break.  We did take an afternoon break ourselves and had a lovely lunch at The Olde Pink House.  Someone on our travels told us about it and we were not disappointed.  The food and and ambiance was pure southern charm at its best.  We then headed over to Leopolds Ice Cream for dessert.  The Honey Almond and Cream was our very favorite. We headed back on full stomachs to finish our departure checklist and head for home in the morning, another enjoyable, successful journey.

And on my last post I leave you with these words from Anthony Bourdain...

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

Wilmington, NC (10/6-10/13/2023)

We had never been to Wilmington, NC.  It was always a coastal place that we had wanted to visit but just never got around to it...until now.  The drive from Richmond, VA was all highway again.  The roads were pretty light on traffic with only a few stop lights along the way.  Ruth got the best gas mileage she ever had on this leg of our trip.  We rolled in to the Wilmington KOA in early afternoon and after some slight tree trimming we backed in to our site.  

Mike had found the Wilmington Cross City Trail while researching the area.  We loaded up our bikes and headed to James E.L. Wade park to start our ride.  It was a lovely day and perfect for a ride.  We road about 11 miles one way of the 15.5 mile trail.  The trail was a mix of some sidewalk, dedicated paved bike path and some roadway bike lanes.  There were several busy crossings, but all had crossing lights. The path wound through a couple of parks with ponds and through the University of NC @ Wilmington campus.  Overall it was a very enjoyable ride and I would recommend it. 

Over the weekend, was the Wilmington Riverfest.  We rode our bikes on Saturday, but we did drive down to downtown Wilmington on Sunday to experience it.  The festival covered about a 3 block long stretch of Front Street. The food vendors and music were corralled in a parking lot at the end of the vendor tents.  We stopped and listed to some music briefly and walked the strip.  It seemed well attended but we were not motivated to stay very long.  We also walked along the expansive waterfront of the Cape Fear River while in the Historic Wilmington downtown.  

With such lovely weather we took a drive out to Wrightsville Beach to the small, but diversified farmer's market.  We stopped for a waterfront lunch at the Blue Water Grill.  Both the food and the ambiance was excellent.  We then drove the beach from end to end.  It was during the week and off season so the traffic was non-existent.   However with the concentration of homes on this barrier island you could picture the hoards of people who flock to here during season.  Our day was quiet and enjoyable. 

We also toured the Battleship North Carolina docked on the Cape Fear River.  We spent about 2.5 hours touring and reading about life aboard this ship while it served in World War 2 and beyond.  We climbed up and down the various decks and from bow to stern.  It was easy to get lost in time inside this monstrous grey beast.  

On our last good weather night before the forecasted rain, we pulled out the pizza oven and a bottle of wine and enjoyed homemade pizza by the glampfire. 

 Only one more stop to go before arriving back home.

Long Overdue Visit - Ashland, VA (10/1-10/6/2023)

We headed out of Pennsylvania at around 8:30am.  Our objective was to pass by Washington DC after morning rush hour, but before late afternoon.  The traffic began to build just after was crossed the Pennsylvania state line.  We were super lucky that the traffic kept flowing and we did not hit any long traffic jams along the way.  Mike did a great job, as always, navigating the incoming and departing vehicles along the way.  The campground was literally right off I-95 in Ashland, Virginia.   We drove on Sunday so it was important that we arrive in time to watch the Buffalo Bills game at 1pm.  We made it by early afternoon and got settled in.

We played a little pickleball while in the area but the main reason for stop in this area was to visit with my Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Jay.  We met up with them at their house near Richmond.  It had been several (too many) years since we had seen each.  We caught up for a bit before our hunger got the better of us and we went and grabbed some lunch nearby.  With so much to catch up on we talked straight through lunch. We continued the "catching up" conversation through a lovely little dessert at their house.  Challenging as it was to cover all of life's details in one afternoon, we did out best.  Not sure when we will see each other again but it was fun to catch up reminisce. 

We lived in Richmond, VA for about 6 months back in 1992ish.  We rented a small house in The Fan District of Richmond while there.  We moved so much over our lives, and that particular address was too old to be part of our digital history so we did not have it.  We drove up and down a couple of familiar streets, but nothing ever jumped out as the place.  It was a fun to remember our time there as we drove around and it led us to an amazing Mediterranean restaurant called Stella's for lunch, bonus!

We enjoyed the lovely weather, I got my guitar out a couple of times (finally) and Mike met up for dinner with a friend of his who lives in Northern Virginia.  We also enjoyed an interesting lunch at the historic Hanover Tavern which was near our campground. 

The campground was busily putting together it's Halloween decor while we were there which was quite inventive. 

It was a quick but enjoyable stop on our way back to FL. 

Gifford Pinchot State Park - Dover, PA (9/26-10/1/2023)

Who is Gifford Pinchot and why is a state park named after him you may ask? He an important figure in the American conservation movement.  As the first chief of the US Forest Service, Pinchot tripled the nation's forest reserves, protecting their long term health for both conservation and recreational use.  There is your little history snippet for today.  You are welcome. 

We had already stopped in Pennsylvania on our way towards New York back in June when we visited Gettysburg.  This stop was about an hour and a half from Gettysburg but closer to York and Lancaster. It was a nice park and we had a nice spot. 

We did not have anything specific planned for this stop but we found a couple of interesting things to do nearby.  If there is a market of any kind in a city, we most usually go check them out.  On our way to the market, there was an elderly man in a old van that had broken down in the street.  We pulled over to help him.  Unfortunately his transmission was locked up so pushing the vehicle out of the way.  We let him use our cell phone to call AAA and helped waive traffic by until a Sheriff came to help with traffic control.  We stayed until the tow truck came, which was relatively quick. We then continued on our way to York.

York has a market that had been continuously operating since 1888.  While it did not rival European markets in size or content, you could definitely see the European influence.  There was a good mix of  unique prepared food vendors and many other types of vendors.  We had a mixed lunch from a Korean food stall and a monstrous hoagie sandwich which were both very good. 

Lancaster, PA actually has the oldest continuously operating market in the United States.  It was established in 1703.  It was housed in a similar brick building and was about 30% larger than the York market.  We arrived in the late morning and planned to lunch in Lancaster.  After cruising the market, which had similar vendors to the York market, plus a few more Amish vendors, we walked a few city blocks to check out the town.  As it was drizzly and cool that day, we ended up back at the market for a killer grilled cheese for lunch.

We caught this glimpse of our proximity to the Amish communities in the area while I was sitting in the car waiting for Mike to come out of the Lowes. I heard the clippity-clop of the hooves while my window was down. 

 

  

 

New York, New York (9/15 - 9/26/2023)

We arrived at Sylvan Lake Beach Park via almost all highway driving.  We did have to follow some very specific directions that avoided the Taconic Parkway.  This parkway is restricted to passenger cars only and has a few 10' high bridges.  Ruth is a statuesque 13' 5", that would be a bad day.  The park itself was tucked back into a county park with a lake.  We were in the "meadow".  It was rustic, but had what we needed. 

Yes, an actual phone booth.

With our bikes operational again, we had a lovely 26 mile ride on the Dutchess Rail which was accessed right from the little town of Hopewell Junction near our campground.  The trail was wide and paved and an excellent for my reintroduction to bike riding after my crash. When we got home, we watched the Bills win handily over the Commanders.  Good day.

The next 2 nights/3 days would be in New York City.  We parked our car at the Beacon train station about 20 minutes from Hopewell Junction and caught the train into Grand Central Station.  We came up from the subterranean depth of the station to be greeted by pouring rain.  For some reason, we decided to walk from there to our hotel in Chelsea.  It was about a mile and a half in rain, carrying our overnight bags in raincoats with umbrellas.  Dodging umbrellas on a NYC street in the pouring rain is not fun.  Why didn't we take an Uber or subway you ask?  Honestly, I don't know what possessed us. 

We finally arrived to our hotel, dropped our bags and went on the hunt for food. Our first meal in NYC was a small Cuban restaurant did not disappoint.  It was a sweet reward after our long journey.  We headed out for Madison Square Gardens and the Peter Gabriel I/O Tour concert.  

Entering such an iconic venue was cool.  Neither of us had been inside MSG before and I didn't know what to expect.  It is the pinnacle of NYC sports and music.  I did not feel the same unique vibe as I did when we attended our concert at Red Rocks, but the view from our seats, the sound and the concert itself was excellent, thoroughly enjoyed it.  

The UN was meeting while we were in NYC, not that we were attending, but it had traffic limited and snarled in its wake.  We had booked a morning boat tour of Manhattan which was to circumnavigate the island.  The UN's security detail had different plans.  Even though the tour was limited from circling the whole island, we got up close to the Statue of Liberty and got a lot of history about the 5 boroughs and the various architecture of the city.  It was also a very beautiful sunny day which was a bonus. 

Iconic NYC

After the boat tour we met up with Mike's childhood friend John who came into the city to see us. We had an excellent lunch at Friedman's and walked the Highline trail and visited Little Island.  After all that walking it was time for cocktails at Bathtub Gin, a very toney speakeasy hidden behind the guise of a coffee shop in Hell's Kitchen.  Stopped for some wood fired pizza on the way back to the hotel. A very fun day in the city and catching up. 

Our affair with NYC was almost over but we got up early and headed to Times Square for the spectacle of it all and then strolled through a tiny bit of Central Park.  We continued our good food fortunes with a stop at a small Thai restaurant for lunch.  We popped back by the hotel then took the train right to Grand Central for our train ride back to Ruth.

While we had been lucky enough to miss the wrath of Lee, Ophelia was right on Lee's heels and came right up the coast making the rest of our stay in New York extremely wet.  We had about 3 inches of standing water on our campsite while the rain stayed consistently over us for 2 whole days. Our last day had a break in the rain and we were able to sample some local ciders and a exceptional apple pie from Fishkill Farms.  Bye bye New York, always a pleasure. 

 

Keeping our Eye on the Eye of Hurricane Lee (9/10 - 9/15/2023)

While our planned travels had moved us south along the coast, turns out Hurricane Lee was making its turn toward the east coast, tracking right up along the New England coastline. We were watching the track we drove to Wakeda Campground in Hampton Falls, NH.  We hit a few slow downs on our way around Boston but we were able to settle in before it rained, again.

We explored Hampton Beach and the Seabrook Beach areas via car as it was cloudy and spitting rain.  The beaches were massive.  Between it being post Labor Day and a dismal weather day there were very few people around and most of the boardwalk area shops seemed closed for the season.  We stopped at Markey's Lobster Pound for chowder. The lobster bisque was delicious and my last lobster meal.

Lobster Chowder in Styrofoam...Yes, please!

Another rainy day kept us inside, but Mike was able to work on our e-bikes a bit more to get them in good riding condition.  There was a nice picnic shelter near our campsite which provided a good place to work in the rain.  A local bike shop was able to realign my front tire and we were back in business.  My leg and knee had finally turned the corner on healing and I was ready to get back on the bike.

Fellow campers had suggested that Newburyport, MA was a nice day visit.  We strolled the town and waterfront on a sunny day.  We also drove out to Plum Island and found a quiet beach with a light breeze that proved to be a perfect spot for kite flying.  On our way home, conveniently around 5pm, we enjoyed a lovely cocktail and happy hour menu at Mission Oak restaurant in Newburyport. 

Our densely forested campground had over 400 camping site, almost all nestled in and among very tall pines.  They happened to have a very nice pickleball court which was perfect for me to test out my knee and make sure all was working as planned.

My birthday was on September 14th and we had planned to go to the Salem Witch Trails Museum and have lunch on the waterfront.  The museum and town of Salem has fully embraced this history of the trials and the occult in general.  The witch trails were a very strange atrocity in American history and mixed with this strange "tourist trap" vibe made this a very interesting stop.  We then enjoyed a lovely lunch at Sea Level Restaurant before heading back to Ruth.

Lee was taking a turn for the worse at this point, heading right up the coast.  We got a phone call from the camping office suggesting that we may want to leave early as there are many trees that may be impacted from the storm.  Yikes!

Luckily our next stop was inland about 200 miles near Poughkeepsie, NY.  We had been watching the weather and had already added an extra day in case of emergency.  Well, off we go to get out of Lee's path.  The campground did not offer us a refund for our early departure.

  

An unexpected stop - Boothbay, ME (9/5-9/10/2023)

Since I was still a little hobbled and I was limited to activity, we decided to shave a few days off our Bar Harbor stay and add a few nights in Boothbay, ME.  It was a relatively short drive.  As we exited the highway onto the secondary roads to the campground, we noted a sign that indicated Boothbay was established in 1767.  Ruth, Mike and I all agreed that the road to the campground may have been there since 1768, it's a wonder we had no damage.

Upon our arrival, we settled into our campsite pretty quickly.  The weather was still marginal with rain forecasted daily.  We took a drive into Boothbay to check it out.

This area is a cluster of peninsulas jutting out into various bays along the coast.  To say that there are beautiful views everywhere you look would be an understatement. We headed out to Pemaquid Point to check out the lighthouse. On our way, we drove through Wiscasset and Damiscotta which would require further exploration.  We have seen many beautiful lighthouses, but I think this one was my favorite.  There is something classic, beautiful, melancholy, sacred and haunting about lighthouses.  

Mike played pickleball one day and then we headed out to lunch along the water in Falmouth.  As I was not too active, a lunch out day was a nice break from sitting around. Our friends had gone to this spot on their way up the coast and recommended we go there. It was a very lovely spot right on the water with moored boats as far as the eye could see.  We had a lovely lunch and lingered, enjoying the beautiful sunny day.

On a rather warm day we planned an outing to the Maine Botanical Gardens.  We are not usually botanical garden people, but this one is fairly centralized in Boothbay and was recommended by many folks as a "must see".  It was in fact a lovely place to walk around "slowly" and learn the genesis of the gardens from a guided tour of the main part of the gardens.  I would say the highlights were the butterfly garden, the kitchen garden and the Five Senses garden.  

Mike booked a tour of a local Oyster farm for our last full day in the area.  We arrived at Glidden Point Oyster Farm at around 10am.  A very pleasant Acquaculturist shared the history of oyster farming in this particular area and indicated that it is the "Napa Valley of Oysters".  The history was in fact fascinating, as was it to learn that our Acquaculturist did not even like or eat oysters.  She was very committed to her job in spite of that. 

Our evening ended with a visit to Wiscasset Speedway for a local stock car race.  On our travels we have found this activity to be inexpensive, enjoyable, family-oriented entertainment and a nostalgic expression of small town life.  We stayed for a few rounds/heats, then headed home for our departure to New Hampshire.