August 13, 2007 by Rick and Tinka.

On our drive down from VA we stopped at Savannah, GA.  They have been restoring their historic district for quite some time.  It is situated right on the Savannah riverfront.  There is lots of history in this town.  It has about 22 squares, or parks in the historic district.  Most of the squares have a statue in the center of it.  Chippewa Square is now famous for the movie scene in which Forest Gump sits on a bench and gives his famous speech about “life is like a box of chocolates.”  You must say that with a real southern draaaaaawl!! 

A sailor had proposed to ”The Lady”, shown below, and they planned to marry upon his return from the sea. She came to the riverfront every day for over 40 years waiting for her fiancé to return.  She died at 72 years old.  She waved and welcomed all the visitors from boats and ships into Savannah for all those years.  Her fiancé never returned.

The more wrought iron on the house, the richer the owner.

Many of the streets in Savannah are paved with a combination of stones.  The irregular stones were ballast stones from the ships coming in to pick up cotton.

 Pirates used to hang out at this house, “The Pirate House”, between raids on treasure laden ships.

While we were in Savannah we went back up to SC to visit Hilton Head which is about 30 miles from Savannah.  It has a lot of beautiful manicured entrances to gated golf communities.  They must expect only locals to shop in the area because all shopping centers and stores are hidden behind trees and bushes.   The city must regulate their signs very closely as there is only one sign per store or center and the size is small.

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August 9, 2007 by Rick and Tinka.

We came into Charleston with a driving rain storm in progress.  We were only in the area for a day, but we had a chance to wander around some of the historic sections.

This is one of the interesting things about many of the old houses, The front door to the houses opens up, not to the inside of the house, but, to an outdoor porch.  Why?  I guess it is because they really don’t have a yard to enjoy in front.  If they want any privacy, they can go to their porch.

Many of the live oak lined streets in the south are gorgeous with moss growing in the trees.  It reminded me of the tunnel effect that the elm trees created where I (Rick) grew up, on National Avenue in Rockford, Ill.

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August 3, 2007 by Rick and Tinka.

We loved the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  They are the inter-coastal islands.  The towns were fairly small with great 3 or 4 story beach houses ( a level per family) to rent. 

There are only local restaurants to choose from and no national chains.  We always hear about Cape Hatteras on the news if a hurricane is heading to North Carolina.  To get to the island we were RVing on we had to cross a high bridge to Roanoke Island.  At the other end of the island we had to cross on a free ferry to get to Ocracoke Island which was about a 40 minute ride.  We went to the beach on both islands.

There were Duck Blinds out in Sound,. Does that look like fun, especially in the winter?

When we left the Outer Banks of North Carolina our next destination was Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  There were 2 routes we could take.  We could go back to the mainland and drive down the interstate or we could take 2 ferry rides and then get on the mainland of North Carolina later.  We chose the ferry route.  We rode the free ferry for 40 minutes and then drove to the end of Orcacoke Island and caught another ferry that took 2 ½ hours.  It took about the same amount of time as driving but we were not spending our gas or wear and tear on the vehicles and ourselves.  That was a fun and different way to travel to our next destination. The scary part of that was they knew how to squeeze in as many cars as they could on the ferry.  Just look how close we are to the wall. 

We climbed up to the top of the ferry and looked down on our rig to check our roof.  Wish I had a bucket of water to climb across from the top of the ferry and scrub the roof rather than climbing up and down the ladder.

We are now at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina which is fairly close to North Carolina.  It is very different from the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  There is a lot more people in this area and very commercialized for the tourists and more full time residents live in the area.  It is a beautiful place with lots of housing communities built around golf courses.  It is too populated for us.  Much different than the Outer Banks where we just came from but we wonder how long it will take the Outer Banks to be just like Myrtle Beach.  These hotels are right on the beach.  

 Have you ever been on vacation to a location you are disappointed in and you have spent lots of money and time to get there?  What do you do?  You still go see all the sights and spend all your money on food and hotels.  Having our house with us gives us flexibility.  Since we really liked the Outer Banks and not real crazy about Myrtle Beach we saw what we wanted to see here and then just relaxed around our “house”.  If we were on real vacation we would be not-stop tourists until time to leave not matter what. Big sand castle.  Sorry to disappoint you but we didn’t create that.

Next stop—Charleston, South Carolina.  

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