sandcastle – Page 146 – The Sandcastle

Hiding Out

We are in Lake Aire RV Park near Hollywood, South Carolina, where it is raining. We are parked across from the pool but there is no one in it today. There are lots of people here but they all observed the 10 p.m. quiet time last night. I didn’t even hear the train whistles once I went to bed. We do get a lot of people walking through our site, though, since we are on the route to the bathrooms, laundry room, and pool. I know people like to take the most direct route when it is raining but they did it yesterday, too, when the sun was out and they were on their way to the pool. It always surprises me when people walk between our RV and our picnic table. I wonder if they’d still do that if we opened our awning?

We have good internet here using our aircard in our router again so I am content if somewhat frantic. I discovered last night I have done very little research on North Carolina which is, of course, the next state up the coast so I’m glad to sit right here for the holiday weekend doing more research.

TTYL,

Linda

No Place to Go

One of the challenges of being retired is keeping track of time. We knew we couldn’t stay the weekend at Skidaway State Park but we forgot that the reason was Memorial Day Weekend. For those of you who don’t camp, Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial season opening. I suspect ninety-nine percent of people who camp will do so somewhere on Memorial Day Weekend. Having forgotten that, we blithely set off as usual this morning without any reservations for Friday night or any other night. Oops!

Just in case we had forgotten we couldn’t stay where we were, the park ranger at Skidaway came and took our camping permit off the post at our campsite this morning. I had called the park office to see if there was any possibility we could stay but they had no cancellations so they had 57 reservations for their 57 campsites. They will fill the sites on a first arrived gets first choice basis but even the handicapped sites will be filled whether or not the people in them are handicapped. Oh, well.

I had been having an email discussion with Oak Plantation Campground near Charleston, South Carolina, about coming there this weekend since that is where our next set of sightseeing stops are. I had been assured they had room for us. But when I called them this morning to confirm, I got voice mail and no one returned my call. So we set off with no place to stop for the night. But we had options according to my list of potential places.

The next option down the road was a private RV park in Hardeeville, South Carolina, so we drove there. At least, we drove to where is was supposed to be. We found lots of sales lots for new, upscale subdivisions instead.

So when Dave stopped to buy fuel, I called the nearest state park, Hunting Island State Park. The woman who answered the phone there said they had one spot left for Friday but none for Saturday. I said we’d take Friday. She put me on hold a couple of times while she did what she did then gave me a confirmation number and a campsite number.

We were only about 30 minutes from the park but it was too early to check in so we drove back into Georgia and crossed into South Carolina again this time using I-95 instead of US 17 so we could get a South Carolina state map at the Welcome Center. If you come this way, don’t take US 17 even if you already have a map. The bridge is high and so are the winds across it; I-95 is MUCH better. Then we headed to Hunting Island State Park.

Dave thinks I am a GPS system. He counts on me to tell him when and where to turn. But he occasionally decides to turn somewhere else because it feels right to him. It often is a good decision. However, he then expects me to know what he should do next. When you are using a real GPS and you make an unscheduled turn it says, “Recalculating,” then a moment later tells you what to do now that you are in a different place than the original plan. I don’t recalculate so quickly. Sometimes, by the time I figure out the implications of what he did I want to say, “Turn right at the corner you passed Ľ mile back.” Which means I now need to recalculate again. It helps if I can persuade him to stop somewhere while I recalculate.

But we did get to Hunting Island State Park at a reasonable time of day and got in line to check in. They didn’t have us on their list. We didn’t have a reservation. But, we had a reservation number. So they put that into their computer and told us our reservation is at Table Rock State Park. We’d never heard of that park. It turns out to be about as far from here as you can get and still be in South Carolina. Wrong! So, they found us a spot here for one night and we all set out to figure out what happened.

Fortunately, I had made the original call from Dave’s cell phone so it had records of what happened. It seems every time the clerk put me on hold then came back his phone registered it as a new call. So his records showed I called Hunting Island State Park. Seconds later, the first time she put me on hold then came back, it registered as another call to Hunting Island State Park. The second time she put me on hold and came back it registered as a call to Table Rock State Park which is where she made our reservation. But, I never hung up. I never called Table Rock at all, let alone made all three calls within two minutes.

So Ranger Kyle made arrangement for us to get a refund from Table Rock State Park. He was very apologetic for the glitch and said if the refund didn’t come through be sure and call him so he can follow up on it. He wished the payment I made to the wrong park could just be transferred to the right park but Reserve America’s system, the people who do all the reservations for most state parks in this country, don’t seem to be able to do that either. Plus, it may take up to ten days for it to show up as a credit on our account. Have you ever noticed how much longer refunds take than charges do?

And we still don’t know where we are sleeping Saturday or Sunday nights.

TTYL,

Linda

Savannah-Ogeechee Canal

I wrote the other day about Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee River protecting the back door to Savannah. Today we visited the canal that connected that river to the Savannah River. This canal was what made it possible for goods to move to and from the Ogeechee River into Savannah.

The Savannah-Ogeechee Canal Society is trying to revive the canal area starting with a small museum and nature center at the Ogeechee River end of the canal.

The area has been declared a historical site.

The woman on duty at the museum gave us a private tour of the canal by driving us in their golf cart down the old tow path. It was a bumpy ride but it let me see the area in a way I would not have been able to do otherwise. The first two pictures below are taken from a new footbridge across the canal and the third one is as close as we got to the river end since mud from recent rains made traveling any further a risky venture.

Today’s rain chased us back down the path and into the museum where we found a model of a “rice trunk.” That’s a channel through a dyke that’s lets a farmer control the water level in a rice paddy.

Among other artifacts on the grounds are this Columbus No. 16 Sugar Cane Grinder.

According to one of the museum’s handouts, a wagon full of sugar cane is fed into this grinder where the juice is squeezed into tubs covered with cheesecloth. The juice is then boiled into the proper thickness and bottled. While the juice is cooking candy forms on the rim of the kettle and is scraped off onto peelings from the stalk and eaten like suckers by the children. Sounds good; doesn’t it? Makes my teeth hurt to think how sweet that must be, though. Please, pass me something salty-crunchy now, OK?

We are camped for a few nights at Skidaway Island State Park. This is another one with mostly pull-though sites but the one lane roads are two-way so it must be interesting to try coming here when it’s busy. The are fully booked for Memorial Day Weekend so we need to move on Friday. I wonder where we will wind up?

I know we are not going to see all the sights here we hoped to see. It’s been raining day and night so we are staying in and staying dry more than we intended.

The challenge with that has been our internet setup. It appears our router is dying. So we’ve been taking turns passing our aircard back and forth between our two computers. It’s Dave’s turn again as soon as I get this posted. We are friends again now but for awhile there the “discussion” about what to do about our poor internet got fairly heated. It’s a good thing we have no close neighbors in this park. Dave wants me to try a new system that hasn’t been proven yet. Why me? Because it uses a cell phone to connect and he just bought a new iPhone. My phone, however, is five years old so my contract is now just month to month so can be cancelled anytime without penalty. He could use my new phone to connect to the internet instead of me having to do it but then do I get to just unplug him when when I get a call? More discussion to come but I don’t think the next round will be heated. Stay tuned for updates as they happen.

Speaking of neighbors, we almost met some the other night. An RV the same brand as ours pulled into a site across the road from us. We’ve been taught not to go introduce ourselves while people are still setting up because it can mess up their routine. So we waited a bit. Then we decided they were probably having supper since they pulled in about six o’clock. So we waited a bit more. Then it started to rain again. Then it got dark. In the morning I looked out the window when I first got up and they were breaking camp. When are you supposed to go introduce yourselves to neighbors, anyway?

While driving around the Savannah area I saw a couple of signs some of you might like. One was a church sign that said, “Exposure to ‘Son’ may prevent burning.” The other was place advertising Angus burgers that had put a “D” in front of “angus!” Any of you remember Roger Miller’s son Dang Me? How many of you besides me are going to have that in your heads for the next few hours?

Dave just showed me a weather map for Memorial Day. It pretty much doesn’t matter what part of the U.S. you are in–plan for rain. Sorry about that.

TTYL,

Linda

Driving Through Georgia

Jekyll Island was, once upon a time, a fairy tale place. The beach getaway of the very rich. People named Pulitzer, McCormick, Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan. They and others bought this island, built a clubhouse here, then built their own cottages. Cottages so big one of them had 17 bathrooms. They and their families spent their summers here away from the heat of the city. Until they moved on. Now it still has its historic district and a museum with exhibits of those days and tours of the island. We saw the film at the museum and the exhibits there but we did not take the tour. The tram did not have enough leg room for us to ride it comfortably. As you all know by now, I am big on comfort.

We camped last night at the Jeykll Island State Park. A cold front came through, it rained really hard, and the temperature dropped. So this morning it was dark and cool and we slept until almost 9:30.

Today is a good day for ducks. I like duck. Roasted duck. Someday I’d like to try turducken. That’s where they stuff a boneless duck with a boneless chicken then put that into a boneless turkey and roast the whole thing. Sounds good to me.

As I’ve said before, I like small museums. Except for their unreliability. The website for the Maritime Museum at the Historic Coast Guard Station on St. Simons Island, Georgia, say they are open seven days a week. They aren’t. We tried on two different days. They say they’ll teach you what is was like for the guys stationed here in the 1940s. Maybe if we could get in they would. But we can’t get in. If any of you succeed, please don’t tell me it was wonderful.

We didn’t get into the Geechee Kunda Cultural Arts Center & Museum in Riceboro, Georgia, either. But, they never said they’d be open for us. They had a BIG event there April 18th. Maybe they haven’t recovered yet.

Late afternoon we arrived at Fort McAllister State Park. This is the first fort we’ve visited that was a Civil War fort. It had a great museum but my photos from there didn’t turn out well. Dave’s photos of the fort are much better so I’ll include them shortly. This fort was built along the Ogeechee River which was important to the shipping and receiving of supplies of Savannah, Georgia, during the Civil War. What I want to tell you about this fort is that its claim to fame isn’t so much the battles it won as how it did that. The fort was built of dirt. So when the Union ships fired on it the ammunition just sunk into the mud walls. Every night, the Confederate soldiers piled the dislodged dirt back onto the walls so the next day the Union ships were starting from the same place they’d started the day before. In the meantime the Rebs were shooting heated cannonballs into the Yankee ships setting them on fire. it wasn’t until the U.S.S. Montauk came with it’s iron cladding that a ship withstood the cannon fire. That battle was called a draw. Finally, the Union attacked from the land side with a ratio of 25 soldiers to one. That did it for this fort.

So now we are parked in the campground at Fort McAllister State Park. This might be a good park for those us you who drive up and down I-95. It has water and electric hookups for $24 a night plus $3 admission to the park and most of the sites are pull-through. It also has a dump and several trails in addition to the museum and fort. Plus, there’s a boat dock and ramp in the campground for salt water fishing with a license. Our cell phones both had good reception but our Sprint aircard did not. We do not have a satellite dish but did park in the trees. I don’t know if there are more clear spots down by the river.

Tomorrow we will enter Savannah to see what there is to see there.

TTYL,

Linda

Fort Frederica

Another day; another fort. That seems to be what we visit most lately. I guess that’s what happens when you search out history sites along a country’s coastline. But this fort is different. OK, the fort itself is not but the surroundings are.

We started, as usual, in the visitor center. The movie was already playing for other visitors so we were invited to enjoy the exhibits while we waited. I enjoyed the games on display. They had written instructions for you to play them. This one is called Bagatelle and I’ve read in books about people playing it but I had no idea it was so much like pinball or pachinko. In this one you use a wooden rod to push the not-very-round balls up the channel on the right. I had Dave quickly calculate my score because the movie was starting again. We think I got 225 but are not sure of that.

Then we went exploring. This time I got to go too because this park provides golf carts to their visitors who want them.

So, I drove carefully across the bridge over the first moat into the town.

There are only foundations left of that colony but they give us an idea of how small the houses were.

James Eward Ogelthorp invited people with myriad skills to come to his new colony. Archaeologists have been busy here studying many documents to figure out who lived and worked where. Most of the colonists had a business as part of their house. Here’s a sample of them.

Then we crossed another moat and came to the fort itself.

So, another day; another fort. And we haven’t even started on the Civil War ones yet.

TTYL,

Linda