Melbourne, Florida
We stayed at a nice county park, with nearby college baseball diamond. We just enjoyed the weather and hung out at Melbourne Beach. Not much else to say…
St. Augustine, Forida
We spent the first two night with Hilda’s rear window pointed at the beach at an RV park just south of St. Augustine. Great to sleep hearing the roar of the waves all through the day and night. Walks on the beach, but the numerous large dead jellyfish kept us out of the water. Apparently, the Japanese dry out this kind of jellyfish and use it in their cuisine.
St. Augustine is a tourist town, but we were still surprised at the relatively large number of tourists around considering the pandemic. A lot of the other tourist places we have visited have been relatively empty. Still, it was a nice city with interesting architecture, a waterfront and lots of restaurants. We spent a couple hours touring the Castillo de San Marcos, which is the oldest masonry fort in the continental US, built by the Spainish in 1672. Many years ago, I built two different cardboard models of this fortress with my kids as school history projects, so I was excited to see it in person. We visited the Lightner Museum with an eclectic collection of decorative arts (the desk and a Tiffany lamp photos are from here). The museum was adjacent to Flagler College, which has an old and beautiful campus.
Savannah, Georgia
We took a walking tour of Savannah, a charming city founded in 1733. The city was a planned utopian society for poor English families to have a new start. The city planners stayed true to this plan throughout history. Today there are about 24 small square parks distributed throughout the city, which adds greatly to the city’s charm. The old waterfront streets and buildings are still there, including the imposing Custom’s building. After the cotton crops failed in the early 1900’s, the area went through hard times but has been beautifully restored now.
The opening scene of Forrest Gump (with the floating feather, the bus stop and the box of chocolates) was filmed in front of one of those squares. In the photo below, I am standing right in front of the location of the bus stop.
The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) occupies building throughout the downtown area. Apparently the founding and growth of the college was one of the driving forces to revitalizing the downtown area.
We stayed outside Savanna at a state park campground called Skidaway Island State Park. This offered great trails along the boundary of freshwater forests and marshlands. On just one trail, I saw Shell Middens (mounds of oyster shells left by indigenous peoples over hundreds and thousands of years), remnants of moonshine stills, civil war era defensive earthworks, alligator ponds, saltwater marshes and lots of wildlife.
Charleston, South Carolina
We did another walking tour here, but this time it was cold and rainy, which detracted a bit from the experience. This is another charming southern port city with a preserved old downtown region including at least one street and several building from the 1600’s. The early spring flowers are starting to come out on the bushes and trees. I imagine the place will be in beautiful bloom in a few weeks. Water bounds three sides of the downtown, so property in the area is now very expensive. We saw restored homes belonging to Daryl Hall (of Hall and Oats), Steven Colbert and Patty Hurst. I doubt they do lunch together often.
During our months of travel in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah, I have been preparing Hilda for rain. I resealed the windows, reconditioned the slide seals, recoated the roof, adjusted the slide positions, replaced cracked vent covers, buffed and waxed the exterior walls. This has all paid off over the past few weeks here in the south, where we have had quite a few days and nights of thunderstorms. No leaks to date, so this is a non-story of sorts, but a good non-story.
We will continue our trip northward along the coast! If you want to see where we have been already, check out our “Where are We Now” page
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