"On The Road Again", to quote Willy Nelson

   WOW we are finally on the road again. After several delayed starts we left the Lancaster area of PA. After two days of very hard travel, covering about 800 miles we are now in South Carolina low country. We usually only travel about 2-250 miles a day, but we took off as if something was chasing us. We spent 6 long months in PA.  We did make some good friends while there. We did have more family time then we had in the passed 6 years. So now we are looking forward.
       An unsuspected surprise, friends Glenn and Carol from our old camping club came to the RV Park for a weekend. It was great getting together with them. We did go to a great all you can eat chicken pot pie dinner at a Mennonite church with them. As usual, we ate to much.
     The passed week a camping club from Oregon came into the RV Park. There were about 20 rigs in the group. They were on a around the country trip.
      We are now at a RV Park in Yemassee SC. The park is part of Thousand Trails and about a mile off  I95. Today we toured the town of Beaufort. A pretty southern town. It is home to Pat Conroy, author of "The Boo", "The water Is Wide", "The great Santini", and others. The town was also host to several silver screen movies, like "The Great Santini", "The Big Chill", "The Prince of Tides" and many parts of "Forrest Gump". This is also shrimp country. We did go down to the docks and purchased some fresh shrimp. As we got there they were loading up fresh shrimp in the store. A few hours before they were swimming. Can't get much freshier. We are ready for a shrimp low country boil.
     We also toured Port Royal and some of  The Sea Islands. There are more then 200 islands in Beaufort county. We toured Hunting Island State Park and walked on the boardwalk out into the marsh.
     We enjoyed the area so much we decided to stay a total of 3 extra days. We are back in travel/tourist mood. We took many pictures and will upload some when we get a better wifi connection.
     We will be touring Hilton Head while here. Look for updates and photo's.

Playing tourist is tough work. We get up by 7AM and hit the road running by 8:30. Many tourist places don't open before 9. When viewing wildlife or hiking we get an even earlier start. Imagine that. Days touring means we usually miss our afternoon nap. But we make sacrifices. The first four pictures are The Marsh Boardwalk trail at Hunting State Park.

The following pictures are from Port Royal. The tower is the "Boardwalk Observation Tower" and gives you a great view of the surrounding area. That's Linda on the boardwalk, taken from the top of the tower. There are 68 steps to the top. The last picture is looking at Paris Island Marine training base.

Shrimp boat being unloaded. A live shrimp, note how long the antenna are. A retired fishing boat.

Pictures of some of the great views of downtown Beaufort

St Helena's church and graveyard. Some of the grave stones, the ones like square boxes were used for operating tables during the Civil War. There are both Union and Confederated soldiers buried in the graveyard. For some reason it is called a graveyard, rather them cemetery. Maybe because of the age.

Can you believe the price. This was at almost all the stations.

Our own low country "boil". We steamed fresh shrimp, crabs, corn and potatoes.

On the way down to SC Linda's car averaged 38.1 mpg, and the truck averaged 10.1 mpg. Hopefully it will get a little better here in the flat lands.
Today we toured Hilton Head and were disappointed. The homes and area is beautiful. But many of the roads are private and to get to some of the beaches, restaurants and shops, etc you have to pay a toll of $5. Now that's pay to shop or eat, besides the price of the food etc. ! Not for us. We did get to one of the public beaches and it was super.

Though for the day;  we spent most of our money traveling.....just wasted the rest