Lake Aire RV Park

Name; Lake Aire RV Park and Campground 4375 Highway 162 Hollywood SC 29449, phone 843 571 1271
Date; 10/28-11/4/12
Staff; friendly, but not outgoing, just doing her job.
Price; $23.  with Passport America 50% off  discount.
Site descrciption; Fairly level grass. Roads gravel and a very rough road going into park. The road is almost a turn off, but we had friends that recommended this park. If it wouldn't have been for their recommendation this could have been a turn around. Site are standard spacing with no privacy between them. We had full hookup with 50 amp electric. We had a picnic table. A few small ponds for fishing. About 70 sites. We were on site K7.
Big rig friendly; Yes, but just go slow.
Amenities; ponds, pool, quite spot, laundry.
Laundry; Yes, but we didn't check it out.
Phone/Wif/TV; Our Verizon worked well, Wifi in park was very good at our site.TV, we used our satalite, good shot of southern sky.
Dog friendly; yes, very. Lots of room to walk a dog.
Night; very very few lights in park.Quite, with an occasion train.
Book exchange; NO
Comments; A very good locations and rate for visiting Charleston. Downtown Historic Charleston about 10 miles. It is just a bare bones campground. It was fine for us, clean and quite. And served our purpose very well to visit the Charleston area. We would stay here again

Ocean Lakes RV Resort

Name; Ocean Lakes,6001 South Kings Highway Myrtle Beach SC 29575 phone 843 238 5636
Date; 10/21-10/28/12
Staff; Friendly, picture checking into a large hotel
Price; Rally fee  $50. per night, this was the rally rate.  Regular rates about $30 to 70, varies from season to locations.
Site description; We had a pull thru with 50 amp full hookup.  We were in "oceanfront". We were maybe 50 yards to the edge of the beach. The roads were very narrow and some members had a problem pulling into or out of sites, because of the narrow roads and other RVs in front or back of them. Lucky for us we could get out and in ok. There is NO privacy between sites.  The sites were level and paved. Not all sites in the park are paved.  Trash pickup at site. Picnic table, no fire rings.There are about 900 RV sites and over 2000 permanent sites, many with homes on stilts. This is a very very big resort.
Big rig friendly; yes with caution, narrow roads.
Amenities; too many to mention, check out their web site www.oceanlakes.com
Laundry; about 100 washers and dryers. Very clean with a laundry service and dry cleaning.
Phone/wif/TV; Verizon cell and data very good. Wifi in Park good, 70 channel cable TV.
Dog friendly; Yes but not easy to find a spot to walk you dog in most areas.
Night; Good night lighting. No noise other then the ocean.
Book exchange; Not sure but I would guess there is one somewhere.
Special features; A short walk to the beach.
Comments; This resort has 310 acres, ocean front. Super if you want the beach. I would not want to be here in season. It must be like a small city in season. They have every thing you could want to do while here. Like I said check out their web site. For us its to crowed and not our type resort. We would probably not stay here again unless with a rally or other special event.

Our site, the beach is beyond the overlook platforms, bottom row of pictures- narrow road, beach and laundry room, part of it.

Florida Rambleings

     Forgot in our last blog that we met a fellow blogger Darren and Joyce  and their two great dogs. Their blog is  http//:america-by-rv.blogspot.com it is fun meeting other bloggers. We have been following their blog for over a year.
      Also forgot while in Savannah there were a lot of girl scouts and signs saying welcome girl scouts. The reason, the 100 anniversary of the girls scouts. Juliette Gorden Low founded the girls scouts in Savannah. The people at the visitors center told us that a lot of girl scouts are making a pilgrimage to Savannah in tribute to the 100 anniversary.
       To answer a few questions about our last couple of blogs. The antique store in Savannah was 4 floors of antiques stacked floor to ceiling with isle's just wide enough to get through. There was enough furniture to furnish many, many old homes in Savannah. We saw tags on items from $5. to $5,000.  About were we stayed. We stayed at Lake Aire RV Park in Charleston and Hardeeville RV Park in Savannah. We will update them soon in another blog, check back. Changed how we send out emails, we are now sending out bulk email's as BCC, Blind Carbon Copies so no one's email address will be seen. This is for your added  security. Your email address's won't be seem by others. We had tried to do this in the passed twice,  and it didn't work for us. I believe the reason it didn't work was a few email address were no longer in use. I kept getting error messages, removed them and now it is working. We had a few email address that were changed and didn't know about the changes so the BCC won't work. 

     We did so much touring the two weeks we spent in Charleston and Savannah that we should have made notes. As we sit and reminisce we remember things we wanted to share with you and put in our journal, which is our blog. One of these things is the story of "The Waving Girl". "One of Savannah's favorite stories involves the life of Florence Martus (1868 - 1943), who was known well by Savannahians and sailors of the sea as the Waving Girl. The daughter of a sergeant stationed at Fort Pulaski, Florence later moved to a cottage along the river near the entrance of the harbor with her brother George, the Cockspur Island Lighthouse keeper.
As the story goes, life at the remote cottage was lonely for Florence whose closest companion was her devoted collie. At an early age, she developed a close affinity with the passing ships and welcomed each one with a wave of her handkerchief. Sailors began returning her greeting by waving back or with a blast of the ship's horn. Eventually Florence started greeting the ships arriving in the dark by waving a lantern.Florence Martus continued her waving tradition for 44 years and it is estimated that she welcomed more than 50,000 ships during her lifetime. There is a lot of unsubstantiated speculation about Florence having fallen in love with a sailor who never returned to Savannah. The facts, however, about why she started and continued the waving tradition for so many years remain a mystery".
" copied from about.com

       We also missed the bench in Chippewa Square that Tom Hanks sat on and told his life story in the movie Forrest Gump. The bench has been move to the Savannah History Museum. The last time we were in Savannah the bench was still here, or a replica of the bench.
      We also didn't visit Bonaventure cemetery as the famous statue of the Bird Girl , made famous in the book and then  in the movie, "Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil", was also move to The Telfiar Museum. The Bird Girl statue was featured on the cover of the book, and became a tourists attraction. 
          Linda's favorite chefs restaurant, Paula Deens, A Lady And Her Sons. This is one of several dinning rooms. We ate on the third floor.

    One day while driving back to the rv park and crossing the Savannah River at the end of the bridge we took a left onto Hutchinson to see what was there. We ended up on what looked like a race track. We saw some people parked and out of there sports cars. We stopped to inquire about the road we were on. They told us it was a road race course. It was closed but now being used again  They believe it was now operated by Porche. Why we could just drive onto it I don't know. They encourage us to do a few slide through the turns. Thank God we were in a Chevy(that's for my friend Barry-inside joke). So we fired up the HHR and ran around the track at break neck speeds between 40 and 50 mph. We didn't slide through any turns, but it was fun. Just one of those crazy things we run into from time to time. 

      
      Since we have been here at the Thousand Trails Orlando RV Park we have met up with several friends. We must have joined that "senior" group, as we play outdoor shuffle board and play bingo.  At least bingo paid off for me, Bob, I won $107 on one of the specials. I did get a lot of strange looks from some of the regulars. You can tell the regulars because of their "bingo bags" and at least six dobbers in front of them. There were about 16 games paying from $40. to $113.

 

St Augustine FL

     The reason for coming to St Augustine FL was for a Carriage rally. The rally was held at Stagecoach RV Park. This is the second rally in less then a month. Both rallies were a lot of fun and we did get to reconnect with friends. At both rallies we played a lot of games, had some great meals and great tech talks. We did some touring in the area, but it was like an old home coming as we spent 4 months in this area. The rally was a success with 29 rigs in attendance. We won't do another rally till Jan of 2013 which will be combined with the Great RV Show in Tampa.
     While in ST Augustine we visited with friends Rodger and Sue that are volunteering at Anastasia State Park here in ST Augustine. It was fun getting together. Of coarse going out to eat is part of getting together. We went to out favorite pizza place in town. We got there for happy hour and had a good pizza. We should call meeting up with friends "meet and eats". On Saturday night we met up again to see the the lighting of the Christmas lights in downtown ST Augustine. There were a lot of people. The town was very crowed. We were here last year and it rained, this year it was just windy. About 7 years ago we were at the Christmas Holiday lighting in Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and Serville TN. All three cities did it on three night in a row. After the lighting we said good bye to our friends and headed back to the RV park.
       Sunday morning we headed to Orlando. It was a drive of about 135 miles. We arrived at the Thousand Trails Clemont/Orlando by about 11 in the morning. We set up got out our bikes and rode around the park. Didn't see  any familiar rigs, but I'm sure we have a few friends here. the park has almost 800 sites and it is about 3/4 full. We are trying to go through all the pictures from Charleston and Savannah to upload. For large uploads we use Webshots. As of December it is going away, or changing. So we will see what we can come up with.  Keep in touch and stay safe. We will be in this area till Jannuary.

Savannah GA Part one

       Here we go again. Another great Southern city, Savannah. We spent four days doing walking tours of the historic area's. The last time we were here we did the hop on hop off bus tour, but this time we wanted to get a lot closer to the history by walking all the different streets, and reading all the plaques. We purchased a walking tour book in the visitor center and took off. The book was very informative with great information. I think we walked on all the streets in the Historic area. For now we got our fill of old southern homes and buildings. We need a break from all that history.   But wait we are  heading to The Oldest City, ST Augustine FL. Well its only for a week and we spent 4 months there so we won't do to much touring. We will upload photos in the future. Again we took many pictures of many historic homes and plaques. We probably walked 6 or 7 miles. We did ride the free shuttle around town to different starting points. We also rode the free ferry shuttle, just for the boat ride and to take some photo's from the water.
     One of the best finds we had in Savannah was Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room. They are only open Monday to Friday for lunch from 11:00-2:00. Lunch is served family style. They do no advertising and there is a sign about 18 X 24 inches out front. That's it. Word of month is how we heard about this restaurant. Mrs Wilkes was featured on all the morning shows and many many magazines. People start lining up at about 9:30. We got there at about 9:45 and were about 30th in line. We did get in on the first seating. There are 4 tables of 10. We sat at a table for 10 with 8 strangers. Four of the folks at our table were RVer's. So that broke the ice and we all introduced ourselves. One RV couple  was from about 50 miles from our hometown. The other RV couple was from TN with their daughter and son in law living in the area. The last couple was from Boston MA. After about 5 minutes the uneasiness of dinning with strangers ended. We did meet the one Rving couple 4 days later on one of our walking tours.The food was fabulous. There was so much to eat we didn't know were to start. There was Southern fried chicken, pulled pork, beef stew,jambalaya and about 12 different type vegetable. See www.mrswilkes.com  If you go to the website read the story.
       Linda (in red) waiting in line. The table, see Bob far right.

      One day we took a ride out to Tybee Island. We did not tour Fort Pulaski, because we did this a few years ago. Friends Abbie and Nancy  told us about the Sweets Treats candy store. Boy was this a mistake going there. We are now about 3 pounds heavier. The pralines and glazed pecans were unbelievably good.
   We had to eat at "The Lady and Sons", Linda's favorite Food Network chef, Paula Deen's place. We did eat here in the passed, but what the heck, we have to eat somewhere. It was just ok, nothing really special, just one of touristy things you have to do.
   One day we took a trip to Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge was only about 5 miles from the  RV park we were staying at. It was a cold and windy day. We only got to see a lot of wading birds and ducks. It was to cold for the turtles and gators to be out sunning themselves. The refuge is part of the Atlantic flyway. Part of the refuge was at one time a rice plantations. see more at www.fws.gov/savannah 

    On our last day in Savannah there was a parade for Veterans day. We saw at least a 1000 JROTC cadets form most of the high schools in the area. We talked with a mother of one of the cadets and she said it use to be mandatory to be in the JROTC program. Now it is not mandatory in all schools, but in some.
      On one of our walking tours we cane upon a antique store. The owner was outside and said stop in and check out the 4 floors of antiques. We did and could not believe our eyes. Your have to see the pictures.
     

Charleston South Carolina Part 2

    On one of our walking tour days we came upon the Moon Pie store. Well we had to try one. It was just ok. Kinda like two soft cookies with a cream filling. Glad we tried it, but won't try another one. On the same day we walked through the old marketplace. Its is several blocks long.  Many craft items and southern treats.  See www.moonpie.com

    Since we had done several house tours in the passed we choose to tour the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. We had toured other plantations in the passed and this one rate down at the bottom of the list in our opinion. The plantation house was nothing at all like many of the other great homes we toured in the passed. It is one of the top 25 most visited historic houses in America. Don't know why. The house was nothing at all like other plantation homes we saw in the passed. The tour also included a "Nature Train". It was nothing more then a tram ride 45 minutes long, through the marshes and forests on the plantation grounds. Nothing special. Also included  "Nature Boat" ride. The ride was about 45 minutes. We saw a few alligators and some wading birds. But again nothing special. The gardens were not in bloom other them the camellias.  They do have a great advertising program. Just not worth the $68.. It was $78., but we both brought a item for their food drive and save $5. each. This is our opinion, others may have had a better experience. We were expecting a magnificent plantation home, and this it was not.
     The Coastal Carolina Fair was taking place while we were there, so we had to check it out. This was the 56 year for the fair. The day we went it happened to be senior day, so we got in for $4. each. We went because we wanted to see "The Village People".Well hurricane Sandy caused their flight to be canceled. So there was someone else filling in, and we never heard of him. We walked around for a couple of hours looking at all the different displays. It was one of the biggest midways of rides we ever saw. There were 62 different rides. We didn't count them, it was on a sign.
     While at the winery we saw a flyer for "The Angel Oak", the oldest tree on the east coast. Well it sounds like another "we should see that". Unforturnally it is closed at 5 and it was after 5. How do you close a tree. Duh! they close the gates to get to it. So the next day we drive out to see the "tree". It is in about a half mile on a sandy road. Wow is all we can say. You have to see it yourself. So check out the photo's. We did see a number of large Live Oaks, but this is among the biggest and bestest. I know that's not a word.

    While we were at the RV Park a Carri-lite RV very similar to ours pulls in right across from us.
We did strike up a conversation which lead to more conversations. They were also from Pennsylvina, the Lancaster area. We did encourage them to join the Carriage Club. And they did. We did get together one evening and spent a couple of hours talking about both our RVing experiences. They are also full timers. They invited us to go out to dinner one evening to a place their aunt told them about. The place was called Bowens Island Restaurant. The restaurant is only open from 5 to 9 daily. We got there at about 6 and waited about 45 minutes to get to place our order. Then you go and try to fine a seat. We did and in about 10 minutes they were calling our name. Our food arrived. It was a super seafood feast. Linda and I split a "Big Ol' Seafood Platter". It was fish, shrimp and crab cakes. Very very good and we had a hard time finishing the platter. See www.bowensislandrestaurant.com
       Friends we worked with at Dollywood were volunteering at the James Island county Park. We contacted them and they invitied us over for dinner and a chance to view their handy work. They were part of a large crew that put up the Christmas light on over 700 displays in the park. It is one of the top 5 Christmas light displays in the country. On the day they invited us over they were going to do a "hot test" of the lights. That is light up the displays and check for outages etc. What a wonderful treat. The display dosen't open until about a week after we were there. So we got to see the lights without the crowds. It is the 23rd year for the event. I believe there were 18 volunteer couples that help the county enployees. There are millions of lights. Linda's camera battery quit or we would have 700 pictures. See www.ccprc.com

   The fire truck holes shoot "water" with lights. The eagle is flying. many of the displays move in some fashion.

Saw these blocks in a store, very net. Most are not glued together. See www.kaplabus.com

        
    We did quite a bit of driving around the area. We visited many of the coastal comunities in the area .We liked the Edisto Beach area, as well as some of the other. In all we put about 300 miles on our car.

Charleston South Carolina Part One

                                                         PART ONE
   After two weeks in Myrtle Beach and a fun rally with friends from the Carriage RV Club we moved about 100 miles south to Charleston SC. We had been in Charleston before, but only for a day. We were staying for a week to see the area in more depth. Charleston is a super preserved Southern city.  We bought a city walking tour book of the historic area. We spent four days walking the historic area. Walking the main tour and the two additional alternate tours we probably covered 4 or 5 miles. Of course we had to stop and have lunch in between. We took several hundred photo's of many of the buildings. It will take us a while to arrange all the photo's. We took a picture of the plaque  for each building then several pictures of the buildings. We are arranging them in a digital file. The biggest problem with touring Charleston is parking. Each day we would drive the 10 miles from the RV Park and park at the visitors center or parking garage. The charge is a dollar an hour, with the max of ten dollars. Then we would take the free trolley to a different area of the historic area. Another problem was choosing what to see or tour to take.
       In between walking the historic district we worked in several other tours. We took a boat trip out to Fort Sumter. At the fort was a very good interpretive ranger. Her talk about the fort was very informative. Again we took many photo's. It was a windy day but we road the boat on the top deck for the best views of the harbor. We saw several large container ships making their way to port.

   The fort, the flag that flew over the fort during the siege, see the size of the cannons.

The cannon placements, the USS Yorktown, the new bridge.

     We also took a tour of the only tea plantation in the country. The Charleston Tea Plantation. Unfortunately they only harvest tea in the spring and summer so the factory was ideal. But we did get to see all the equipment used in harvesting and making tea. There was a good video showing the entire process. Its was very interesting. Learned there is a lot more to tea then dunking a tea bag in hot water. Of course we walked away with a box of each of their flavors. Couldn't pass up a good deal, buy five boxes get the sixth for free. What a deal. See www.charlestonteaplantation.com 

     The tea plants, the factory and warehouse

 

The special tea harvesting machine, the only one in the world,Check out theses trees, the store, propagation story.

      On the way to the  tea plantation we saw a sign for a fish hatchery. It was the Bears Bluff National Fish Hatchery. It was a few miles off the main road, but what a super find. It is located along the North Edisto River. We had a super informative tour with a young fishery biologist. You could tell he really enjoyed his job. One of the Hatchery's main projects was working with Atlantic Sturgeons, a "species of concern".  They also work with red drum. We were the only visitors and spent at least an hour learning about the hatchery projects. This was one of those super finds. We then walked a short trail around the hatchery.  They have a great web site which explains a lot about their work. See www.fws.gov/warmsprings/bearsbluff
      Atlantic sturgeons-13 months old, the underside mouth, two week old, a 200+ pound female, about 10 years old

      Tanks with young fish, side view of the sturgeon, large tanks for older fish, Linda on the trail around the hatchery.

   The young man at the hatchery told us about a winery and distillery about a mile from the hatchery.
WOW, double wow. This was another "shut the front door" find. The winery was Irvin House Vineyards.They make about 7 different Muscadine wines. There is a small charge for tasting, but you get to keep the glass. The wines were very good, each one better then the last, or is that the effect of the wine. Anyway  we left with a few bottles. Part of the winery is the Firefly Distillery. WOW triple wow. Its six dollars to  taste six different blends of vodka, rum and bourbon. But you can keep the shot glass. Good thing Linda is the designated driver. The Sweet Tea Bourbon is not your grandma's sweet tea. The flavored vodka's and rum's etc are wonderful. After six "shots" I was feeling good. But the hostess would bring out another bottle and say "this is my favorite", there no extra charge. This happened twice. The six of us tasting were having a good time. So I picked out a mix of 4 different vodka's and liqueurs. Wait, can't do that. The law states you can only buy 3 bottles. So I buy 3 and my "DD" buys 1.  What a great finish to a great day.  See www.fireflyvodka.com  and
www.irvinhousevineyards.com

     The wine in the fermenting tanks, a happy Bob, and is the picture blurry or is it just a very happy Bob.

Cypress Camping Resort

Name; Cypress Camping Resort, 101 Cypress RV Way, Myrtle Beach SC, 29588, 843 293 0300
    www.cypresscampingresort.com
Date; 10/15-10/21/12
Staff; Very friendly and helpful.
Price; $10. with Coast to Coast, regular rate $30-$58.
Site Description;We had a pull thru with full hook ups 50amp electric. Long cement pad with gravel roads. Average spacing, no privacy between sites.
             OUR SITE

Amenities; A pool that has a super walk in ramp on one side. 1200 foot frontage on the intercostal waterway. Boat ramp. Conference center. Small pond for fishing.

Pool, see the walkin ramp. individual shower rooms, the laundry room.

Laundry; Very clean 4 washer and dryers.
Phone/Wifi/TV; Verizon phone 4 bars 33G, Wifi was fair to very good. TV most sites with open sky view. Over the air  TV, many stations.
Dog friendly; Yes, lots of room to walk a dog.
Big Rig Friendly; Very big rig friendly. Wide roads, all pull thru sites.
Night; Very low light. Very quiet.
Summary; Super park, with great views along the intercoastal waterway. A super value with Coast to Coast. We would stay here again.  The park just opened in June of 2012.

Tug pushing a barge.  The parks dock.

The Resort At Carolina Crossing

Name;The Resort At Carolina Crossing, 415 Wallace Fork Road Roanoke Rapids NC 27870
Date;10/14/2012
Staff; Friendly
Price;$37.50, Member of Passport America-see restrictions
Site Description; Most sites are pull thur. We got a site with a gazebo because it was the last cable site available. It was full hook up with 50amp and 21 channel cable TV. Some sites are paved, some are gravel. Entry road is only paved road. Gravel roads a little dusty. No privacy between sites.
Amenities; Pool, hot tub and clubhouse.
Laundry;Didn't check it out
Phone,Wifi, TV; Verizon phone worked ok. Cable was 21 channels don't know about over the air. Don't know about wifi
Big Rig Friendly; Yes, see photo's, wide roads..
Dog Friendly; Yes, room to walk a dog.
Night; Quiet, very low light.
Opinion;Good stop if traveling along I95. About mile of highway, but no highway noise. Super rate for Passport America at about $18, but high if paying regular rate.

     Our Site

Note wide roads