Into Florida

Thursday, Nov 11, 2010
Today we finally head into Florida. At the visitor center they give out sample of orange and grape fruit juice.

We stayed a couple of days at St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continually occupied European settlement in North America. Technically is the oldest city in US. Older than James town. This is where in 1565 King Phillip II of Spain sent Pedro Menendez with 700 soldier and colonists to land and found St. Augustine. They were to drive out the French and establish a fort to protect Spanish ships sailing in the Gulf Stream from Peru and Mexico back to Spain loaded with gold and silver. We spent a day on our bicycles exploring.

Construction of Castillo de San Marcos was begun in 1672. The largest fort in the time. We spent the morning exploring this magnificent structure.

The fort is built of coquina, a locally quarried soft shellrock that we mentioned being used for buildings and streets it Savannah. You can actually see the sea shells

that are a big part of this rock which gets harder and harder with age. It was easily shaped by artisans, but did not become brittle and crumble under cannon fire.

We also watched a re-enacted cannon drill that was done many times a day by the Spanish soldiers at this fort. The boom vibrated us to our toes. This village was attacked over and over by other countries, pirates, native Indians. But it was never over taken.

There are 43 miles of white sand beach along St. Augustine and St. Johns Counties and is obviously a popular winter destination for many northerners. There is lots to see, unfortunately Ellen suddenly got very sick half way through the day, 101 temperature and praying to the porcelain God. We saws the first shine to Mary.


Other site that we’d like to go back to are: The Fountain of Youth (discovered by Ponce de Leon), the old jail, the 1791 Cathedral, the fine old hotels built in the 1800s, the Black Raven Pirate Ship and more.

A Day in Savannah, GA

11/9 and 11/10 Savannah, GA. We took a trolley tour through the historic, colonial and Victoria areas of Savannah. Ellen particularly liked how the city was originally planned in “wards” with each ward having a large park or “square” with homes and businesses for that ward surrounding the square. Really is conducive to community. Even today, people can be seen throughout the park on the many benches feeding the birds and squirrels, visiting, having lunch etc. There are many outdoor cafes and old men still sit outside of some of the older businesses (like the shoe-shine, barber shop) and like nothing better for you to stop and pass the time. The people are very friendly.
There are lots of old churches with extremely tall steeples, and with all the trees, it is difficult to get pictures that really show their magnificence. Again, there is lots of iron work which used to be a way that a person could display his wealth.
Houses and walk-ways were often made with a mixture of shells, sand and clay making a “concrete” that gets harder with age. We walked and drove over many of these walk-ways that were laid in the 1700s.

The rest of the historic streets were made of cobblestones. Very bumpy to drive over, but very beautiful.
We visited the famous Georgia Peanut Store where you can sample on 100’s of nuts. We sampled so many nuts that we were too full to buy anything.

There is a market on the harbor and it was fun to walk along and listen to all the wonderful street musicians sing or act or play an instrument for their supper money. Some were quite talented.



Later we visited the museum in the Visitor center. As you may know many movies have been filmed here. We say the place and original bench the Tom Hanks said “ life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get ”


Next we finally will head into Florida and plan to be in Orlando and stay at the Thousand Trails for 3 weeks. More later…………………

A Day at Charleston, SC

11-4-10 – 11-6-10 we stayed at Lake Aire RV Park near Charleston, SC.
Upon our arrival we took a walk around to inspect our surroundings. On the lake we spied the strangest looking creatures. We think they are some kind of goose as they are far too large to be ducks.
The weather was a bit drizzly, so we went for a drive around the historic district of the old city. Then we got out and walked to take in all the amazing old homes and buildings.

Lots of iron work, beautiful hidden gardens behind every fence and narrow streets.

We also walked along the battery to look out toward Fort Sumter where the colonists protected themselves against the British.

Marv had a couple of jobs while we were at this park…the favorite being a clogged up “black” tank. That’s the “poop” tank for you non-RVers.

I have been working long hours so Marv has been cooking more of the meals. We’ve discovered that he makes an exceptional pizza and even had his first try at making a pumpkin pie. We both agreed that it was very delicious.

It was also time to upgrade the bicycles to a more upright “old” people’s style and ones that would work equally well on pavement, dirt paths and gravel. A new bike for Marv while Ellen’s bike got a face-lift (new tires, brake pads, handlebars etc). Some of the newer components from Marv’s old bike were transferred to Ellen’s so now we will be able to get out for sight-seeing a bit better. We were wishing we’d had them in D.C., as we walked for miles there.