June 15, 2010 – Day Thirty-nine

Before leaving Charlotte we met Nikki at 8am for breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants, The Cracker Barrel. This restaurant cooks hearty Southern-style breakfasts complete with grits. What is a grit, anyway?

Shortly after 9am we said our goodbyes to Nikki who was off to work just a couple of miles away. This would be the last relative we’d see until we get to Wisconsin in a month or so. Almost the entire trip so far, we’ve visited friends and relatives along the way, which made this part of our odyssey very enjoyable.

From now on we’d be truly on our own for a while, not knowing exactly where we’re headed next, but I still have that sketchy itinerary in my head of places on my bucket list to see.

So it was that we weren’t 100% sure where we were going to end up tonight, but after searching on a couple of our GPS programs we found a campground that looked interesting, a state park about 150 miles east of Charlotte on Jordan Lake.

Once again we drove through back roads to get there, seeing some interesting small towns. Since we didn’t have the actual address of the park, we ended up going down the wrong road, ending up in the park headquarters. I whipped out yet another GPS program, got my bearings, turned around, and drove to the campground, which was on a peninsula on the lake.

At the campground check-in station we paid our $25 and were told to pick out any campsite we liked. I was a little concerned that finding a spot may be tough, but it turned out that there was hardly a soul there, so we had our pick of the park. And we picked out a winner, secluded with no neighbors we could see, ½ acre of meadow outside of our door, everything surrounded by trees yet with a great view of the lake just across the road. I could have stayed here at least a week just vegetating but Marianne finds that kind of solitude torture.

Just outside the park is the hamlet of Pittsboro which had a sign proclaiming “Historic Downtown” on the highway leading into town. After I set up the trailer, walked the dog, and smoked a cigar relaxing on a log at the edge of the lake, we headed off the half dozen miles to town, sans dogs.

I must remind everyone that it is still Africa-hot here.

We pulled into town shortly after 5pm. Unfortunately the town wasn’t as impressive as we had hoped, the downtown area was a little over a block long, and a steady stream of highway traffic divided their main street. At the end of this street stood the hollowed out shell of what may have been the town’s pride, their court house. Now there were construction scaffolds climbing up the walls of this burnt remnant.

Against Marianne’s better wishes, I pulled into a parking lot and got her to reluctantly come into the first store I saw. She was pleasingly overwhelmed, for it was just the kind of store she likes – unique items, post cards, and knick knacks, with a clothing department thrown in. Marianne spent the next 45 minutes touching, feeling, and investigating each and every item that intrigued her.

Their stuff wasn’t cheap, so after all of that touchy, feely stuff, Marianne just bought a set of ball-point pens that appear to be from a diverse collection of very weird businesses. These funny pens will end up being gifts to a host of friends and relatives. You are forewarned.

We walked the rest of Main Street in the heat, but no other shops piqued Marianne’s interest except an old fashioned malt shop complete with a long soda fountain. In this heat, ice cream and root beer were the perfect staple, diet be damned.

We also stopped at the local Dollar store and Piggly Wiggly to pick up much needed provisions. Marianne hadn’t seen a Piggly Wiggly in a while so the storefront became another photo opportunity.

Heading east back to the campground the skyline was dominated by one of the largest thunderheads I have ever seen. I soared miles into the sky and was shooting bolts of lightening. I was guessing it would be time to batten down the hatches when we got back to the trailer, including retracting the awning to protect it.

Back at the trailer we turned on the TV to get a weather update, and it turned out that the storm that we were looking at in the east wasn’t the threat at all, but rather a storm that was coming from the west behind us was wreaking havoc with gusts up 58 mph and quarter-sized hail.

According to the TV news this storm, only about 20 miles to the west of us, was uprooting trees and downing power lines, heading southeast.

A few campsites away from us were a young couple from Brooklyn, New York with their large dog staying in a little two-man tent. I warned them about what I perceived to be the impending doom, and to batten down their hatches.

The gods must have been looking favorably upon us because the storm completely missed us and it wasn’t until 6am the next morning that we got a small sprinkle.

June 14, 2010 – Day Thirty-eight

This morning as I was walking Coco for her morning constitutional, the older couple with a 5^th-wheel trailer, was warming up their truck in preparation to leave. They’d been sitting there a while, I guess trying to figure out where they’d be headed next. As I walked immediately behind them he proceeded to drive off. It was then that I heard a loud screech followed by an equally loud crash.

Apparently the pin slipped out of its mount inside the bed of the pick-up and dropped unto the back of the truck, where it not only buckled the sides of the pick-up bed but also totally ruined the tailgate.

Within seconds the man was outside of his pick-up explaining to me that he had doubled checked the pin and even put on the padlock. In my mind the evidence proved the contrary. Guilty!

About a minute later his wife for some odd reason climbs out the driver’s door and exclaims to me, “Just like last time.” She had ratted him out.

It was a sorry sight, and there was not much I could do, so I continued walking Coco. When I returned to the trailer, they were still standing there scratching their collective heads trying to figure out what to do.

I then took Molly on for her morning constitutional walk, passing the accident again, but now the gentleman was headed to the campground office, presumably to get some assistance.

When I returned with Molly, the woman was there alone, in some distress since in all the excitement, they had locked their keys in their pick-up. That in itself is too bad, but their two dogs we now trapped and she was concerned that they be cooked in the mounting heat.

The gentleman returned with someone from the main office who tried to jimmy the car door open to no avail. I asked the woman if they had AAA, no, she said, but they did have Good Sam Roadside Assistance. When I left them, he had borrowed a cell phone and was on hold with the Good Sam folks.

I returned to the trailer and related this tale to Marianne. As we looked out of our window to see someone successfully opening the door to let the dogs out, and to use the 5^th-wheeler’s automatic jacks to raise the trailer off of the smashed truck bed.

After about an hour, he got everything somewhat squared away, hooked up again. When I looked at the campsite, I saw that he left his shoes on the picnic table. What an awful way to start the day!

Shortly after 11am we headed to Nikki’s work to pick her and Cory up to take them to lunch. Her work was much closer to our campground than I thought so we got there way too early. Fortunately there was a Costco very near Nikki’s work so we spent the next half hour there picking up things that Marianne can only get at Costco. We were also looking to find another book on CD, but there was only one copy of one lame “girlie girl” book in the entire store so I wisely vetoed the purchase.

We got to Nikki’s work right on time, and she met us at the door to give us a tour of where she spends her days. Melissa was right there in the cube next to hers. We met some of her other co-workers, and then with Cory, the four of us headed for lunch at a Japanese hibachi restaurant just down the street.

This is a Benihana-style restaurant where the cook prepares the food on a sizzling hot large grill right at the table in front of you. They do some tricks with their knives and forks and some of the food, entertaining you all the time, complete with banter. Since these are also one of my favorite kinds of restaurants, I’ve been to them more than a few times, and it’s uncanny how many of the same jokes keep coming back. If you’ve been to one you’ll know what I mean when I say, “Japanese egg roll.”

After lunch we said our goodbyes to Cory, since he is currently working two jobs, and won’t be able to join us for dinner tonight.

After Nikki went back to work, we went back to the campground and just relaxed a bit.

At 7pm we headed for a park where Nikki would be playing the second of two soccer games tonight. She was leaving the first game at halftime at a different park in order to be able to play the entire second game with her “original” Monday night soccer team. Mike Caponi plays goalie for this team, and there’s even guy who was a teacher with Nikki when she taught at West Mecklenberg here in Charlotte. Her loyalty is with this team.

Everyone played their hearts out in this heat, but Nikki’s team still lost 4-3, to what supposedly a pretty tough team. I brought out the “big camera” for this event and was able to capture a number of great photos with the long lens. So when Marianne and I are playing dueling cameras, this time I brought a rifle and she only has a pistol!

After a quick stop at Nikki’s condo, where she changed and we were able to see all of her new furniture and meet her new roommate Amy, we headed over to Ed’s Tavern for dinner.

Ed’s is in an old house and I guess they have an old air-conditioner because it wasn’t working. It was 9pm and we were too pooped to drive to another restaurant, so we endured the heat. Another reason is that this place also has deep fried pickles, an appetizer that I first met and liked, in Jacksonville. Instead of using sliced pickles, Ed’s uses pickle spears. This does two things: one, there’s less breading and two, deep fried pickle spears stay really really hot for a long time. Nikki burned the roof of her mouth when she brazenly bit into the first spear.

I dislike mouth/tongue/teeth injuries, so I waited about 15 minutes before I attempted a spear of my own – and it was still hot. I think I’m a fan of deep-fried sliced pickles rather than the spears.

After our late dinner we headed back to the trailer and the dogs – we were all dog tired.

June 13, 2010 - Day Thirty-seven

Marianne's sister Janet Blair came out to have breakfast with us this morning at the restaurant that’s part of this campground. They had a great buffet, a style that I’ve never seen: you go up to the buffet table and pick up your bacon, sausage, French toast, potatoes, grits, bread, fruit, and whatever else I may have missed, then take it back to your table where the waitress gets your egg order and a couple of minutes later brings it. I like my eggs sunny-side up and Marianne likes her scrambled. In most buffets you’ll never find sunny-side up eggs because they just don’t do well on a buffet table. And the scrambled eggs at most buffets are either the consistency of dried cement or a color that’s only good on Easter eggs. Maybe more restaurants should pick up on this trick.

After breakfast Janet walked with us back to our trailer, where she bonded with the dogs. She thinks she needs a dog, and we’re trying to convince her she does. Her daughter, Maggie, is off at college so she has that empty nest syndrome. Now all she’ll have to do is convince John that he wants a dog, too.

We took the Interstate roads from Aiken all the way to Charlotte so the trip was uneventful and we didn’t get to see as much of the countryside as when we take the back roads. But then we’ve been this way before.

We checked into the local KOA, got our site, and called Nikki. Within thirty minutes she was at our campsite, bearing gifts. For a belated Mother’s Day gift, Marianne received a pretty necklace which she wore the rest of the day. And I got a “Germany” World Cup soccer T-shirt for Father’s Day. Since it was Nikki’s birthday three days ago, we gave her our gift.

Then Nikki took us to a German restaurant, The Waldhorn, to watch Germany play in the soccer World Cup. What a treat! It was like actually being in Germany, since many of the patrons and staff were German. I proudly wore my new T-shirt. Cheers of “zicky zacky, zicky zacky, oy, oy, oy” were echoing off the walls every time Germany scored. Happily Germany beat Australia 4–0.

The only thing we did wrong is we ate sandwiches for lunch before we got her, the restaurant put out an all-you-can-eat buffet that was to die for: all of my favorite German foods, plus some of the best desserts on the planet including Schwarzwalder Kirsch Torte, if you have to ask what that is, you’ve never had it, because once you’ve had it, you’ll never forget what it was.

After a liter of beer, we headed back to the campground to pick up the dogs to go to our niece’s home for a barbecue. Janet and Mike Caponi live in a great house which Janet has been adding touches to since we were here for their wedding this past Labor Day. Janet is an interior designer for a large architectural firm in Charlotte, and the daughter of Marianne’s older sister Chris. Mike also reminded me that he, too, was integral in doing some of the interior design.

Just as we got there, the heavens opened up and it rained pretty hard. And like most rainstorms I’ve experience while traveling the South on this odyssey, they are over within a half hour or so.

Also there was Nikki's boyfriend, Cory Clinton. They've been dating a couple of years now, so it looks like they've passed each other's muster. I like Cory even though I have to look up to him. He's tall. I guess I now know what it was like for Jack Till, Marianne's dad, when he kept meeting me.

Our dogs really enjoyed being at their home, especially since Janet has a rather large cat, Lil. And Lil has toys, and if you’ve been following this blog, you know that Molly and Coco just love cat toys, especially those little fake mice stuffed with catnip. It drives them just as crazy as it’s supposed to do with cats.

When Mike went out to barbecue the hamburgers and hot dogs, our dogs dashed out with him. But they didn’t stay on the porch for long; they went down the flight of stairs and started running around in their large fenced yard, which had become very messy with the rain.

When Marianne tried calling them to come back up, Coco bounded up all the stairs but Molly was overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, and just stood at the bottom, giving Marianne that “come help me” look.

They were both soaking wet, but we came prepared with our own towel, and dried them off the best we could. Back in the house they went hunting for the cat toys again.

Just before we started to eat, we were joined by Nikki’s workmate, Melissa, who occupies the cube next to her, and her boyfriend Daniel. We all sat down to eat our fill of cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and corn-on-the-cob. And for dessert Janet spoiled us with her own fresh-baked blueberry pie with ice cream. How can anyone stay on any diet when you’re continuously tempted with such good food?

The evening was topped off with Janet and Mike telling us their bag story. Don’t ask, you don’t want to know.

June 12, 2010 - Day Thirty-six

This KOA was just 20 miles south of Savannah, Georgia, probably one of the prettiest cities in the entire country. We decided we needed to see this beauty, so this morning we left the trailer with the dogs in air-conditioned comfort at the campsite and headed to town arriving a few minutes before 9:00am, which is relatively early for us even though we get up every morning between five and six a.m., when the dogs start stirring.

We found the big visitor’s center/museum and immediately signed up of a 1½ hour trolley tour of the city that was leaving right away. We figured we had 2½ hours to spend in the city before we needed to head back to the dogs, pack up, and head for Aiken, South Carolina, our next stop.

This is a historical tour, where the drivers narrate a scripted tour, complete with lame jokes. We could get off at any one of the fifteen stops and board a later trolley to take us where we wanted to go next.

Savannah was founded in 1733 as a buffer for the English to keep the Spanish in St. Augustine and Florida. It was laid out as a grid with 24 squares as parks, of these, 22 survive, giving the city its charm. Building codes now force new construction to look like the buildings that surround the particular square so even brand new buildings look just like buildings that are almost two centuries old.

Rich, our tour guide rattled off facts and figures as he drove around the 1½ hour course. Because of our limited time consideration, we stayed aboard until the 14^th stop, Franklin Market Place, just across from Franklin Square, named after Benjamin Franklin. We finally got breakfast around 11am at Belfords, were I ordered my favorite breakfast, Eggs Benedict. But this breakfast not only had Canadian bacon and an egg, but a slice of tomato as well. In my opinion it’s the Hollandaise sauce that makes the Eggs Benedict, and this met my expectations.

We only had time to duck into one store (thankfully) before the next trolley came by for us to catch back to our starting point. With that, our whirlwind tour of Savannah was over.

We drove the 20 miles back to the campground, got the trailer ready for travel, hooked it us and left around 1pm headed for Aiken.

We elected to take the back roads of South Carolina from Savannah to Aiken. We love driving through the countryside, because you can savor the flavor of the area. We got to see the quaint city centers of the small towns, people sitting on their porches, at the local filling station, and church lawns. Total Americana.

We hadn’t arranged for a camping spot in Aiken, and this turned out to be a little difficult because Aiken isn’t really a camping destination. We searched through our GPS maps and finally found a one that would probably meet our minimum standards, but we had to call them to get their physical address since the guides just said “Aiken”.

Armed with that information we plugged the address into the GPS which led us to where we wanted to be, Palmetto Lake Campground. This small campground doesn’t even have a main office; one just registers at the restaurant near the entrance on the highway. For $25 we got a nice shady spot.

The lake turned out to be about the size of a football field. It resembled more of a sink hole than a lake, so in my estimation is was probably a pond.

After I got everything set up, we put Marianne’s sister’s house into the GPS and off we went again. Janet and John have a darling house in Aiken that backs right up to a 2000 acre wildlife preserve, which will never have any buildings on it. They have redecorated the home since the last time I was there about a dozen years ago.

We sat on their new back porch sipping some drinks and catching up. As it was starting to get a little late, we all climbed into Janet’s Toyota SUV and headed for downtown Aiken and dinner.

In the late 1800’s, Aiken gained fame as a wintering spot for wealthy people from the Northeast. The nation's attention was riveted on Aiken when Nicholas Longworth, Republican Speaker of the House, came down unexpectedly with pneumonia and died there on April 9, 1931. He had been visiting family friends – all long-time Republicans and fellow poker players – who had a winter home in town. Longworth was married to US President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who rushed to his side from Cincinnati, Ohio, arriving prior to his death.

The main street running through downtown Aiken is wide with a median running down the middle of it. Cars can angle park on both sides of the street as well as both sides of the median. This creates a very wide boulevard with quaint stores and interesting restaurants.

We chose to go down a side street/alley where a former stable was turned into a great restaurant, The West Side Bowery. For their evening fare they offered about a half dozen different menu items for less than $10 called Jockey Meals. For that price I was expecting either miniscule portions or microwaved fare. I was wrong. I got more food that I could eat and it was scrumptious, once more adding to the plight of my diet.

After dinner we were invited to the home of Linda and Sam, who live just a couple of doors away from Janet and John. Their home was more secluded since it was closer to the wilderness and down a longer driveway. It was a fantastic home that featured an enclosed porch that had the feeling of a treehouse, since it was on stilts about 25 feet in the air. The reason we were there was to see the lightening bug show.

One of the things I miss about living in Oceanside is that there are no lightening bugs. As a kid growing up in New York, it was great catching as many as we could in glass jars. We stuffed some grass into those jars and punched holes into the lids with a hammer and nail, creating what we thought would be a perfect habitat for these luminescent flying bugs. But by the next morning they would all be dead. I also remember the strange smell of those dead bugs, a unique aroma that I believe I can identify at any time.

Linda is an artist who is preparing for a major one woman show. She creates huge pencil (graphite) drawings of logs, shells, rocks, and other natural items. She’s really good and hopes that this show will get her noticed. I hope it does.

With daiquiris made with fresh fruit we headed to the edge of the wilderness to view the light show. I was impressed, I’d never seen that many lightening bugs, but Sam said a couple of nights before there were many more.

Since the dogs were back in the trailer all this time, we had to say our goodnights and head back to the trailer. Tomorrow we’d be going to Charlotte to see our daughter, Nikki. 

June 11, 2010 – Day Thirty-five

They claim is that Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. - no, not in population, but rather in area. I’ll have to agree. For a while I thought it might be Naples, Florida, since it took forever to get from one place to another.

This morning we left our campsite which was on the southern edge of Jacksonville, then a little over an hour later we finally left the northern environs of the city, and we were driving about 60 mph. It’s big city but it was also pretty city. I like Jacksonville.

But this day would not continue to be a likeable day.

About 14 miles after we crossed the border of Georgia on our way to Savannah, a trucker honked at me as he passed me on I-95, pointing downward. I immediately pulled over, on a large bridge no less, fortunately with a safety lane. I got out of the truck cab, checked to see that both kayaks were still on top, checked the truck and trailer tires on the driver’s side as traffic was zooming by, and everything was okay. I then walked behind the trailer and the generator was still attached, but when I got to the trailer tires on the passenger side, I saw that the front tire was gone – shredded off of the rim.

Fortunately there was no damage to the wheel itself, as it must have happened just seconds before the trucker warned us.

Did I mention it was Africa hot outside?

Well, I had experience changing a tire from my adventure last year, so I got out the tools, got the tire off the ground, and proceeded. Everything worked fine until I tried to get the spare tire off of its mounting rack. One of the bolts was turning blindly. I tried all the tricks I know (about one) to get it loose, but the vise grips didn’t grip, and after fifteen minutes of frustration I gave up and called AAA.

Thank god for cell phones!

AAA promised a rescue truck within 30 minutes. While I was waiting I tried some more and failed some more to get the spare off. I finally gave up and retreated to the truck to await my rescue. I had barely sat down when a local sheriff’s deputy showed up behind me. I explained my predicament to him and together we tried some more. After another 15 minutes with no success, I told him he could leave me here as AAA was on its way.

I put my menagerie of tools away and got back into the truck to await AAA. And once again I had barely sat down when the AAA rescue truck showed up.

I had explained to AAA dispatch that I would need some sort of tool to cut off a bolt, so this driver showed up with an air chisel. After ten minutes of chiseling the spare was off the rack, we finally got it off and replaced the destroyed tire. I thanked the AAA driver after I gave him $30, the chiseling was $25 more than an AAA visit and an extra $5 tip.

I was getting ready to drive the trailer off, I noticed that there was a screw embedded into the tire behind the one I just replaced and I swear I heard air hissing. Oh oh…..

Have no fear, I have a GPS program that can find stores by type, so I just entered ‘tires” into the program and waited for the results. When “antique stores” showed up, I should have known this may not work out just how I had envisioned.

I altered the search and viola! It found a commercial tire store just seven miles up the interstate and three miles east. I knew I could make ten miles on my ailing tire.

When I got to the location, the GPS program announced that I “reached my destination.” But there was nothing anywhere. I drove a little further and the GPS program kept begging me to turn around since I had apparently missed the shop. But there wasn’t a place to turn around, and I was rapidly running out of road.

By the grace of god, the end of the road had a place to turn around in front of a church. I didn’t miss the irony of this.

Then I entered “Wal*Mart” in the GPS, but the nearest one was apparently 30 miles away, further than I trusted my leaking tire. I then chose the second closest tire store which was another eight miles from my current location.

When I got there, there was nothing there, either.

I then put “Firestone” in the GPS search and it was supposedly only another four miles up the road, so off we went again.

On the way I found a “Kingdom Tires” store, pulled in and explained that I was sick and tired of trailer tires and wanted to purchase light truck tires instead. I was informed that they don’t make light truck tires in a 14” size that would be strong enough to support my trailer, and 15” inch tires wouldn’t work either, but that 16” would, but 16” tires wouldn’t fit in the wheel well of my trailer. I was stuck with more 14” trailer tires.

But Kingdom Tires didn’t have the radial tires I wanted, so she called another tire store just down the street, and they had them.

Barnes Tire & Service of New Brunswick, Georgia said they could put on two new tires, replacing the destroyed tire as well as the spare I had used to replace it, plus fix the tire with the screw in it, in about an hour or two at the most.

Since it was well past our lunch hour, we backed the trailer up to an open bay, I then detached the trailer, fired up the generator, turned on the air-conditioning in the trailer, and put the dogs inside while Marianne and I went to have a leisurely lunch.

We returned an hour later and all the work was done. Two-hundred and ten dollars later I had my two new tires and the patched tire was now my spare.

The entire ordeal took about three hours (about as long as it’s taken you to read this). This put a crimp into our plans to have been in Savannah early enough to take a tour of the town before we had to leave for Aiken, South Carolina to visit the last of Marianne’s siblings, her younger sister Janet.

Shortly after getting back on I-95 northbound the clouds were getting ominous and lightening was flashing and thunder was booming. Then the wind picked up. As we crossed a couple of bridges the wind was whipping up so much that the rain, that had begun to fall, was coming up over the bridge from below. The winds were really rocking the trailer so we slowed down to 35 mph and the rain was getting stronger and stronger. I felt we must have just missed a tornado since the temperature dropped from almost 100° to 75° in just minutes. And it was getting darker and darker.

Oh, could this day be any worse?

No.

After about 40 minutes we were back in semi-sunlight, but now Marianne announced that she was getting tired and that she wanted to stop at the KOA just a few miles ahead. It was a Friday night and we hadn’t made any reservations, but our luck had finally changed.

We got a pull-through site and I didn’t even unhook, I just plugged in the electricity and hooked up the water. I then crawled in bed and took a well-deserved nap.

June 10, 2010 - Day Thirty-four

We’re going kayaking today! And it’s our daughter, Nikki’s 28^th birthday!

Since Pacetti’s is a real fish camp, it’s geared for boats and fishing, and has a nice launch ramp.

We unloaded the kayaks off of the top of the truck and into the water. Marianne was concerned that we’d run into alligators, which of course gave me the willies too. I can tell you up front that we didn’t see any. And I looked.

We headed up the tributary for about a mile, passing fishing shacks and docks, trees hanging into the water, and an abundance of water lilies. We turned around and now headed downstream toward the St. John’s River, going underneath the bridge that crossed the highway, looking up we saw hundreds of bird’s nests. A little further we saw what appeared to me as two abandoned sailboats and one motorboat anchored on the side of the river; I paddled close to these craft and made it a point to find out about them.

We turned around, stopped in the river and had our snack of apple pieces and string cheese washed down with Coke Zero.

Back at Pacetti’s we loaded the kayaks onto the truck and headed to our campsite. As Marianne took a shower, I headed over to the main office to pay for an additional night’s stay, and ask about those boats.

It turns out the two sailboats owners come by every week to check on them. You can’t get to the boats by land, only by water. The motorboat which looked even shabbier turned out to be a boat that had sunk and then was salvaged. A man who already had a good boat bought it but didn’t want to tell his wife. He wanted to restore it to its former glory, but has since lost his job. So, in effect he’s literally up the creek without a paddle.

I got back to the trailer to take my shower, when Suzanne called to let us know that she was now officially done with school, and they’d let the staff off early. We all decided that we’d like to see St. Augustine again, as I’d been there twice, once in 1971 with Pete when he was only 12 on our way to watch a moon launch. We had driven my 1971 Ford Pinto from Montgomery to Cape Canaveral, and then once again with Marianne and Nikki twenty-five years later.

Our campground is about halfway between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, so Suzanne came to our site again to take us there. Peter was still at work, and Stephanie had to finish up a video project for her school.

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously inhabited white settlement in the United States, founded in 1565, less than 75 years after Columbus's sailing adventure. It’s a pretty city that grew up around a large Spanish fort, Castillo de San Marcos. Across the street from this fort is a large old town area that is filled full of great little shops.

It wasn’t quite as hot as we’d experienced because we were near the Atlantic Ocean, but it was still above 90°.  We stopped in to a few shops, a gorgeous Catholic church, and had a tasty, albeit expensive, gelato.

We then took a quick trip to St. Augustine beach where we saw the lighthouse and finally got to see the Atlantic Ocean. Although we had been next to it for 350 miles, we never took the time to get a good view of the ocean. It's claimed that one side of the Keys are on the Gulf and the other on the Atlantic, but this made it more official.

A couple of hours later we were ready to head back. Suzanne took us to our trailer, where we freshened up a bit and then followed her to the house where Stephanie was waiting. About 90 minutes later Pete came home and we all went to Carrabba’s, a great Italian restaurant.

We’ve probably been going out to dinner too much, but it’s been so tempting to having the cooking and clean-up done for you. This being once-in-a-lifetime trip, we’re going to do it up right.

Unfortunately this attitude has played havoc with our diet plans, and since it’s been so hot we haven’t been able to exercise. Heck I’ve only take my bicycle out once and driven it about 500’. We’re hoping that as we leave the South, the weather will cool and then we won’t be able to use heat as an excuse.

June 9, 2010 - Day Thirty-three

We left Orlando to head north to Jacksonville to visit Marianne’s brother Peter, and his wife, Suzanne, and daughter, Stephanie. Their daughter Laura was vacationing in the Bahamas this week, so she was going to miss out on all the fun!

We found their house using our GPS and parked out front, and as soon as we did, their neighbor came over and had to check us out. We knew that Peter and Suzanne were still at work, but Stephanie had headed to the local Wal*Mart to fulfill her shopping fix. We called her on her cell phone and she was home in ten minutes.

The Tills have a great home, and a nice large yard that the dogs immediately took to. They also have two cats, a brother and sister called Mister and Missus. Although Mister is the braver of the two, Missus is the original real scaredy cat. She hid underneath the master bed the entire time we were there, we never caught a glimpse of her. Mister came out of his hiding spot when the dogs were safely outside and he could be the king of his domain again.

The dogs also found a few of the cat’s toys and loved them to pieces, literally. Who knew that our dogs loved catnip so much. The next time I go shopping for pet toys, I’m going to avoid the dog aisle altogether and head straight for the kitty stuff!

Within a short while Suzanne came home, she’s a special education instructor, and this was the last day of kids in the classroom before summer break. She loves her job, so she had mixed emotions: elated that the school year was over, but sad that she’d miss the kids she’d grown so found of for a while.

Later, Peter finally came home and we had to decide what where we wanted to go for dinner. Suzanne had been raving about a Vietnamese restaurant for quite some time, but Stephanie wasn’t too keen on that idea. In the end we elected to go to a “fish camp” about a mile from their home.

Clarks Fish Camp was once a real fish camp on a tributary of the St. John’s River, the large river that flows through Jacksonville and empties into the Atlantic. It’s now an extremely popular restaurant that has a jungle motif and partially overhangs the water. It was so popular that we had to get on waiting list to get a place to sit.

After snapping photos in this very photogenic site, we were seated with stuffed (as in very large stuffed) toys staring down at us from above. Pete and Suzanne said we just had to try the deep fried pickle slices. Now, I’ve never heard of anything like that, but I’m always up for a new taste sensation, so we ordered a large plate to share among the five of us as an appetizer. I have to admit they were very good. I believe they are prepared just like fried zucchini or fried okra, breaded and then deep fat fried and served with a ranch dressing.

This restaurant had an exotic menu, including barbecued alligator ribs. That was a little too much for me, so I just stuck with the deep fried shrimp and Marianne with barbecue pork ribs. The food was very tasty and the ambience was super.

After dinner we returned to their home to pick up the trailer and then take it to another fish camp, Pacetti’s, which really was a fish camp. It’s located about a mile up a tributary of the St. John’s River. Pete rode with me in the truck and girls followed in another car.

I set up the trailer with just a few minutes of available light before night set it. Afterward all we relaxed inside the trailer for a bit. To celebrate the occasion, I decided to bestow the highly coveted honor of “honorary trailer trash” on them. It was an extremely moving ceremony.