Two Hams on the Road

Thursday, March 17, 2016

We are at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, Forsyth County, North Carolina, just outside of Winston-Salem.  Steve’s nephew, Bryan, and his wife, Katie, live here and recommended the park when we visited 3 years ago.  It’s a great county park that offers walking and biking trails, horseback riding, golf, swimming, playgrounds and a dog park.  It’s a well used park.

Oh, and it has an RV campground.  This is my view:

I last wrote from Beverly Beach, where we had an ocean view. We had dinner there with Steve’s sister Nancy and her husband, Graham. They are building their retirement home near there and happened to be in town to talk to the builder. 

Steve tore me away from my beautiful view March 2, but the wildlife gave us a good show before we left.  There was a group of 7 pelicans that we had watched over the course of our visit and they did a fly over that morning.  We also saw more dolphins and even a few whales (or at least their spouts).  But soon we were on the road and headed for River’s Edge Campground on Tybee Island, Georgia, near Savannah.  A fellow camper had suggested this campground, so off we went.  We were now officially headed north for home, with a stop at my dad’s in New Bern, NC, along the way.

As we headed for Georgia, the scenery changed to coastal marshes.  The coasts of Georgia and South Carolina are home to more than 100 islands, the most famous of which is probably Hilton Head.  But the coast is riddled with marshes that border the islands, rivers, and coast.  It’s not uncommon to have a mile long bridge that goes over a river that is flowing through marshland.  Some times home docks stretch 100 yards or more before reaching navigable water.  It was very hard to capture a picture that would depict this, but here’s my attempt.

The sea islands were originally settled by the Spanish who were driven south by the English and plantations established on many of them.  Sea island cotton was a luxury item.  With so many islands, the area was also a haven for pirates who could hide on the various waterways.

Near Tybee Island is Cockspur Island, where Fort Pulaski was established to protect shipping into and out of Savannah.  The fort was completed in 1847.  Robert E. Lee oversaw part of it’s building.  It was thought to be impenetrable except by large cannons, which couldn’t be brought close enough to the island to do damage.   The governor of Georgia occupied the fort at the very beginning of the Civil War, but abandoned nearby Tybee Island, allowing northern troops to establish a foothold on the Georgia coast.  They built batteries and brought in rifle-bored cannon, a relatively new invention, which were more accurate and had a longer range than previous cannons.  The walls of the fort were breached and the fort surrendered.  That brought shipping in Savannah to a halt for the duration of the war.

We had a wonderful interpreter telling us about the fort.  He was dressed in a Union Civil War uniform.

Tybee Island is a tourist destination and as a result has lots of restaurants.  We enjoyed several, including one we walked to for dinner one night and took this picture on our way home.

Our next stop was James Island County Park, outside Charleston, SC.  Two of Steve’s nieces, Jennifer and Meredith, live here and we had lunch with them.

We also managed to finally catch the SpaceX launch at nearby Folly Beach, NC.  The launch was due about dusk, and although we were several hundred miles away, Steve wanted to try and see it.  So we found a restaurant on the beach and went out on the pier after dinner and were lucky enough to see the vapor trail.  I don’t know if you can make it out in this picture.

Steve was happy.

Charleston has some unusual architecture.  The old houses are long and narrow and set perpendicular to the street.

The style developed to take advantage of the prevailing breezes and the porches are always on the South and/or West side of the houses to shade the house from the sun.  The porches and side yard were used as an extension of the house, so for privacy, there is a front door on the street that opens onto the porch.  The side yards were typically fenced.  Because of this, the north and east sides of the houses might have few windows, allowing more privacy for your neighbors.  “Charleston manners” dictated that you not notice anything out those windows.  There are a surprising number of these homes still standing.

I’d like to get this posted today, so I’ll sign off for now.  We will be home by Easter!

Deb