Savannah, Beaufort, and on to Florida

Here's what The Author looks like at work on an update. Notice the two finger typing technique; it wouldn't do to be able to type faster than one thinks anyway. Once the update is complete, it's sent to the website via a phone hook-up at the RV park; the phone line most commonly seems to be in the laundry room.
Travel from Charleston to Savannah was pretty easy; I'm gradually getting the feel of the RV. Just before we left Maine, I saw Representative Dick Maillot who was my RV mentor over the course of the last year. Dick's parting advice was "Always take your time and remember you're not driving a Corvette." He was sure right; every time I've gotten myself in trouble, it's been because of hurrying and not taking full account of the size of the vehicle.

   We got to Savannah about 2:30 in the afternoon (RV tip of the day--it's always better to arrive in the daylight) and went to the park we had picked from the RV bible, Trailer Life's Camping guide. Only it wan't so great--too close to the highway, scruffy sites, and just not very appealing. So we sacrificed the two nights rent we'd already paid out and moved about a half hour away to a beautiful Georgia State Park. Much better; besides, son James was coming over from Atlanta for a visit and we wanted to put our best RV foot forward.

Old Savannah is the most beautifully laid-out city in the United States; it's a straightforward grid design, but has lovely little park-like squares every few blocks and wonderful trees (draped with Spanish Moss) lining every street. The effect is incredibly serene, and it doesn't hurt that the squares are surrounded by graceful antebellum houses, some dating back to the mid-seventeen hundreds. Believe it or not, just by coincidence, "antebellum" was one of the kids' vocabulary words on the first week of the trip; they've now heard it on every one of our tours.




Notice I said "Old Savannah"; just as was the case in Charleston and would be the case at Beaufort (pronounced Bow-fort) South Carolina, these stunning old downtowns are surrounded by some of the worst sprawl I've seen anywhere. Mile after mile of strip malls, traffic in all directions, franchise eateries (we even had dinner in a Red Lobster where a boiled Maine lobster was $19.00; wish more of that got to our fishermen), and billboards. Maybe it's impossible to do quality design around our larger population and the automobile, but the contrast with these old towns is absolutely jarring and makes it all too obvious what we've lost.

No pictures of the sprawl, per se, (just look out your window), but here are a couple of signs near Savannah I though were funny. If you can't read the line under the Hooters sign, it says, "we are the people your parents warned you about".




                                                   
            And I think this one gets         some kind of award for getting straight to the point.


















        I think one of the best ways to get to know something about a town in a short time is to take a local tour--a trolley reproduction (no tracks) seems to be the style these days--and then you can go back to the spots that seem interesting. Here's Suzy, who did a nice job, but made me nervous by turning around to talk to us as she navigated Savannah's narrow streets.







Here are James and Molly exploring Savannah; James is in school in Atlanta and came over for a couple of days  to see what we were up to. I can't quite tell what my older sons think of this whole RV trip thing, but they're kind of used to their old man doing off-the-wall stuff.



 And here's James with Mary, on the Savannah waterfront.
And speaking of tours, all these old southern towns seem into ghosts--each one offers a variety of ghost tours, both walking or riding (see below). Ben wanted to go on one, but I passed. It didn't take much imagination (even in broad daylight) to see that those squares and spanish moss would be pretty creepy at night.



Yep; it's a hearse with an observation deck.

           





Savannah is still a serious seaport; just as we arrived on the waterfront, this container ship was pushing up the river, followed by another just like it within the hour.


 And what would a waterfront be without street entertainers? Here's Molly with Bill the Parrot Man; if you look closely, you can see the parrot on her shoulder about to (gently) take a peanut from between her lips. She didn't flinch.














    That night, we returned to the RV and for the first time on the whole trip found it warm enough to eat outside. Here's Mom and Ben doing some home schooling in the morning and our cooked-over-a-charcoal-fire steak dinner after dark. Yes, we ended the evening with s'mores.











After two days in Savannah, we returned up the coast to Beaufort, South Carolina, another beautifully preserved town with incredible houses and a rich history intertwined with early Spanish settlers, the island plantations, slavery, and the civil war. It is also the home of one of America's greatest writers, Pat Conroy, who has immortalized this region in books like Prince of Tides. The River is Wide, and The Great Santini. Our tour guide grew up with him; I was impressed.

One note about how we travel on these side trips--not in the RV. We are towing Mary's car and the routine is to find a nice centrally located park, set up there for three  or four days, and explore the area by car. Hitching or unhitching the car takes about eight minutes.



Just one of the Beaufort homes; the foundation and first floors are of "tabby"--a cement made of ground oyster shells, sand and water. It seems to work; many of these houses date to the early 19th Century. I didn't know that Federal troops occupied this region of South Carolina for virtually the entire course of the Civil War. Our tour guide (in a trolley) frequently referred to "them" and "us", leaving no doubt as to who was who.





Another of the homes of Beaufort. Often these were "town houses" for the planters anxious to escape the heat of the sea islands during the summer. Obviously, they didn't know about Bar Harbor.







Next, St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in North America and home of the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. No, this one won't count as home schooling.