Eating my way through Charleston, South Carolina

November 15, 2013

We picked the James Island County Park in Charleston.  What a score.  They are having their annual light show.  Best Christmas Light show I have ever seen. Two miles of continuous light displays.  Plus additional walking areas in "Christmas Village.  Probably over 500 individual light displays that were very impressive and animated.

 Twinkling stars with an American Bald Eagle.

 Fire breathing dragon with fire shooting out of his mouth.

Dinosaur.  There were about 15 different dinosaurs in this area.

This is Noah's Arc with all the animals walking in.

 Poor picture but these are all the planets!

 They even had typical Christmas scenes.

Old mother hubbard and her kids.

These pictures are about 2% of what was out there.  Truly entertaining and amazing.

This was Mark's favorite.  A ship with a fighter plane above it.  There were sparks coming out of the guns like they were shooting and the props were turning.

Charleston involved a carriage tour.

 This is me and my carriage driver.  Great tour.

 After the tour we went down to the Noisy Oyster.  This is a stack of crab cakes, fried green tomatoes with a gravy of she-crab soup.  Very yummy.  I bought a huge piece of coconut cake (local specialty) to take home for dessert tonight.  Also scored a homemade praline and a couple of caramel turtles.  Love Charleston!

We toured the historical US Customs house on the harbor.  They had a  basement which was used for a prison for a while.  For a while they held four signers of the Constitution.  This guy was called Gadsden.  He is the guy that designed the "Gadsden" flag which was the yellow one with the snake on it.  Mark has a special feeling for this flag so I had to take a picture of the designer.

On the way home from this great state we stopped at a great barbeque place for some takeout.  This should have been a Tuesday because I am getting fat..........

Hitting a Deer as we left Deer Park RV, North Carolina

November 5, 2013

When leaving the Deer Run RV park, we hit a deer!  I don't think the poor thing made it out alive and we sustained minor damage to the front end of the motorhome.  We are headed to Asheville, North Carolina to see "The Biltmore Estate", built by the Vanderbuilt family.  It is truly amazing.  We feel like we are in the Downton Abbey home.  This house is the largest privately owned home in America.  We even took the "Butler Tour" so we could see extra parts of the house.  They wouldn't let us take any pictures inside so I guess if you want to see it you'll have to make a personal visit.

On to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.  It is getting cooler fast so we gotta head south a little faster.

This is the pier on the beach at the state park.  Notice the pigeons.  There were no seagulls.  Only pigeons.  Weird.  We talked to the guy at the little store.  He said if you want to see seagulls go to the Walmart parking lot.

This is Mark strolling down the boardwalk at Myrtle Beach.

Fifteen miles south is Huntington State Park.  Best park in the state according to the people here.  This beach was beautiful and pretty deserted.  It was a great park.

So we stayed for a while and relaxed!

Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia

November 2, 2013

We head out of DC towards Lexington, Virginia.  We drive down through Shenandoah National Park.

Big Mistake!  It is Saturday and apparently everyone within 200 miles in going to drive through the park to look at the leaves!

This is one of the views we had of the Shenandoah Valley.  It was amazing.  The Blue Ridge Parkway starts in northern Virginia and goes all the way down to Georgia along the top of the Blue Ridge mountains.  It is beautiful.  We had to leave the parkway today because it was so stopped up with people.  We will come back on Monday when everyone has gone back to work.

We spend the night outside a small town called Greenville, in Virginia.  This place is a little uncomfortable.  We found this campground through "Passport America", where we have a membership for "half-price" campgrounds.  Up to this point there hasn't been a problem.  This place is about 4 miles outside of this tiny town.  Where are we going?  Then when we find it the people in the little office/store look kinda "hillbilly".  We get our site and now I am really taking a close look around.  The sites that are filled have people that really look hillbilly and you can tell they are staying in these sites long term.  Most of the guys have scruffy beards.  There is "crap" all over their campsites.  Blue tarps, old porch swings, junk.  Everything seems kinda cramped.  I walked around the motorhome and had dog poo on my shoe when getting back into the motorhome.  That was a sign to me.  I didn't leave the motorhome until we left in the morning.  Locked both locks on the door before going to bed.

We spend the next night outside of Lexington, VA.  Their local claim to fame is Natural Bridge.  This natural rock formation was surveyed by young George Washington, who carved his initials about 23 up on the right side of the arch.  Above you see the arch and then inside the square are George's initials.  This was later owned by Thomas Jefferson who was said to have loved this peaceful place.  There is a stream running through the bottom of the arch.  Not so peaceful with the tourists coming through.  You can see the benches where they are supposed to sit and enjoy the peaceful arch.

The above pictures were all shot from the Blue Ridge Parkway, some looking east, some looking west. It was awesome.

We jumped over to West Virginia for a night.  Stayed in Lewisburg at the fairgrounds.  We were the only rig there!

I picked Lewisburg because the guide book said that Carnegie Hall was in this small town.  It didn't sound right but who was I to argue?  I just didn't realize that Carnegie Hall was in such a small town!  It wasn't until I got there that I found out there are four Carnegie Halls.  The big one I was thinking of is in New York City.  I am starting to feel like a country bumpkin.

Recognize that green ball in the picture above?  Yes, that is a hedge ball.  I first saw one in the produce section of a grocery store in Michigan.  They are used to repel spiders in your home.  I find this one in the woods as we are hiking up to a Confederate grave site just on the outskirts of town.  I was kinda excited that I found one in the wild and knew what it was.  If you missed my first picture, refer back to my Michigan escapades.

This is the road we hiked to a confederate gravesite where 95 unidentified confederates were buried after the Battle of Lewisburg during the civil war.

This was the view from the motorhome door when we woke in the morning.  There was a flea market going on next door in the fairgrounds.  Mark strolled it while I took a shower.  He assured me that it was all junk so I didn't walk over.  It was cold!......and I was lazy.  Beautiful day out, though.  Don't you love those clouds?

I did get my sticker on before leaving.

Next night was in Wyethville, Virginia.  Quietest campground we have ever stayed in.  It was wonderful.  Unfortunately, we hit a deer on the road the next morning.  Did a little damage to the front of the motorhome and we lost a fog light but nothing major.  There is just no missing those deer when they jump out.  No wonder we have seen so many dead deer along the road on the east coast.

Visiting the Obamas

October 29, 2013

Our first order of business was to give the Obama's a call to let them know we were in town.

They were a little busy so they sent their stand-ins.

While I was hob nobbing with the Obamas Mark was out making friends with the local "Duck" party.  This guy hung around our motorhome for the entire 6 days we were in DC.  We must have been in his "spot".

We were lucky enough to get a tour when we visited the capitol building.

My favorite part was when we went by the "cry baby's" office.  I really wanted to go in and tell him to quit crying when he is on tv.

The North Korea Memorial was my favorite.  Maybe because it was the first time I had seen it.

This was our favorite sculpture in the National Art Gallery Sculpture Garden.  It was so funny because Jason, Lindsey and Kyle had no idea what it was.  My sister, Rose, was first to identify a typewriter eraser.  These things disappeared in the 70's I believe.  The "blue hair" is actually the brush that you would use to brush away the eraser dust.  This thing stood about 15 feet tall.

We took the night tour on Halloween Night.  The White House had orange lighting on it for Halloween.

This is a "selfie" that I took of Mark and I as we sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Halloween night, gazing at the Washington Memorial.

Here I am installing the itty bitty state of Maryland.  I just love putting these stickers on!

Mark with three of his five "C"s.  He was having a good day in the Capitol, despite being in close proximity to those Liberal Democrats!