Gaffney, South Carolina!

Charlene and Ed

South Carolina barbecue is very good!

Today was a big driving day. We started out in Richmond Hill, Georgia and went through most of South Carolina. Our destination was the Freightliner Service Center in Gaffney, South Carolina. We will have them perform the 2 year maintenance and look into some issues with the dash light bar. There are about 20 ports with electrical hookups for motorhomes at the Service Center. I will be taking a two-day class called “Camp Freightliner” and Charlene will be a tourist of the area.

restaurant

The temperature is quite a bit cooler in the mountains of South Carolina! I got out my coat to wear with my shorts and t-shirt. After we setup the motorhome, we looked for an independent restaurant to try. We settled on a barbecue restaurant that had “South Carolina flavored barbecue sauce.” I am not an expert of different barbecue sauces, this local version seemed to have more of a vinegar flavor than most other sauces. The pulled pork was very tasty and I enjoyed the hush puppies too.

South Carolina

Strawberry cider

We found a local farm and bought some different jams and enjoyed tasting their peach cider.

Tybee Island!

Tybee Island-5

Charlene and I absolutely loved the white beaches of Tybee Island!

Today we discovered the beautiful white beaches of Tybee Island. This is the beach near Savannah, Georgia. We drove to Tybee Island and our first stop was a local restaurant called The Sundae Café. Charlene ordered the fried chicken special and I had the salmon BLT sandwich. These were absolutely wonderful meals! One of our favorite things to do when traveling is discover local independent restaurants were the “locals” like to go. The Sundae Café certainly meets that criteria! Our meals were fantastic. It was nice to close out our time in Savannah with such a wonderful mean and then spending time on such a beautiful beach! This is definitely on our list for a return visit some time in the future!

 

Tybee Island-1

Charlene really enjoyed the feel of the Atlantic Ocean. Too cold for swimming, but quite refreshing for March 1st.

We wrote messages in the sand to some of our favorite people!

 

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The scenes around the beach were spectacular!

Tybee Island-7

Footprints in the sand.

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I was captivated by the textures in the sand.

Tybee Island-9

Tybee Island-6

 

Enjoying Savannah!

Charlene and Ed

Charlene and I loved the pralines and “gophers!”

historic steps

Narrow, uneven steps make sightseeing near the Savannah River a memorable experience!

Charlene and I had a very nice time today enjoying shops in Savannah. One of the special treats was going to the Savannah Candy store and tasted pralines and “gophers.” They were “knock your socks off sweet,” but wonderful to enjoy! The pralines are sold by weight since they are so big.

Buy anything

For dinner we ate with Charlene’s previous co-worker back in Tucson from about 10 years ago. We had a wonderful time learning about Savannah and enjoying a wonderful mean. Charlene ordered the duck and I had pork cheek. I have never heard about pork cheek before, but it was a wonderful piece of meat.

sarcasm t shirt

We loved this t-shirt!

Dog beers

Spanish Moss, Gorgeous Squares, and Interesting People

Savannah Georgia-11

I really enjoyed all the “squares” throughout downtown Savannah!

Savannah Georgia-8

 

Today was a wonderful day to enjoy Savannah, Georgia! It was a sunny day with the high of 64 degrees. The city is well known for all the beautiful “squares” filled with fountains, trees, and flowers. Throughout downtown, every couple of streets, there is another square to enjoy. Savannah is truly a spectacular city!

Savannah Georgia-10

 

For lunch I had a shrimp po’boy sandwich. It was a new experience and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I also really enjoyed walking along all the shops next to the Savannah River. Pralines and specialty peanut products were everywhere.

 

Savannah Georgia-1

The peanuts in Georgia are famous!

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Savannah Georgia-2

Colorful dog ties were available for purchase.

My favorite site today was visiting the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It was a very beautiful church. The first parish was established on the site in the late 1700s. The current church was dedicated in 1876 and has had a couple of restorations to keep it beautiful. It was amazing to see the detail in the stained glass.

Savannah Georgia-7

Visiting Savannah

Paula Dean and me

Paula Deen was friendly and said hello to me!

Today we had a very fun day touring Savannah and the “deep South.” We started the day going to Paula Deen’s restaurant called The Lady & Sons. Charlene and I both decided to have the lunch buffet and not order off the menu. Since Paula Deen is such a famous cook, I had high expectations. We were not disappointed! The fried chicken was wonderful! I especially loved the flavorful cornbread and pulled pork. I tried to sample almost all the entries. There was also a store next to the restaurant and we had fun looking at all her cookbooks and other items.

 

 

taking photo

Inadvertent self-portrait taking a picture of Paula Deen’s restaurant.

We walked around downtown and decided to take a trolley tour of Savannah. We enjoyed seeing the port and learning how important Savannah was in shipping US-grown cotton to England. We found the first school in Savannah at the Massie Heritage Center. The popular tourist thing to do was have your photo taken wearing the classroom dunce cap.

dunce cap 1st school

We were surprised to learn the famous Christian pastor from England lived in Savannah in 1736 and 1737. One of the squares was dedicated to him.

John Wesley

Savannah Georgia!

Swan

There were quite a few swans in the pond next to the campground.

We drove from Tallahassee, Florida to Savannah Georgia today. There was a big storm moving through the South during the night. We went to sleep with a tornado watch and risk of a severe storm between 1:00 am and sunrise. It turned out the storm was intense at 3:11 am and lasted only a couple of hours. By sunrise, the sun was out with only a few clouds. There was water along the road all the way through Florida and Georgia.

 

I had a conference call scheduled mid-way on the drive, so we pulled into a truck stop so I could make the call. After the 30 minute call, we pulled back on the freeway and completed the trip to Savannah.

 

The residual storm here in Georgia was mainly wind and it finished raining in the afternoon. We setup camp and I started laundry. While walking around the campground I found there was a pond with quite a few swans! While walking around, I met couple that had two Labrador Retrievers. They said the two dogs traveled well, but needed breaks to walk around every few hours.

 

Tallahassee, Florida!

Charlene tree moss

Charlene loved her mustache with the moss growing on the trees!

Ed with dolphin statue

The dolphin statue was very impressive!

Today we had a wonderful time visiting Tallahassee. We started by first driving to the Florida State University campus. This is a famous campus because the Florida State Seminoles won the football national championship in 2013. We finally saw the famous Seminole statue outside their football stadium. It is quite impressive!

 

FSU statue

We have seen this impressive statue so often on TV, it was nice to finally see it in person!

Go Noles

We next visited the old and new Florida state capital buildings. The old capital had a very impressive stained glass design inside their capital dome. Between buildings, we came across a Florida State band playing their fight song. It was fun to watch them play.

Capital stained glass

This is stained glass inside the old Florida state capital building. It is very beautiful!

FSU drummer

We next visited the Florida state history museum. We did not know what to expect, but Charlene and I both thought it was extremely impressive! We highly recommend it! It was interesting to learn about Florida’s history. There were so many impressive aspects including the various Native American tribes, role of Florida in the civil war, growth of military bases, expansion of the citrus industry, population growth, tourism industry, and car racing industry. I never knew that the Spanish brought the first oranges to Florida and started their whole citrus industry.

 

Saw

This saw was used during the Civil War to make limb amputations.

For lunch we went to a restaurant near the state capital. I ordered a Marco “Cubio” Cuban sandwich and Charlene ordered a Jeb Burger. These were named for the Florida state senator (and current presidential candidate) Marco Rubio and former governor Jeb Bush. Both items were fantastic!

Florida seal

 

Enjoying Alabama!

spacious sites.jpg

We are really roughing it at our RV park. It is the most beautiful RV park we have stayed in. There is a huge amount of space between sites. There is a small lake that is quite picturesque. The swimming pool and spa are spectacular. It will be sad to leave.

 

roughing it

We are really “roughing it” in our RV park!

Since we have had seafood several times recently, we decided to try barbeque for dinner tonight. We found an Alabama chain restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed our meal. I had pulled pork and Charlene had ribs. We also had corn bread, grilled corn, and beans. It was wonderful!

Moespeanuts

Sweet Home Alabama!

Gulf Shores road trip

This shirt summarizes our fun time driving around the Alabama coast. The white sands are beautiful!

We are definitely in the Deep, Deep South! It is beautiful to see the white sand beaches around Mobile, Alabama. The beaches are very beautiful here. We drove up and down the beach, just enjoying the sites.

 

Lamberts

This was a wonderful restaurant in Foely, Alabama that had fantastic “southern” food. We loved it!

We looked for a local “southern” restaurant for our first meal in Alabama. We found a special gem. We ate fried okra, sweet potatoes, fried potatoes, macaroni and tomatoes, potato salad, fresh rolls, black eyed peas, mashed potatoes, chicken fried steak, and chicken and dumplings. I am not sure it would be possible to find a more “southern” restaurant anywhere in the south. It was wonderful food, but we could not finish it all. We needed two boxes for all the extra food. It was a fantastic restaurant to celebrate being in Alabama!

 

Fried Pickles, Boiled Crawfish, and Grilled Shrimp!

Crawfish

Charlene and I are trying our hands at boiled crawfish! It is quite a bit of work for a bite to eat.

We must be in the South! For dinner tonight we had fried pickles, boiled crawfish, and grilled shrimp! We have never order boiled crawfish before. Our servers had to give us a lesson on how to break the crawfish open to eat them. Honestly, boiled crawfish are a fair amount of work to get to eat one bite. They seem to be a good food for eating slowly! The people of Biloxi take their crawfish seriously! It is a very popular menu item and right now they are in season.

Children sign

The fried pickles were surprisingly good. A bit too salty, but I always enjoy eating pickles. It is fun to enjoy a local independent restaurant and eat the popular foods in the area!

local restaurant

It is also fun to go into local grocery stores. The unique foods so popular in nearby New Orleans are quite popular here in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Ole Miss hats

Ole Miss is the popular state university, although both LSU and Alabama are quite close too.

Local foods 3