Rain, Cold and Inspiration

We are exploring Georgia now. It’s the 18th state we visited since we took off in the RV over a year ago. We thought we had turned away from the beaches once we left Florida, but our first campground in Georgia’s Reed Bingham State Park had a small lake with a nice beach. We managed to spend one day enjoying the lake and having a picnic lunch on the sandy beach. We drove through the tiny town of Adel which had suffered from tornado damage in mid January. Luckily we had no twister threats.

But the weather definitely changed. We’ve had two weeks of rain, clouds and cold temperatures. Our RV stays nice and toasty and we have the luxury of just staying inside if we don’t want to go out in the icy temperatures.

After we left Adel, we went to another small but prettier little town called Elko. There we stayed at Twin Oaks Campground. The owners of this RV Park were very conscientious – great sites, outdoor artwork everywhere, spotlessly clean facilities and a really nice laundry room next to a big, comfy lounge. As we drove up, the owner seemed to know immediately who we were and informed us that our packages had arrived. She then delivered them to our site. We had also planned to pick up our mail at the local post office in Elko.

This is probably a good place to explain our mail situation. Whenever we mention to folks that we are full-timing, the first questions are about our mail delivery. Before we even bought the RV we flew to South Dakota to establish our residency there. We registered with a mail service called Dakota Post. Their facility is our legal address so that’s where our mail goes. They provide lots of services to us but the one we use the most involves our mail. We can logon and see our recent mail – we can see an image of each envelope. We decide if we want them to forward a piece or shred it. If we want more info, we ask them to open and scan it.

The next piece of the puzzle is deciding where to forward those envelopes we decided we needed. Doug looks ahead to see where we will be and either asks the campground if they will accept our mail or he looks up the nearest Post Office that accepts General Delivery Mail – the mail can be held there for up to 6 weeks. If we are near family, we might have some mail or packages forwarded to them. So far this has all worked very well for us. Of course, we started this whole process by eliminating as much mail as we could. We pay our bills online, have no magazine subscriptions, and opted to have our mail service get rid of all junk mail. This reduction has paid off since we do pay postage and a small fee for each “package of mail” we have forwarded.

Getting the mail from General Delivery at a Post Office is usually a quick uneventful trip. We stand on line (these are small places with friendly people who seem to immediately recognize that we are strangers and not among the local regulars). We show our IDs and the clerks go in the back, retrieve our mail, and after a few pleasantries, off we go.

Elko proved to be a little different. First we tried to pick up the mail on Tuesday but we missed out because that Post Office is only open from 9 am to 12 noon. So we went back the next day. There was one customer ahead of us who was chatting with the clerk. They both smiled at us as we walked in and the clerk turned her attention to us. We barely said General Delivery – didn’t even get our names out – and she told us that we had some mail and since we hadn’t picked it up yet, she had instructed the delivery person to check at the campground to see if we were registered there. So what must you deduce from this? We apparently are the only strangers in town (that get mail). We apparently are staying at the only place for transients – Twin Oaks Campground – no motels? And we are somehow delinquent in picking up our mail.

We mumbled something about just getting into town, the office was closed, etc. The clerk went back and gave us the envelope. We thanked her for her excellent customer service and chuckled in the car about being the notorious strangers in Elko. We just are not used to these small towns, but obviously they are not used to us.

Elko was a good place to venture around Georgia. Our first full day was spent touring the Museum of Aviation at Warner-Robins AFB. There we saw hangers filled with planes, helicopters and related vehicles from all the wars. We’ve seen exhibits like this before and I’m finding some of the most interesting exhibits are the ones that display the uniforms and how they changed over the years. The best part was locating a plane like the one Doug had been in for a test flight a few years ago. It was much smaller than I had expected.

We went to Jimmy Carter’s birthplace, toured his family’s peanut farm, and visited the high school Jimmy went to which is now a museum. And we saw Plains, where we devoured some peanut butter ice cream in a quaint general store that has been there forever.

We also went to Andersonville – the site of the fort that held Union prisoners of war toward the end of the Civil War. This is also a National Cemetery and a museum dedicated to prisoners of all wars. It was an interesting day filled with the horror of prison life and balanced with the lovely simplicity of the Carters’ lives.

Our next stop was the parking lot of Safety Plus. We had some equipment installed in the Safety Plus facility in Austell. They were happy to let us stay the night in their lot. It was weird but we don’t do a lot of this kind of dry camping. We managed quite well and have learned to be flexible.

We then spent 8 nights in Acworth at the McKinney Corps of Engineers Campground. We like staying in COE parks since so far they have been beautiful places to stay at a really inexpensive price. Usually the cost was already low at about $24 a night but with my senior discount we pay half that price. And this campground was really nice – our site was big with oak and pine trees and a view of the large lake from both sides of our RV. But the weather was rainy and very cold while we were at this campground so we didn’t get out and walk around much.

We did get a few chances to check out Atlanta. Other than the really awful traffic getting in and out of the big city, we enjoyed Atlanta. One day we went to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center and the Ebenezer Baptist Church. We walked around the Sweet Auburn Market (ate a great lunch at a Venezuelan shop) and saw a bit of the Sweet Auburn neighborhood that Dr. King lived and worked in.

I was especially excited to go on the CNN Studio Tour. We don’t get much cable TV while we are traveling around so I miss checking in with my favorite CNN hosts and pundits.  It was a thrill to see the newsroom in action and to learn how the studios work. The building itself was amazing – it used to be an Omni Hotel until Ted Turner turned it into a functioning news organization. The bottom floor is a really large food court and the escalator is the longest free standing one in the world. Great tour. We walked across the Centennial Olympic Park (in icy wind) to the Center for Civil and Human Rights. We feel like we’ve learned a great deal and were able to tie together the work of King and Carter and their cohorts who fought against hatred and complacency and brought this country to greatness. It was inspirational.

We had a great visit from my sister-in-law Lisa who is driving from Florida to Illinois to take care of some family stuff. She shared breakfast with us which was a real treat for us. We don’t have much in the way of company in this lifestyle so her visit was great. We hope the rest of her trip goes well.

We fought the traffic one more time to see the Jimmy Carter Museum and Library. I feel like we know this man and his family from all the exhibits we’ve enjoyed. My favorite anecdote is that Rosalyn Carter chose to wear the same gown for both the governor’s inauguration ball and the presidential ball. She said that she was nostalgic about it. That impressed me. Instead of spending a ridiculous amount of money on her gown, she wore the same one twice. That symbolized to me the lifestyle the Carters live and breathe. They still live in Plains. They still go to a different country once a month to either do some life-saving health program or observe an election. Once a year, they spend a week building a home for Habitat for Humanity. When they are in their small, simple home in Plains, Rosalyn cooks their meals – mostly homegrown fruits and veggies with only occasional meat. They live their lives focused on learning, teaching, health initiatives and helping others. They are authentic. They are refreshing!

Tomorrow – March 19th – we leave McKinney to go to the Hidden Cove RV Park in Arley, AL. We are expecting to be off the grid – not much in the way of cable, internet, TV reception, etc. We are hoping for good weather so we can keep busy outdoors.