Category Archives: Georgia

by | April 9, 2019 · 11:54 am

On the Road from Florida to “Peachy In Perry” Rally

All packed up and ready for the road, we left North Miami Beach.  We managed to get through to the highway without much traffic and no horn-blowing.  We had an easy ride to Vero Beach where we stayed at Sunshine Travel Resort for one night.

Then we drove an even shorter distance to Orlando RV Resort, a Thousand Trails park we stay in for free.  The two nights there gave us time to buy lots of groceries and do a few loads of laundry.  I like this laundry room – clean, good machines (with separate machines for campers with pets).  We were preparing for a few more days on the road and then our stay at the rally where we will not have water or sewer and we don’t want to leave the rally for groceries.

In Orlando, our next site campers, Bill and Karen, were also going to the rally.  This will be the largest RV rally we have attended – the International Family Motor Coach Association – with almost 2000 rigs attending.

As we drove to our next quick stop at Stephen Foster State Park, we saw lots of rigs heading the same way we were.  We stopped on Monday for gas at a Pilot truck stop.  Pulled up next to us was another Tiffin like ours.  With so many motor homes heading to Perry, it was an easy conversation that we would all be attending the rally.  This couple, Martha and Bill, were also spending that night at Twin Oaks Campground.  Martha and I briefly spoke, I gave her our card, and we agreed to find each other after we parked at the rally.  Casual friendships happen like this all the time on the road.

The Carillon Tower at Stephen Foster State Park

We arrived right on time for our scheduled rally parking.  There was a short delay getting us into our site, but we liked the convenient location we had in Lot #1, just a few rows down from the end of the lot.  We hooked up the electric (no sewer, no water so we were using our holding tanks – which is really not a problem for a few days).  Martha and Bill were camping a few rows over from us.

Martha called and we agreed to get together that afternoon at our RV site.  They brought over their chairs and drinks and we had a few hours of conversation and camaraderie on a beautiful Perry, Georgia afternoon.  They have attended more rallies than we have and shared their knowledge and expectations with us.

Martha and I had tickets for the Ladies Luncheon, and we agreed to go together.  It’s always a good approach to enter one of these things with at least one other person.  Neither of us is shy but it is intimidating to find a table to sit at when it seems like everyone else is holding seats for their friends.  Martha had also arranged to go with a friendly vendor and I had asked Gloria whose RV was across from us.  Then the four of us befriended a woman sitting alone who was very happy to sit with such a nice group of women.  I think the simple bonding we did before the lunch made it one of the best of these events I have attended.  Such pleasant, up-beat conversations we had, along with good food and music.

Our “site” at the Perry Rally

These rallies are jam-packed with seminars, entertainment and vendor displays.  Doug and I spent hours pouring over the offerings and planning our separate days.  There were way too many good seminars to attend – we had to divide and conquer.  Plus, while Doug went to the technical workshops, I found some great crafting groups to meet with – new ideas for quilts on the road, a fiber artists group that may expand into on on-line group, diamond painting (something new for me) and a greeting card seminar.

The greeting cards I made
Pondering over which seminars to attend

Doug and I managed to meet for lunch in the Town Center Square Tent every day (and listened to the bands and choral groups that entertained then).  We started some days with donuts and coffee and more entertainment while we went over our ever-changing schedules.

The clock tower at the town square
The lake by the town square at the rally

We ate at our RV for dinners, while we compared notes on our day’s fun and rested up for the evening festivities.  We laughed with a humorist on Wednesday night, enjoyed the Coasters, the Drifters and the Platters on Friday night and listened to the horns and swing music of Louis Prima, Jr. on Saturday night.

The amount of walking we did more than took care of the donut and ice cream calories.  From Tuesday afternoon through Sunday morning, I tracked well over 21 miles walking around the beautiful Perry Fairgrounds and back and forth to our RV.  It is well-known that I have a poor sense of direction and some of those miles were me being lost between seminars.

We learned a lot, met wonderful fellow travelers, joined RVillage and Tiffin Motorhomes Lifestyle Facebook groups and considered joining the Full Timers Chapter.  Some folks travel from rally to rally but we’re not in the category.  We’ve agreed they are valuable activities in our life, but will probably go to one large rally every other year.  It’s tempting to attend many – for instance the next big FMCA rally is the 100th year anniversary in Minot, North Dakota, but our planned travel misses that by a month and there is another rally in Tucson which we may attend on a day pass depending on our volunteer work schedule.  So much to see and do – so many plans – we just can’t fit it all in nor do we want to fill our time that intensely.  So we enjoyed this Peachy in Perry Rally and we’ll see what happens in the future.

After all that fun, we needed a rest and Camp Lake Jasper in Hardeesville, South Carolina was just the place to do it.  We filled in our food supplies and got our laundry done.  The weather has been spotty with a nice warm and sunny day in between cold, damp and rainy days.  We take the good with the bad and try to enjoy seeing this part of the county.

Our next big excitement is visiting my Aunt Camille in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.  Can’t wait to spend time with her!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Florida, Georgia, South Carolina

by | January 1, 2019 · 12:10 pm

Georgia On Our Minds

Our stop in Georgia was at Forsyth KOA. This KOA was swampy after so much rain and the sites were small lakes (ours didn’t dry up after two days of no rain), but the management gave us three warm chocolate chip cookies when we got there.  They also delivered pizza to us that night.

We had a purpose to be in this part of Georgia.  About a year and a half ago, we had a steering stabilizing device installed on our RV.  The reviews of this device were much better than what Doug experienced.  After talking to a Safe-T-Plus representative at an RV show, Doug decided to take his advice and go back to have the factory check our unit.  The end result is that we had the upgraded unit put in.  The folks there – mechanics and office workers – were exceptionally wonderful to work with.  They greeted us warmly, offering beverages and muffins, and made us feel welcome with their pleasant conversations.  After a short time, Doug took a test drive while I enjoyed hanging out with the staff.  The new unit was put in free of charge, including no fees for installation and extending our warranty.  And we left with a canvas goody bag – a Safe-T-Plus cap, a key fob, mug cozy, and a really nice thermal drink holder.  The new unit has improved Doug’s driving experience.

A few days later, we traveled on Route 75.  In spite of cold rainy weather, it was nice to see all the wildflowers along the highway.  We had a few hours of sun as we were driving to Hardeeville, South Carolina and then more rain!  So we stayed in the RV once we landed and got a head start on some side dishes for our Thanksgiving Dinner.  Doug made a delicious curry which rivals the Thai restaurants we’ve eaten in.

We stayed for a week in Camp Lake Jasper – a really beautiful RV park on a small fishing lake.  South Carolina is our 36th state.  Our Map of States is really getting filled in!  We went to two travel centers to get info on both Savannah, Georgia and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Our first day to be tourists took us to Savannah where we walked through the cobbled streets, enjoying the architecture of the homes and the green space in the squares.  We managed to walk through twelve of the many squares adorning Savannah.  We saw the Pirate House, lots of Spanish moss on the oak trees, the Waving Girl statue on the River Walk, and we wandered over the footbridges on Factors Walk.  The large Christmas tree was being built and there were many red and gold bows decorating the buildings and light posts.  We ate lunch at the Wright Street Café.  It was such a nice day in Savannah!

One of the squares in Savannah

A Prohibition mural in Savannah

But the best day came on November 21st when we went to Hilton Head Island and spent the day on Coligny Beach.  The lovely, warm sun was on us for hours as we sat on that beautiful beach watching the crazy people playing in the icy water!  The sand was spotless and the waves were sparkling.  I’m looking forward to more days like this in the sun on a beach!

We finally made it back to the beach!

And then we had a few more days of rain….  Thanksgiving was cool and overcast, but after getting four loads of laundry done in a nice laundry room, we sat down to a really great Thanksgiving Dinner.  We gave thanks for our meal, our wonderful family and friends, and our journey (the journey is home).

We ventured out to the quaint little artist community of Bluffton – in more rain.  We walked through the streets stopping at the Visitor Center which was in an historic home and in and out of art galleries and gift shops.  The Red Piano Gallery had some amazing paintings that were really beautiful local scenes with skies filled with pastel clouds.

One of the old churches in Bluffton. SC

After a few more days of rain, I started to decorate our RV for the holidays and then we left for Florida.  Our first stop in Florida is an old favorite – Stephen Foster Cultural Center and State Park.  It is our fourth stay there.  Hoping for some sunny days.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Georgia, South Carolina

by | March 18, 2017 · 7:10 pm

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.

Beach at Reed Bingham State Park

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.

T39 Sabreliner Training Jet

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.

Jimmy Carter Boyhood Farm

Jimmy Carter High School

Enjoying peanut butter ice cream in Plains, GA

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.

Original Ebenezer Baptist Church

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.

Carolyn watching CNN at CNN Center

CNN Center

Olympic Plaza

Mural at the Center for Civil and Human Rights

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!

Carter Center and Museum

Replica of Oval Office; Sign on desk reads “The buck stops here”

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.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Georgia