Life in the Slow Lane

Location: Hamilton Branch State Park, SC

This morning's campsite was so beautiful I didn't want to leave. We hung out as long as possible just soaking in the beauty of the "Low Country."

 

 

 

 

We took a morning bike ride that took us through marsh

along a boardwalk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and through groves of Spanish Moss hanging from the trees. We rode next to a Civil War battlefield and you could still see the earthworks. We also saw an abandoned moonshine still with the axe marks from the federal agents. This place has some cool history.

 

 

 

We finally left Georgia, headed a bit north into South Carolina and then, for the first time, began heading west. We really enjoyed taking country roads into the Carolina hills. Many of the towns we passed through were old railroad towns, barely hanging on. Here's a picture of one of the old railroad stations or warehouses. So typical of this area.

 

 

 

We also passed lots and lots of little fruit stands. Mainly Grandma sitting next to her tomatoes or peaches.

By early afternoon we began to look for a good BBQ place, afterall this is South Carolina. The BBQ places here are much different than elsewhere. You won't see big smokers out front, but instead cinderblock buildings with obscure signs. The BBQ here is usually a buffet type. And from past experience I can tell you we usually don't recognize half the food. Here's a pic of some cracklings on the right, with pulled pork on the left.

 

 

The food was acutally pretty great! I settled on cabbage with butter beans, baked beans, a couple of ribs, and hush puppies. The BBQ sauce here is mustard based, which I usually don't like, but theirs was delicious!! I opted for the tea unsweetened. I still haven't mastered the art of "Sweet Tea".

Don't be fooled by this plate. I ate at least 6 hush puppies! These are the best hush puppies I've ever eaten. They were just the right amount of crunch, with a soft inside and not too much onion.

I think we should call our blog "Adventures in Eating" and not so much "Adventures with Winnie".

 

 

The quirkiest part of this restaurant was this sign near the door. Needless to say, we left everything, including our ice teas behind. (There went my plan of stealing hush puppies!)

p.s. How embarrassing would that be to ask my children to bail me out of the Barnwell County Jail for stealing hush puppies?

We continued moseying through South Carolina eventually ending up in the Carolina piney hills. We are situated right ON Lake Strom Thurmond. One side of the lake is Georgia, the other is South Carolina. We stumbled upon this spot 7 years ago and it's even better than we remembered.

Our little camp spot is situated on a cove in the lake

 

 

 

 

Here's how I spent the late afternoon and early evening.

 

Here's Ned joining me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our other entertainment this evening has been watching the doufus camped next to us attempt to extract his car and trailer from the mud. (How he managed to wedge it in this one spot is beyond us). He's been at it for several hours. We offered to help, but he said he had it under control, his brother would be arriving to bail him out. When his brother finally arrived, he drove up, and with a big ol' Southern Drawl belted out, "Whut the hell 'ave you done?" then stood there and scratched his head. Priceless! As of this posting they are still trying to figure it out...

 

 

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Jekyll Island - The Millionaire's Club & Low Country Boil

Skidaway Island State Park, GA

We decided to take our time driving up the coast of Florida this morning. Northern Florida is really beautiful with lots of islands off the coast. We went from island to island taking bridges and a ferry, and looking at all the fancy houses lining the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's me hanging out on the front of the ferry as we came into dock. Ned was smart enough to stay in the vehicle...can you say baking hot temperatures!

 

 

A lot of this area is beautiful marshland.

Last night, Ned did a little research and found a really interesting place to visit today called Jekyll Island. It's located in Southern Georgia and has an interesting history of Native American, Spanish and English settlements. What fascinated me the most is the "Jekyll Island Club." It was touted as the "richest, most inaccessible club in the world." Founded in 1886, there were 100 members such as J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and a bunch of other bigwigs that were captains of industry. Here's a picture of their "Club House". Yes, everything you see in this picture is the club house.

The members, and their families, did a variety of outdoor activities such a hunting, horseback riding, skeet shooting, golf, tennis, biking, croquet, lawn bowling, picnics and carriage rides. The people arrived by boat...er should I say by yacht and sailing ships. JP Morgan's boat, the Corsair II, was too big to dock. Anchored in the channel Morgan was escorted ashore by a flotilla of small craft, after a cannon had sounded off his arrival. No egos here.

Here's a picture of a humble cottage.

These multi-millionaires built their summer "cottages" in Newport, RI and their winter "cottages" here on Jekyll Island. My question is, when did these guy work?!

We had a blast riding our bikes around looking at all the cottages, boat house, club house, chapel, etc. The bike path through the historical district was pristine and tree-lined.

 

 

We only encountered 5 other riders on our 15 mile ride. Either people don't appreciate this little gem of a path or we were the only ones crazy enough to ride in 91 deg. temperature in mid-day. We rode around most of the island, exploring the campground (for a future trip?), the Atlantic Ocean paths (which were not tree lined and hotter than hell in the blazing sun) and the fancy golf club.

After this several hour excursion we loaded up our bikes and continued north heading toward Savannah. The skies opened up and dang did it pour! The weather here is so weird. It can be blue skies and sunny one minute, then just downpour the next, then go back to being sunny. We secured our campsite at Skidaway Island State Park and then headed for Tybee Island. Wahoo!

This is a beautiful campground situated under lots of Spanish Moss and among palmetto trees.

 

We've done a roadtrip for 7 years and our favorite meal of all time has been the Low Country Boil at the Crab Shack on Tybee Island. Their motto is "Where the Elite eat in their barefeet." (Yes, that would be us...Jekyll Island and so elite - ha!) Today we headed back to see if it really was as good as we remembered. We didn't call this trip "The Greatest Hits" for nothing!

This is a really funky place situated right on the marsh. We had to cross about 4 or 5 islands to get here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scored the margarita! Sure hope the meal is as good as we remembered...

Oh Man...this is so GOOD!! (Alan and Patty...roadtrip!!!!!) Hot n' juicy has nothing on this place. We got fresh Georgian shrimp right out of the ocean, sausage, corn on the cob and potatoes all boiled together with some secret seasoning.

 

 

 

 

 

Oysters anyone? Okay, not us but dang these suckers are huge! Other people were ordering crawfish, whole crab, king crab legs and of course, BBQ. We stuck with the Low Country Boil.

Hey friends in Nevada City, I'm thinking we should get together this summer and do a big "Low Country Boil!" Who's IN??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biggest gator caught on record, over 19 ft. Caught by "Ned", son of inventor of tobasco sauce.

Perfect finish to a great day!

 

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Market Research Day

St. Augustine's Beach, Florida

We hung out so long at our campsite this morning that a Disney worker actually stopped by to ask us if we needed help or were having car trouble...on account of us apparently over-staying our welcome. Uh-no, we're just being pokey thank you very much. So, we eventually left and headed for St. Augustine. We did in fact have a small car issue that needed to get taken care of and stopped at the VW dealer in St. Augustine. Ned called ahead and made sure they ordered the part. It was installed (a brake light switch issue) in less than 30 min.

While Winnie was getting serviced we ate at a restaurant across the street. Best dang Mexican salad I've ever had and the presentation was awesome too. (The chicken was satayed in thin pieces and it came topped with the Mexican flag!)

 

As far as weather is concerned, we have lucked out this trip. If it has rained, it was either at night or when we were doing an inside activity. We had some rain last night, which was still pretty minor and definitely walkable. Today coming into St. Augustine we saw some of the best colored stormy skies! Check out the sky behind Ned in this pic...and yeah cool car!

The skies opened up and boy did it downpour! Our plans were to go swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, but instead we decided to visit a local chocolate company.

About 4 years ago, on our last trip to St. Augustine, we took a chocolate tour at Whetstone Chocolates. At that time they were not making their own chocolate, but instead buying it from Guittard and melting it down to create truffles, etc. Their future plans included making bean to bar chocolate so we were curious and wanted to see how they progressed. Their sign sure implies that they have now started making their own chocolate from cocoa beans. Through the window we could also see chocolate making equipment, but it was obvious that none of it was hooked up. Mmm...time to do some market research.

 

Once inside their shop they had lots of chocolate bars and small molded items that implied, once again, that it was made from bean to bar by them. There were 3 women working behind the counter. I asked the first woman if in fact they made their own chocolate from bean to bar. She said, "I don't know, ask her." I asked the second woman and she wouldn't look me in the eye or answer the question directly. I pressed her on it and she pretty much lied and said, "Yes, it's make in the factory over there." I then asked woman number three the same question and she answered it by saying, "We have someone else roast the cocoa beans and we contract on a yearly basis." Uh...that would indicate you are just remelting industrial chocolate! This so pissed me off! When we asked about the equipment, not hooked up, she said it belonged to someone else. They are obviously trying to capitalize on the artisan bean to bar chocolate movement and this just undermines craft chocolate makers, like ourselves. Diatribe over...thanks for letting me vent. Yes, we bought several bars and tasted them. They are definitely Guittard chocolate!

After getting all worked up, what better way to let off steam than to take a bike ride through St. Augustine. I love this place! This is one of my top three cities in the U.S. (James, we HAVE to meet up here next time through and you can show us all your favorite haunts.) I just love riding through the cobblestone streets in Old Town.

 

 

 

Here's the oldest wooden school house in America!

We also rode through some of the old neighborhoods and along the wharf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This place is just so darn chaming!

One of the best things about road trips is stopping along the way and picking up some great local food. Guess what's on the menu for tonight's dinner!

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our way back to the campground, we stopped on the drawbridge, while a replica of a Spanish galleon sailed leisurey below us. This is one of the charms of St. Augustine, which often pays tribute to its Spanish history from 1565 when it was first founded by a Spanish Admiral, and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menendez de Aviles.

 

 

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All Caught Up in Epcot

Fort Wildnerss Campground...still!

We managed to spend another 12 hours or so at a theme park. How is that possible? Today it was all about Epcot. Even tho we put in another 10 miles walking, the pace felt much slower than yesterday. It was really hot today, partly because of the heat radiating off the wide open concrete. There were less crowds too...thank goodness!

 

 

We started out visiting the World Showcase. It was so fun to see how each country represented itself. Now, I want to travel everywhere!

England had a fun village that seemed pretty realistic. (Based on my travels there).

I LOVED visiting France. Their film was amazing, and the French personnel were so sweet and adorable. There was a quote from a poet cited during the movie and it really resonated with me. I wanted to know who the author was and to get the quote correct. Before we left Epcot this evening we walked all the way back (in the rain) to the French exhibit. Everyone was so sweet helping us figure it out. "Et, sans savoir pourquoi, Disent toujours: Allons!" by Charles Baudelaire. Translated: They leave for the sake of leaving, And without knowing why, they always say "we must go".

Oops, caught shopping in Morocco.

Mexico had a great exhibit, one of the best. Even better were their mango margaritas. One was Ned's, really!

We spent most of the late afternoon and early evening in Future World. I think we saw almost every exhibit here as well.

Ned got caught up in the shark exhibit...

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we rode the Spaceship Earth they asked us several questions about how we'd like to spend the future.

This is what they came up with - We would be traveling under the sea...

And driving our own spaceship. I think they nailed it.

We also really enjoyed watching the manatees getting fed lettuce. They wolf down an entire head of romaine lettuce in a single gulp.

There were two interesting connections to our chocolate world. The first was in visiting the Mexican Exhibit. There was a display on the first team sport in history, 3500 years ago played by the Mayans. It was somewhat similar to our present day basketball.

A couple of years ago while on a cacao trip to Belize we visited some Mayan ruins and saw one of the "courts" where the game was played.

The second connection was when we visited the exhibit called "Living with the Land." It featured a massive green house where extensive research is being done. One of the plants featured was cacao, although the pods looked different than any we've seen.

 

 

 

 

Ned scheduled a late night romantic dinner at Nine Dragons in the China Pavilion at the World Showcase. While walking there the temperature dropped dramatically and it started to rain. We ducked inside a gift shop and as luck would have it the perfect little rain jacket was calling out to me.

We had a delicious dinner! Afterwards, it was also really fun to walk along the lakeside promenade while a light rain fell. There were torches blazing and lightening flashed far in the distance. Great way to end our Disney Experience.

 

 

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