Hanging with Jack and Davey

Our big destination for the day was the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, TN. Basically, it's in the middle of nowhere. We took some really off the beaten path roads to get there, driving thru a mountain range and then over gorgeous rolling hills. When we arrived we were a little surprised at how many people were there since we hadn't seen anyone on the roads on our way. Our tour guide was great, not only informing us of the brewing process, but telling amusing anecdotes in his charming Tennessee drawl. Our biggest disappointment was there wasn't any tasting of the brew after the tour since Lynchburg is in a dry county. Don't worry, we managed to find an ice cream shop in town that served Jack Daniels cones! Yeah, it was pretty tasty, albeit a little soft given the high alcohol content. We're camped tonight at David Crockett State Park. We've been completely spoiled by camping on a lake the last several nights and were a little disappointed that even tho there's a lake, no swimming was allowed. The campground is amazingly empty for a Saturday night and we're fortunate to have an entire loop to ourselves in a gorgeous wooded area. We enjoyed the many bike trails in the park, but given the heat and humidity we didn't knock ourselves out. It was a delightful surprise to see the fireflies out tonight. It's the first ones we've seen on this trip and it really does make you feel like it's summer and you're a kid again catching them and putting them in old mayonnaise jars. today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:David Crockett State Park

Summer in Appalachia

We left Bobby Brown State Park and headed for the Georgia Mountains. Our big surprise of the day was unexpectedly stumbling upon Ty Cobb's home town of Royston. I knew my mama would be mad at me if we didn't take this opportunity to poke our head inside the Ty Cobb museum. It's located in a medical office building, which at first seemed a little odd, until we learned how much Ty Cobb donated toward healthcare. This museum is quite a little gem. We saw a 15 minute movie and there was lots of memorabilia to peruse. We just knew Nana would love this place. Mom, check out today's pics, especially the photograph I took of Ty Cobb in an A's uniform. Even tho he played with Detroit for most of his career, his last two years were with the Philadelphia Athletics. We continued further into the mountains stopping for lunch at Chuck's BBQ, a very, very local joint. Ned dined on Chuck's speciality of "pig wings" - don't ask, while I had a plate of pork, with a side of Brunswick stew. Only in the South can you get meat with a side of meat...After our carnivorous lunch our big planned stop of the day was the town of Helen. Admittedly we had been warned that it was a tourist trap. Well, they weren't kidding. It's a very cheesy Bavarian village where people can float down the Chattahoochee River in day glo pink tubes, otherwise known as "tubing the Hooch". Think of it as a low budget Solvang with the Truckee River running through it. We decided to keep on trucking and had a wonderful drive through the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. This area is just incredibly beautiful and reminded us a lot of Smokey Mountain National Park, with it's dense broadleaf woods. We rolled into Harrison Bay State Park around dinner time on a Friday night, knowing that our chances for a campsite were slim. Even tho the park is pretty filled up, we completely lucked out by nabbing a spot on the lake! We're loving this spot so much we're putting it down as a possibility for next Memorial weekend. (what me plan ahead?) It was so fun watching the sunset from our floaties in the lake. See today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Harrison Bay State Park, TN

Georgia Camping

Between the Kennedy Space Center and discovering St. Augustine we had a whirlwind couple of days with a lot crammed in. It sure felt good to kick it down a notch and have last night and today be all about the journey and the camping. We were the only people in the campground last night and we very much appreciated the solitude. We were seriously thinking about going for an evening swim, but when the ranger came by to collect our fees he advised against it. Or how he put it was, "It's probably not a good idea, we have a couple of baby gators that have wondered in." Okay, enough said that worked for me! Instead we thoroughly enjoyed coffee on the lakeside swing and taking an early morning walk next to the lily pads. We continued our journey sticking to the Georgia backroads until we reached Augusta. Our plan was to bike along the "river-walk" which sounded great on paper. In reality, we found Augusta to be a bit mundane and not very charming at all. It's entirely possible that we missed the quaint part, but mostly it seemed like Augusta was just one big strip mall sprawl with a couple of downtown blocks. The mercury was really rising by now and a picnic lunch in 97 deg weather next to the unimpressive river was no longer appealing. We opted instead for salads in an air conditioned cafe. We continued our drive on the backroads enjoying the groves of stately pecan trees. Several years ago, we followed this same route, but on the South Carolina side of the river. This side seems more developed. After checking out several state campgrounds, we settled on Bobby Brown State Park. As luck would have it we have another campsite right on the lake, but this time there are no gators. It was still in the high 90's and thick with humidity, (To my Nevada City family and friends, sorry to be whining about the heat when you've had rain, hail and tornadoes!) so we spent the next several hours floating in the lake trying to get cooled off. As I write this, at 8:30 pm, its a nice 85 deg. with not a lick of breeze. The sunset on the lake and the peacefulness of another quiet campground does the soul good. Today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Bobby Brown Stare Park

The Fountain of Youth - We Made It!

After our whirlwind tour yesterday, we were a bit pokey heading out this morning. Looks like we might need a taste from the Fountain of Youth waters none too soon! Anastasia State Park has a beautiful campground and we'd love to come back to spend a little more time. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the beach. We did however have time for a tour at the Whetstone Chocolate factory. Priorities, priorities. We've done lots of other chocolate tours on our travels, but this one was my favorite. We had a very engaging tour guide named Chauncey, who is also a local pastor. He was quite knowledgeable on chocolate and what I especially liked was the detailed history he provided. There were quite a few visual aids and lots of chocolate sampling too. Ned, Mr. Chocolatier, wasn't quite as easily bribed by chocolate as I was, but he thought it was a pretty good tour as well. Turns out they don't roast their own cocoa beans, the mark of a true chocolate maker. Nonetheless, they had some pretty darn good samples! Next on the agenda was riding our bikes thru town and visiting the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest fort in the US. The highlight for us here was seeing the beautiful ornately decorated bronze cannons some of them still in working condition. After a little more bike riding we finally made it to The Fountain of Youth Park, a mere 4700 miles to drink the magic elixir!! (crowd roar). We spent several hours roaming around seeing the Indian Diorama displays, the 1950's state of the art audio visual presentation complete with a 32 ft. diameter glowing globe of the earth, and strutting peacocks. After toasting to our youth with the magical waters, I can honestly say we found the secret to staying young...it's going on road trips and stopping at goofy roadside attractions. It definitely helps to have a sense of humor and appreciate the quirkiness of local folklore. In the late afternoon, we sadly bid adieu to Florida and crossed into Georgia, turning Winnie oh so slightly toward the West. We will never forget Florida, but for now we have Georgia on our mind.today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Gordonia Alatamaha State Park

Exploring Outer Space

Ned here. Today's big event was our trip to the Kennedy Space Center. We arrived around 10 a.m. and were pleased to see that not too many other people were there. We think maybe the day after Memorial Day weekend was a good day for us to attend. Our first event there was watching a 3D IMAX movie about the repair of the Hubble Deep Space telescope. There were some really gorgeous scenes in that film of distant galaxies. Next we took the ride on the Shuttle Lift Off Simulator. That exhibit did a particularly good job of explaining all the steps before and during liftoff. One thing I learned that I had always wondered about was why you see a bunch of sparks underneath rocket engines several seconds before they actually finish the countdown to liftoff. Turns out those are intentionally created to burn off any excess hydrogen which might be present, thus avoiding an unintended explosion prior to liftoff. We then spent some time looking at the exhibits in both the Early Space Exploration and the Astronauts Hall of Fame, which were both really interesting. As part of these displays we both tried our hands at some flight control simulations. I'm not sure how Debi performed on these, but I'm sorry to report that I managed to crash my vessel twice into the space station, along with smashing the space shuttle into the landing strip, although I was successful at landing the lunar module onto the surface of the moon! Having spent nearly 5 hours(!) at the Space Center we decided to head north towards St. Augustine. We were not convinced that the town of Daytona Beach has aged very well, as Debi has memories of it being extremely cool when she was in her early teens. However, the seemingly endless miles of spectacular beaches which ran north of the city impressed us greatly. Once we arrived in St. Augustine, Debi was completely with the feel of the old part of town. We spent a long time just walking around the quaint little streets, taking photos, as the sun fell lower in the sky. It was a very beautiful way to few the place, and appreciate all the old buildings and their charm. I'm sure we will be spending lots of time there tomorrow, as Debi has now found another town which she has fallen in love with! See today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Anastasia State Park, FL

Miami - Move Along, Move Along

Our time being beach bums is over, and into metropolis we go. It's surreal leaving the keys, the last stop being Key Largo and onto a sea foam green freeway divider. You feel like you're on a Disney Autopia ride. Our first destination was the "must see, never to be believed" roadside attraction of Coral Castle. The story goes that a 5 ft. 100 lb. Latvian man was jilted at the altar and spent the rest of his life carving a home out of coral in dedication to his lost love. We paid the big bucks and got to see Ed's handiwork. The big mystery is how such a little guy accomplished this singlehandedly. It was interesting, but didn't really seem all that comfy or cozy. Actually, I give a lot more credit to the fiancé for having the sense to bolt. She definitely seemed like the sane one! (ah Debi, you romantic). Actually, the most interesting part of the Castle was that the "Wild Women from Wongo" was filmed here in 1959. After that little adventure our next stop was Miami Beach. We thought it would be fun to ride our bikes along South Beach, check out the beautiful people and catch some more Cuban food. This is where our day started getting a little weird. Upon arriving in downtown, we got caught in a police escort. Really! The motorcycles cops were escorting a fancy bus through the streets and we were stuck right in front of it, being motioned thru red lights by the cops on every street corner until we reached the American Airlines arena. I felt like giving all the bystanders my best princess wave. Turns out that there's something like an NBA basketball playoff and the bus was either the Heat or the Mavericks. Go figure. When we crossed into Miami Beach, most of the streets were closed and thousands of cars were creeping and beeping along. We saw a parking spot along the road and just took it, figuring we could bike it from there. Well, turns out I had a flat tire, and as Mr. Gallant was fixing it, a "local gentleman" approached us and informed us that this area was for locals only and we should leave. At this point I realized we were in a sketchy neighborhood and we should take his advice and scram. After sitting in traffic and not moving we decided to forego the Miami Beach scene and move onto Plan B. I got on the Internet to see what Memorial Day activities were holding things up. Turns out it's the annual Hip Hop festival. That explains so much of what was going on! Meanwhile we found a great Brazilian Restaurant, away from the action, and thoroughly enjoyed a very meaty lunch. Feeling that we weren't welcome in Miami Beach, we headed to the very upscale and tony Palm Beach. Nancy told us about a great Bike Trail where we can view all the swanky mansions. Cool! As we were reading about the trail, the following info is stated: "...many of the people using the trail are unusually well dressed and polite. Visitors should dress and act appropriately." Well, we definitely got a chuckle out of that, especially since Ned now had grease stained shorts from the tire repair and after 3 weeks of camping I was definitely looking like something the cat dragged in. As we unloaded the bikes and approached the trail, we noticed a sign that said "trail closed for repairs", and sure enough there was a pipe blocking the trail. Mmm, seems like we weren't fitting in with the hip hop crowd or able to hang with the upper crust. So, we just said let's go do what we do best and head for biking and camping at the State Park. Ah, home sweet home. We checked out the river, but it was much too warm to cool off - not to mention the snake I saw and warning signs of alligators. So, a bike it was thru the park. The crowds have left so it's a very mellow scene. So much form our re-entry into civilization. Tomorrow we go at it again. today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Fl

Life's a Beach

We didn't do much today. We started out at Sandspur Beach where we hoped to find better snorkeling. It was really windy though, and we couldn't find any rocky areas where we had found the coolest looking fish yesterday, so we decided to head back to Caloosa Beach, where we'd started out snorkeling on Friday. Being the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, the family picnic action was in full swing there. We realized quickly, once we'd hit the water that there was a really huge current moving past the end of the rocks where we expected to see the best fish. Carefully maneuvering ourselves near the rocks, so as not to get sucked out to sea, we snorkeled for a bit and saw some fish, but decided that the swift current was creating cloudy water conditions which didn't make for the best viewing. We tried swimming to the rocks on the other end of the beach, which turned into a major workout, as we fought against the current. Finding few fish to view at that location, we returned to the beach to hangout under our umbrella, since the day was really hot at this point. Finally we headed back to our campsite to get out of the heat and try to cool off. Thankfully, the wind had turned cooler at this point, so we got some relief. We realize that we have felt very lucky regarding the presence of mosquitos and other biting insects in Florida, which we were warned are unbearable starting this time of year. We've had very little problem with insects at all in Florida, particularly after we were eaten alive in New Orleans! We hit 100 miles on our bike odometer today, which is probably a good thing, considering all the great eating we've been doing. Enough lollagagging around, we're heading out of here first thing in the morning. We've got the Atlantic side of Florida to check out! today's pics - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Bahia Honda State Park