South Carolina, AKA, Vacationland (07-08-18)

There is no research we need to do in South Carolina at the moment, so we are “on vacation”. It’s the week before July 4th  and we have no reservations made.  It’s getting close enough that it was stressing me out, not having a “spot”, so we sat down with the calendar, and a map. 

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We had decided that we’d love to go to the beach for a few days, and figured that Myrtle Beach would be fun,  but what are the odds we’d find a spot?  Armed with a list of Campgrounds, we call the first one, the one that looked the best, and were shocked to hear that they did indeed have an opening (helps to be in a truck camper!).

With that reservation taken care of, we started looking for places to stop along the way.

Facebook makes it somewhat easier to connect with people, and my cousin, who I haven’t spent time with in about 40 years, saw where we were headed, and reached out. We had a great dinner with her and her husband Jimmy at their home in South Carolina.

  

It isn’t often that we get a chance to visit a National Park that we’ve never been to before but Congaree National Park is in South Carolina.

Congaree is an old growth floodplain forest, one of the few left in this country.  As you would think, when it rains, this area, which is bordered by bluffs on both sides, fills with water.

The trees that grow here are capable of surviving in standing water. The Bald Cypress trees surround themselves with a root system called knees.  No one is really sure what their purpose is but perhaps they work as a snorkel.

There is one other creature that flourishes in the floodplain forest:

July 2 we arrived at Myrtle Beach. We’ve been here before but we have never stayed here. Our campground has just about everything you could want, and we made good use of it all over the July 4th holiday.

Their pool even boasts a Lazy River.  We didn’t spend much time in the pool, but we did check out the Lazy River during the “adults only” hour.





The ocean is what I was excited about- the weather was gorgeous and the water temperature was in the 80s! We could walk to it from our site- priceless!

I spent a lot of time in the water, and it was so warm that even Paul came in pretty often…

We realized the first day that we were ill equipped for a stay at the beach, so we hit up the stores and now own two beach 

chairs and an umbrella.

With numerous pool parties, dances and assorted contests, there was plenty to do over the holiday. There was even a parade, right outside our door.

We knew we were in the right spot when people started pulling their chairs up all along our street.

Once the parades, barbequing and dancing was done, we took our chairs and walked to the beach where we could watch all the fireworks that were being set off by the hotels along the waterfront.

We are really spoiled as far as fireworks go, so we just enjoyed the fact that we were watching from a beach, didn’t have to drive, and were wearing shorts and a t-shirts.

Driving from McCarthy to Seward (07-05-14)

After leaving McCarthy Road, we headed towards Anchorage with the intention of driving down the Kenai peninsula to Seward for July 4th.   We've gotten into a loose habit of several days of leisurely travel followed by a few days of staying put in one area.  We knew it would take a few days to get to Seward- we never just drive- we are always exploring along the way.

Our first stop was an outdoor museum in the very small town of Chickaloon.  Someone puts a lot of effort into this place.  With coal mining equipment and restored buildings, it tells the story about the boom and bust of this area. In 1916, when the U.S. Navy found out there was coal here, they paid to have 25 buildings and pieces of machinery built that were necessary for the coal to be extracted and shipped to be used to power their fleet of vessels.  The town prospered. 

Six months after the last building was finished and operational, the Navy decided the coal wasn’t of sufficient quality, and shut down operations.  The town went bust. That happened a lot back then- whether the boom was coal, silver, or gold related, towns came and went it seems, in the blink of an eye.  The town still exists- population: 236

Our next stop was Anchorage, supposedly for a quick shopping stop before heading to Seward.  We had decided we need a better pair of binoculars so we spent the morning looking. It was here that we started hearing stories about the craziness in Seward. We discovered that Seward is the place to be for the 4th, and that in fact, people were paying $20 a night to park in someone’s driveway due to the lack of room.  Oops. We have no reservations.

And that’s how we ended up spending two nights in a Cabela’s parking lot.  It was actually our first time spending the night in a store parking lot.  The first night almost scared us off, with our neighbors partying and playing football in the parking lot until midnight.  But then, it was the 4th of July! The second night was much quieter.

We could have driven downtown for the fireworks (if you know Paul, you know he loves fireworks!!). But the fireworks are done at midnight, and this is what the sky looked like at 1145 PM.  Um, the sun was pretty much still out.  The locals say they have the best fireworks you've ever heard. Hmmm. We decided it wasn't worth braving the crowds.

The next day we did buy some binoculars (not from Cabela’s though). We found a store with an employee who really knew his stuff so we bought a pair of  cheap  inexpensive reasonably priced excellent quality binoculars.  Waterproof, drop proof, lifetime guarantee- Zeiss.

We also decided that if we could get a reservation in Seward for the following 3 days, we would go, and if we couldn't, it was fate, and we’d skip it altogether.  The following day was Sunday, so our chances were better. The first place I called said “no problem” so off we went.

The drive took us around Turnagain Arm (an inlet). This area is home to 20 some odd glaciers.  Amazing, and beautiful.

There are plenty of informative turn-outs and even a visitor center on this stretch of road.  This turn-out describes Beluga whales, which are common in this area, and how to spot them in the water.

There’s a side trip to the small town of Whittier that we decided not to take.  We would have gone through a very unique tunnel to get there.  Instead of spending millions to build a second tunnel, cars and trains take turns driving through the Whittier tunnel, and travel is one directional, so everyone has to have some patience.  It would have been fun, but maybe some other time. Paul consoled himself with pretending to be a train in the tunnel that we did go through.

This area is also known for it’s bore tide- where the tide comes in on a wave.  The height of this tidal bore varies, but it can be 6 feet tall. The day we sat and waited for it (actually on the way back to Anchorage from Seward) it was a no- show.  Maybe some other time.

Our last stop before getting to Seward was the small town of Hope, Alaska. Hope’s boom to bust story is due to the gold rush.  Gold was discovered here in 1888 and Hope became one of the largest towns in Alaska.  Once the gold played out, most people left.  The town population now is 132 or so.

This is yet another town that has done a great job refurbishing old buildings so the town’s history can be remembered and shared. 

Not every place that we explore is “Awesome” but each little place has something to teach and helps me to better piece together the history of the places we visit.

Cherry Festival- Traverse City, MI (7-5-11)

                                                                       Traverse City is high on our list of favorite places right now.  In fact, it’s high on our list of places we could see ourselves  living- but only six months of the year!  I really wouldn’t want to spend the winters here, but who wouldn’t want to wake up to this view every morning?

  

Of course one of the first things we had to do when we arrived in Traverse City was to eat Cherry Pie.  In fact we’ve already done that several times this week, and I doubt we’re done.  We also got some fresh cherries but since the spring has been so bad, the cherries were brought in from further south- the Traverse City cherries are not ripe yet.

We’ve wandered the grounds of the festival and enjoyed the music, the food and the carnival atmosphere.

July 4th here reminded me a lot of July 4 back in Boston.  The fireworks are set off from a barge out in the harbor, which means people can enjoy them both from the shore and from boats.

 

Missouri to Tennessee

July 4th the weather started out lousy in the morning, so we just hung around until late afternoon. Once the rain stopped and it seemed like there would actually be fireworks, we threw the grill and some food in the back of the truck and headed out to find a spot to watch them. The ones we wanted to see were being set off on Table Rock lake, so we found a grassy area near the lake and cooked some burgers once we got settled. The fireworks were not of the caliber that we are used to but we had a great time hanging out. The weather was perfect- no jacket needed. Getting back to the trailer was a long process, since we had to get in line with thousands of other cars.  

              Our last day in Branson was spent on the other large lake in the area-Taneycomo. Two lakes- separated only by a dam, and yet they are so different. Table Rock Lake had warm, beautiful blue water, and was wide, and roundish, like you would think a lake would look. Lake Taneycomo is on the other side of the dam. This lake is long, narrow and shallow, and seems more like a river, with trees growing all along the banks- and the water temperature is about 20-30 degrees colder. It is fed water from 140 ft below the surface of Table Rock Lake, which makes the water about 55 degrees and perfect for trout. The lake is stocked with up to 80,000 trout per month from a nearby hatchery (which we toured). We took the inflatable a few miles down the river, and watched fish swim and jump all around us. There were so many fish, we could see trout swimming around the people who were trying to catch them! We went as far as Branson Landing, the river walk where we had gone shopping the other day. On the way there we went slowly, because the lake is pretty shallow in most spots- only 3-5 feet deep. On the way back though, we zipped along wherever we knew it was deep enough.

          Back at the trailer we headed to the pool to cool off before cooking dinner, then once the boat was dry we put it away. We were invited to our “neighbors” for dessert. We had become friendly with some of the people in the trailers near ours, and they had made homemade ice cream and cobbler, so we weren’t about to turn that down. We sat around until we couldn’t stay awake anymore, then said goodnight.
          This morning we drove very carefully to Springfield, where we had all new tires put on the Everest. The old tires will be sent to Goodyear for evaluation, and we’ll see what they will do for us. Once that was done we drove all day long and ended up in Dover, Tennessee, in a National Recreation area that is called “Land Between the Lakes” because its basically an island, with Kentucky Lake on one side, and Barklay Lake on the other. The site we have is on the water, and the sunset was awesome tonight.
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July 4th weekend

For years, the week of July 4th has been a particularly fun time for me.  For the many years that my dad and I had a boat, we would take that boat onto the Charles River for 5 days with a bunch of other boating friends.  We'd all tie up together, and then the party would begin!  Of all the years I've made that trip, 1998 was the most special. For the first time after the death of my dad, I had to drive the boat by myself the 3 hours from Danvers to Boston. On July 2, 1998, with my boat tied up to 8 others, I was having a grand old time partying. A solo boater pulled up and asked if he could tie his 30 ft boat up to mine for a couple of days, since it looked like we had a safe spot with a great view. My friends and I agreed we had room for him, so a few minutes later his boat was secured and he spent the next 2 days partying with us.  That solo boater was my husband Paul. Two years later we were married, and I've never been happier.
      Life brings changes, and we no longer have a boat, and although every July 4th  I miss my boating friends,  the memories of our Boston trips will always make me smile.

        As for the last few days, we did take our dinghy out on Table Rock Lake  for the day on Thursday.  We packed a picnic lunch to eat out on the lake, and the water was the perfect temperature for swimming.  Thursday night our show was "The Haygoods"- a family of 8 siblings who not only sing great harmonies, they play most of the instruments themselves as well.  All of them play the fiddle, which made their rendition of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" awesome.  I really enjoyed the show.  Afterwards they asked the audience to stick around because they had a film crew from L.A. there to tape a live version of their new original song, and they needed an audience for the filming.  It was fun being there while they did 4 takes. Who knows- maybe someday we'll see ourselves on TV.

    Yesterday it was time to zip on the ZipLine for the first time!  I was a little nervous  as I let go of the tower for the first time, but after that initial moment,  I really enjoyed the trips along the cables. Would I do it again?  Probably not unless there was something new and unique to it.  It was a lot of money just to zip on 4 ziplines for the heck of it.  It was fun though, and I wanted to try it, to see how it was.
     Last night we went out to dinner at a small Mexican restaurant- the Margaritas were great, and the entire dinner was under $50.  Not bad.
Paul started the day feeling a little lazy, and then feeling guilty for feeling lazy. We didn't feel like venturing out too far, and it is supposed to rain today, so he is doing projects around the trailer, and I am doing laundry and catching up on paperwork.  Tonight is our last show- a comedian named Paul Harris.