From Maine to Florida

Nov. 21, 2021 – We left Fort McAllister on Monday morning and headed to Florida. I would have liked to have stopped and visit St Augustine but being the Thanksgiving week we could not find a place to camp. We ended up at Salt Springs Recreation Area Campground near Salt Springs Florida. This is a very nice national park campground with full hookup and paved roads and sites. It is run by an outside concessionaire and we were told the forest service thinks it too nice. We liked it!

The next day we made the 122 mile trip to Barrington Hills RV Resort. We drove on I-75 for a portion of the trip. The traffic was heavy and we saw an area of stop and go traffic going north but other wise we did not have any issues. After a few days at Barrington we reconnected with some folks we had met the last time we were here. They remembered us and welcomed us back.

Dennis planned a fishing outing with Don and Frank, two old friends at the park. They went to Tarpon Springs and took the Two Georges out to fish for Grunt and Grouper. The cost was $80 and they were out all day. Dennis caught about 30 Grunt and had them cleaned for an extra $10. We ended up with about 60 fillets about the size of perch and since we do not have a lot of freezer space we had to eat most of them right away. We had two huge meals and put the rest in the freezer. So for $90 we had three fish dinners, not too bad and they were delicious. Why are they called Grunts? Because they make a grunting sound when they are out of the water!

Earlier this month we were contacted by our friends Mike and Terri from Washington. They had been touring the Midwest this fall and decided to head further east to visit relatives in Virginia and Florida. We determined we would be fairly close to each other sometime after Thanksgiving and decided to try and meet. They were able to find a site at a RV Park just down the road from us for the weekend of the December 10^th. We visited them at Sundance Lakes RV Resort on Friday night. Had a wonderful visit and took advantage of the Friday night fish fry at their park. The cost was only $5 for a big piece of fish, fries, coleslaw and ice cream. Awesome! Then on Sunday they came to our park to continue our visit and have dinner. They also brought Susie, an older schnauzer that they adopted. She hadn't had a haircut in a while so I showed Mike and Terri how I do a schnauzer cut.

As mentioned earlier posts we are near our friends Cindy and Gary. They recently sold their Wisconsin home and moved permanently to Florida. They live in a condo at a beautiful 55+ golf community. It has been wonderful to reconnect with them. We have gone out to eat with them several times as well as play golf at the golf course in their development. Cindy and I went shopping the day Dennis went fishing. We had a great time and Cindy purchased some items to decorate a wall in their lanai. One of the unique places we went to eat is called the Freezer. It is an old fish house/freezer that's been converted into a restaurant. Its no frills dining as you order from a chalkboard menu which is very limited and all your meals come in a Styrofoam to go container. Everything is alacarte and you order your shrimp by the pound or half pound. I didn't like that you had to snag your own table when someone leaves and it was very noisy. However Dennis and I shared some peel and eat shrimp and it was excellent.

Barrington Hills RV Park has changed from when we were here 5 years ago. It is no longer a 55+ park and there are more younger folks here that have purchased park models. There are also lots of families. We don't have anything against kids and families but it is not the environment we want to spend our winter in. So we have been checking out different RV Resorts and 55+ communities in the area to potentially purchase something here in the future. We have found a few that look interesting. One place is Travelers Rest RV Resort near Dade City. It is a very nice park with a golf course and lots of activities. In order to secure a seasonal lot or purchase a park model you have to purchase a share of stock. Everyone in the park is an owner and has a say in the park. It looked and sounded nice but we decided it was too far away from shopping and other activities. There were a couple of other places that were pretty nice. One I really liked was Windward Village, a 55+ community of manufactured double wide home near Spring Hill.

We only booked one month at Barrington Hills and found out they were full for January. When we visited Mike and Terri at Sundance we thought it looked pretty nice and we were able to get a site for January.

Where we are parked: Salt Springs National Forest Campground – Ocala National Forest – Ocala Florida - 160 sites, All Year, All ages, Tents Only sites: 54, 40 ft max RV length, 23 ft elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 160 full hookups, electric, tables, grill, water, showers, dump, firewood, boat launch - $10/night with senior card.

Where we are parked: Barrington Hills RV Resort – Hudson, Florida - 120 sites, All Year, RVs only, Age Restricted (55+), No tent, 40 ft max RV length, 33 ft. elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 120 full hookups, electric, 30/50 amp, 60 50 amp sites, tables, water, Clubs-1000Trails(TC)-GSC, laundry, internet, pet friendly, pool, Seasonals, - We paid the monthly rate of about $22 a night.

Salt Springs National Forest Campground

Barrington Hills RV Resort

Salt Springs and Florida Wildlife

Barrington Hills RV Park

Park visitors

The catch

Hanging out at the beach

Our new favorite ice cream joint!

Mica's new friends

Merry Christmas

Apparently taking pictures was not exciting enough for Mica!

Mike and Terri

Charleston and Savannah

 Nov. 8, 2021 – On Monday, after saying good-bye to Dan and Sally, we headed south toward Charleston. We decided to break up the 348 miles drive into two days. We found a National Forest Campground about half way. It was very nice and really cheap at $5 per night but had no services other than pit toilets. Apparently it is mostly utilized as a hunting as well as a horse back riding camp as there are a series of trails nearby.

On the way to Charleston the next morning, we took a slight detour to visit Congaree National Park. This park is located just south east of Columbia SC and is the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States. We walked the 2.6 mile elevated boardwalk which takes you through the wetland forest. We saw many different species of local trees including bald cypress and tupelo as well as loblolly pines, oaks, maple and holly. The cypress knees were really cool. They come up out of the ground around the tree from the roots but no one knows exactly what their purpose is. We arrived at Lake Aire Campground near Charleston in the afternoon, found our site and set up.

On Wednesday we needed to purchase something from the nearby Tractor Supply. This one had a dog washing station and since Mica hadn't had a bath in a while we tried it out. Not sure Mica enjoyed it but it worked out great for me! They even had a grooming table which would make giving her a hair cut much easier. Going to have to keep an eye out for those in the future.

On the way into Charleston we stopped at a visitor center and got talked into attending a sales presentation in exchange for some free attraction tickets. They were selling a membership into a travel Concierge club. I got drawn in but Dennis was the voice of reason and said no. Thank goodness as we found out later the reviews were not good. We did get tickets for a walking tour of Charleston, a river tour as well as admission into Magnolia Gardens.

Our visit to Charleston was great. We saw lots of beautiful and historic buildings that played a role in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The river tour took us out to see Fort Sumpter, the location where the first shot was fired to start the Civil War. On the return we stopped under the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge. The Captain blew the boats horn and it echoed under the bridge. Cool!

On Saturday we visited Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. Founded in 1676 by the Drayton family, Magnolia Plantation has survived the centuries and witnessed the history of our nation unfold before it from the American Revolution through the Civil War and beyond. It is the oldest public tourist site in the Low country, and the oldest public gardens in America, opening its doors to visitors in 1870. We strolled through the garden and took a two mile walk around the wetland area. We saw a huge alligator sunning itself on the shore! The property is filled with lots of flowering plants but since it was winter there was not much blooming. Would be spectacular when that happens.

Sunday the 14^th we packed up and moved on to Savannah. Our next campground was Fort McAllister State Park. We had originally made reservations for 4 days but were able to extend them until Sunday. We just needed to move to another site for Friday and Saturday. This was a very nice campground and our favorite so far, quiet and secure as there is only one way in and out and it is gated. There were lots of squirrels and deer so Mica had a great time watching them and hoping we would let her go so she could chase them.

We also figured we needed to find a place in Florida pretty soon and after some research we ended up booking a month at Barrington Hill RV Resort near Hudson Florida. We had stayed there back in 2017 the last time we were in Florida. It is fortunate that we now have a smaller camper as they would not have had space for our 5^th wheel. It is very near where our friends Gary and Cindy live so we will get to spend time with them.

We visited Savannah on Tuesday and took the Old Savannah Hop on Hop off Trolley to tour the city. We got off at the River Front and walked around a bit, visited the Market area and had a bite to eat and later strolled along Jones Street. Which by the way is the street where the saying “keeping up with the Jones” comes from. Later that day we drove to Tybee Island and sampled some oysters.

The rest of the week we hung around the campground and enjoyed the warm weather. However on Friday, after moving to our new site, we drove to the Savannah Convention Center on Hutchinson Island to attend Christmas Made in the South craft show. I purchased a new chain for my Laramar pendent that had broken a while ago. We also bought some instant hot drink mix.

The weather was pretty nice during the week with highs in the 70's. However on the weekend the temps dropped some and it got a little cooler with highs only in the 60's. Still pretty nice.

Where we are parked: Brick House Campground, Francis Marion Sumter NF, Whitmire SC - 22 sites, All Year, All ages, Tents, 30 ft max RV length, 551 ft elev, tables, grill, toilets, trail, hike, horses - $5/night, we paid $2.50.

Where we are parked: Lake Aire RV Park Campground, Charleston SC - 113 sites, All Year, All ages, Tents Only sites: 25, 60 ft max RV length, 36 ft elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 75 pull thrus, 66 full hookups, electric, 21 elec-water hookups, 20/30/50 amp, 56 50 amp sites, tables, grill, water, toilets, showers, dump, Clubs-ESC-GSC-PA-AM, RV Storage, propane, laundry, firewood, internet, pet friendly, pool, playground, fish, trail, hike - $47.00/night, no discounts here!

Where we are parked: Fort McAllister Historic Park Campground, Richmond Hill, GA - 65 sites, All Year, All ages, Tents Only sites: 10, 50 ft max RV length, 13 ft elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 57 pull thrus, electric, 65 elec-water hookups, 30/50 amp, 50 50 amp sites, tables, grill, water, toilets, showers, dump, laundry, firewood, pet friendly, playground, store, fish, trail, hike, boat launch - $33/night – we paid $27/night with a 20% senior discount. Nice!

Brick House Campground

Lake Aire RV Park Campground

Fort McAllister Historic Park Campground

Congaree National Park

Champion Loblolly Pine

Cotton field ready for harvest

I'm not having fun!

Scenes from Charleston

These stones were once ships ballast and could be over 200 years old.

Getting lunch from a street vendor

I found this place to try Shrimp and Grits. Was disappointed when I discovered it was in a Mall. However the Shrimp and Grits were awesome so you never know!

Maybe the stuff you've been waiting for is on this ship!

Magnolia Plantation

Mr or Ms Alligator

Savannah

More ships ballast in Savannah

Oysters!

If they would only let me go!