Travels with Gunther and Kara

Well, I gotta admit we haven’t done much since our arrival here in Centerville VA. After our second travel day from Selma NC to Centerville VA on Saturday…we got parked and setup in site 124 here at Bull Run Regional Park. Sunday we had dinner with some old work buddies of Neil’s and hashed out all the problems of the DoD over beer and Mexican food at Uncle Julio’s Mexican Cafe.

Monday Connie worked all day and it was raining so Neil just stayed home. Wednesday was errand day…we visited Cassaday and Company and met with our financial advisor Nick, picked up some stuff we needed and that was about it. Thursday was a nice day so while Connie was off getting hair and nails done Neil went on a bike ride. Tomorrow we’re heading into downtown DC to pick up some Euros and British Pounds for our upcoming Ireland/Northern Ireland trip…we’ll get more cash when we get to each country from ATMs but didn’t want to hit the ground with no cash money at all.

Saturday we’re off to Philadelphia for a Saint Saëns concert with our return on Sunday afternoon…then Monday we’re off to Midlothian to see Bryan for a couple of weeks. He’s got lots of packages we ordered as well as some mail for us to pickup…and has offered to let us be his college students and let us do laundry…score!!

Here’s a shot of our site #124. It’s a little uneven but we got leveled so life is good. No satellite TV though…the trees are in the way and even though the satellite controller says we have visibility the DirectTV receiver says we have no satellites. We up the the batwing antenna but don’t have real good signals on it either as we are pretty far out from the antennas being in the western suburbs…so our channel selection is limited but we’re handling that fine.

Along the interwebs this week Neil found a couple of pictures he thought ya’ll might enjoy. First up is some fireman who have jury rigged something that just clearly isn’t going to work…I can guarantee that the train wheels won’t roll up and over the hose they have crossing the tracks.

He also found this picture of an owl…it’s hard to tell whether the owl is actually the same color as the tree or whether somebody photoshopped it. Heck, it’s actually hard to determine that it’s actually an owl and not just some sort of projection on the tree. He’s looked at it several times and can’t make up his mind whether it’s real or not.

There are a couple of owls that are primarily gray in color…but nope that are this specific shade and pattern…and you can’t see either eyes or ears…so he’s really not sure either way. What do you think?

That’s about it…not really doing much this week…we mostly came here for Connie to visit the college and meet students and to park the house while we drove up to Philadelphia for the concert on Saturday.

Cyas.

Had a really great travel day today. Got up at 0600 and had coffee and some cereal for breakfast then started getting ready to move at 0800. We hitched, stowed, retracted, dumped and were on the road by bat 0920. A short trip of about 5 miles to I-26 W for 33 miles and then onto 95 N for 225 miles into NC then off the highway at exit 98. A short 3/4 mile later we were at RVacation RV Park a few minutes before 1500. This is a popular spot as we saw at least six rigs pull in between our arrival and 1520 when we were safely parked in our site H3. After checking in we pulled maybe 70 yards around the dumpster and then straight into the site. Nice full hookup 50 amp amp site…wide and easy peazy to pull into. Will be a nice exit in the morning.
We didn’t get hot and sweaty today…so we decided no shower was necessary…so all we hooked up was power. No water or sewer, didn’t unhitch since it’s just overnight and just put the jacks down enough to keep the house from rocking.
It’s a bit windy but the satellite TV locked right on and the park wifi is good so we are good.
Dinner. Will either be crab ravioli (hey, it’s Lent for another coupla weeks) or we might look for a place to get a bite. We are sitting here having a Murphy’s Stout.
Tomorrow it’s another 260 mile day straight up 95. We exit at Quantico Marine Base and head west across Prince William County to Bull Run Regional park where we will be for 9 days.
CYAs. Here’s a shot of our site…we would definitely stay here again.

I gotta tell you…all these years the adults have been married and today we discovered that they are Trend Setters! Woot!. Details about that a bit later.

In the meantime…we went on nice hikes on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Yesterday we headed off to Mount Pleasant which is just north and east of Charleston across the Cooper River and went for a nice hike of about 2 miles. It was in this ritzy neighborhood but they have a nice hiking trail around the outside of the neighborhood between the houses and the marsh so we got some pretty good views as we headed around. We were able to get a few decent pictures and then stopped at an Irish Pub in the commons area of the neighborhood for lunch. We had some pot roast sliders that were excellent and a French Dip that was decent but not excellent. Split those between the two adults and had a beer each and called it lunch. After that we headed home and had a shower and dinner. 

Along the way we got a nice picture of the marsh, a shot of one of the smaller houses that bordered the marsh…the largest ones were probably 3 times this size, a white heron out in the marsh, and a Wood Thrush in one of the backyards.

We didn’t have the long bird lens on this hike so Neil had to crop the shots down a bunch to get decent sized pictures…sorry about that.

Today we again got up early and after Connie took care of 2 student crises we left the house about 1100 or so for today’s two planned hikes. We got to the visitor center at the Francis Marion National Forest and quickly determined that the I’on Swamp hike that was our original plan was not in the cards…the young fella at the visitor center is an avid hiker and he told us that the ‘skeeters and noseeums were pretty fierce down in the swamp and recommended against it. He instead recommended a hike up north a little bit that was his favorite hike in the Forest, it was along a creek leading out towards the barrier islands. So we headed up there and had a nice 2.5 mile hike…it was an out and back and it was getting pretty warm but it was a pretty pleasant hike. Unfortunately the wildlife was completely unseen on this hike. We spotted a cormorant in the creek a couple hundred yards from us but he was backlit and by the time we got to where it was it wasn’t any more. We heard a couple of hawks of some sort but couldn’t find either of them. We heard a couple of dozen of what we have named Taunty Birds…you know the type, they’re small, make a lot of noise and flit around the foliage so you can’t really see them…they’re noise is just them taunting you.

The only almost wildlife we spotted today was this spiderweb at the last bench we stopped in for a water break right before we got back to the car.

You can see the spider’s body just above the center of the web.

That was the sum total of today’s sightings…pretty much nuttin’.

We headed home, had a shower, and ran down to the Texas Roadhouse down the road a couple miles for dinner. Beef Tips for Connie and a grilled pork chop for Neil…we had enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow and also saved a couple of their really tasty rolls and some cinnamon butter for breakfast. We’ll load those up with some bacon and they’ll make a right tasty meal.

Tomorrow Connie has to work all day since she’s goofed up mostly this week. Neil is headed out to the commissary for groceries and to get some fuel for BAT…then he’ll pack up the outside stuff for our travels on Friday and Saturday. After that we’ve got a Saint Saëns concert tomorrow night.

We head out of here Friday with an overnight stop in Selma, NC then continue on Saturday to Bull Run Campground in Centerville, VA for 10 days.

Oh yeah, guess I better tell you about that trend setter thing. If you take a look at http://on.wsj.com/1dLkK99 it’s an article from the Wall Street Journal titled “Best seat in the house? The bar.” We’ve been eating at the bar for years because you can eat cheaper and still get food from the same kitchen, it’s a more low key and informal way to eat, and you meet a better class of people at the bar anyway. We have almost always chosen to eat at the bar even if there are seats in the restaurant available. Turns out that according to that article this is the latest trend in the restaurant biz…Neil and Connie were amazed that all these years they had been on the bleeding edge of gourmet eating and just didn’t know it. Woot!

Cyas.

After our dinner at Bowen’s Island Restaurant Friday we pretty much just stayed home on Saturday since it was raining. Sunday we got up early for 0730 Mass at the local parish and then after lunch headed off to visit the restoration site of the CSS Hunley.

The Hunley was the submarine that conducted the first successful attack on an enemy warship on Feb 17, 1864…but never returned from it’s mission. Here’s the story in case you’re not familiar with it.

The Hunley was a submarine 44 feet long, 3 feet wide and 5 feet tall…it was built in Mobile AL in 1862 and sent via rail to Charleston where General Beauregard was trying to break the Union blockade of Charleston. The Hunley sank 3 times during development…killing it’s crew of 8 each time. Undeterred, Charles Dixon convinced the general to let him try once more and with an all volunteer crew set out on the evening of Feb 17 to attack the USS Housatonic which was the largest and most successful ironclad in the Union Navy. The Hunley approached with 150 feet before being seen and rammed their torpedo (on a spar sticking 16 feet out the front of the submarine) into the aft starboard quarter of the Housatonic just ahead of her screw. The torpedo had 135 pounds of black powder which…unfortunately…set off the main magazine of the target as it was located directly inboard of the warhead detonation point. The resulting explosion tore the entire stern of the Housatonic off and she sank in 3 minutes.

The Hunley failed to return to port which was to the Northwest of the point where the Housatonic on the north end of the Isle of Palms at Breeches Inlet. Several contemporary reports indicated that signals were seen from the Hunley after the blast but the submarine was not seen again.

After years of searching, in 1995 an investigation team from the National Underwater and Maritime Association (NUMA) led by the author Clive Cussler (of Dirk Pitt novels fame) found the Hunley about 1000 feet southeast of where the Housatonic sank (i.e., further to seaward and the opposite direction from where the Hunley was intending to return to port.

The Hunley was salvaged in 2000 and has been essentially in a large tank of water at the former Charleston Naval shipyard ever since undergoing preservation. It’s been drained and some preliminary investigation done including recovery of the crew’s remains for burial but is still in a fresh water bath working on cleaning the accretion deposits off of the hull. The fresh water will be replaced by a sodium hydroxide solution for probably a year or so to soften the final layers of accretion. At that point it will be carefully scraped clean and restoration will begin. The entire process is expected to take another 5 to 7 years…at which point the restored vessel will go on display.

So…what happened that caused the Hunley to sink? Truth is…nobody knows. Although there were some contemporary reports of the Hunley signaling with a blue lantern as expected so that signal fires could be lit to guide it back to port there are precious few facts. Here’s what is known.

• It was located 1000 feet southeast of the attack point, directly away from it’s intended port
• it was mostly filled with sand when salvaged
• the crew was all at their individual station and not gathered under the hatch as if they were trying to escape
• the torpedo 135 pound warhead was designed to explode about 16 feet from the Hunley’s hull…which was riveted steel. It should have survived this explosion
• the actual explosion was more on the order of 5,000 pounds of black powder
• despite previous thinking that the torpedo was designed to separate from the spar and be detonated via a rope after the Hunley backed away from the target…examination of the recovered spar showed that the torpedo was permanently bolted to the spar; hence it was designed to either explode on impact or was triggered via rope on impact.

So…from an engineering standpoint Neil thinks it is unlikely that they survived the original blast and that the contemporary reports were incorrect. Most likely…the crew was disabled by the blast which resulted in them remaining at their stations. The blast likely also opened some of the seams in the hull…otherwise it would not have been full of sand as the hatches were intact and sealed. The ship then gradually sank to the bottom…the tide in the area at the time would have carried it towards the southeast to where it was found. After coming to rest on the bottom the hull filled with water and the crew perished. Within 20 years or so the hull was covered by sand. This sand caused an anaerobic environment which helped preserve the hull. Salvage efforts immediately after the Civil War were concentrated at the attack point and between it and the end of the Isle of Palms to the northwest of the attack point…which meant that they were looking in the wrong place. As I said…this is just conjecture…but it fits what few facts are known. The only sticking point was the contemporary reports…but since there was more than one of those from both Union and Confederate sides…that tends to give the reports a little more credence. Who knows…it’s just one of those mysteries of the sea.

The ship was essentially found by accident…most of the NUMA crew had lost interest and headed home including Mr. Cussler but the skeleton crew on the search boat just happened to be southeast of the Housatonic wreck site…got a hit on the magnetometer…and dove down 28 feet, digging out the sand and found the Hunley.

Anyway…we did get a few pictures. Here’s a photo of the Hunley shortly after it was raised.

Here’s a shot of Connie inside a life size cross section of the hull cranking away on the main engine crankshaft (the Hunley was human powered).

Finally…the only shot we could get of the Hunley itself. Sorry about the poor quality but we couldn’t get inside the glass partition. The end to the right of the picture is the stern.

With that we headed home.

Monday we headed off for a hike at the Old Santee Canal State Park. The Santee Canal connected the Cooper River (which leads down to Charleston on the coast) with the other river systems in South Carolina and allowed river commerce to the interior of the state. We had a nice 2.5 mile or so hike and did get a few nice shots along the way.

Here’s the canal remains.

Just across the way a bit is the Cooper River.

Along with some white lily like flowers we spotted and a couple of turtles sunning themselves on logs.

We also spotted our lone bird sighting of the day…this is a Great Horned Owl which is roosting on an abandoned Osprey nest.

After our hike we came home and had a shower then went off for dinner at High Cotton…our other favorite restaurant in Charleston. The food was superb as usual…grilled Tilefish for Connie and Steak with Crab Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Shrimp for Neil. We had a couple of pints of locally brewed stout to go with it an all was wonderful. After dinner we did get a couple of shots of downtown Charleston by request of Neil’s baby sister.

The Four Corners of Law…both a panorama and a shot of the church on the diagonal corner.

A shot of a gaslight lamp (Connie got this out the car window while Neil walked up and got the shots above).

And finally a couple of panoramas of The Battery area. One of Battery Park itself and the other looking out over the water. You can just barely see Fort Sumter where the first shots of the war were fired…it’s towards the left side of the water panorama right at the left end of the tree line you can see…the trees are actually on the far shore a couple miles past the fort.

With that we headed home and called it a day.

Tomorrow and Wednesday are more hikes, Thursday is pack/grocery day and Friday we’re off on a 2 day transit up to the DC area.

Cyas.

Well, after our arrival on Tuesday we survived a couple of rainstorms, Connie did some work, Neil went on a couple bike rides, and Neil repaired our water supply hose. On that the connection on both sides of our water filter setup started leaking; he tried replacing the hose washers but that didn’t help much so he ended up buying a male and female replacement fitting and after installing those the leaks stopped. With all that going on…pretty soon it was Friday and since it’s Lent we needed seafood so where else would we go but to Bowen’s Island Restaurant. I gotta tell ya’…Guy Fieri would really love this place…although he would have loved the old one better as it was much more dive-y. Back in the day…Bowens was a little concrete block building with about 300 square feet of non kitchen area and an outside uncovered porch for customers to eat. You pretty much ate what they caught that day…it was all fish, crab, oysters or shrimp…and it was pretty much all fried. They had soda and beer in the can, paper boxes for your food and precious little of anything remotely approaching atmosphere. However…the food was really, really good…and was pretty cheap to boot. 

Fast forward 35 years after our first visit and about 10 since our last visit and a lot has changed. First off…the old building burned down a year or two ago and has been rebuilt. Unfortunately for the charm that the former dive had…it’s 2 stories with a large bar and enough seating for probably 300 people between up and downstairs. There’s also a line since it sort of got famous in the tourist rags and hence it isn’t just a locals only joint any more. They’ve also seriously upped the menu selections…before they had oysters fried but now they also serve steamed (well, more boiled than steamed actually) along with a bunch of other dishes including non seafood.

Nonetheless…we got in line and Connie got us a couple of Palmetto Ambers (a local brew—SC is the Palmetto state so that’s where the name comes from)…and ordered a  tray of steamed oysters and a fried oyster dinner. Connie sat out on the porch and held a table while Neil ran downstairs to get the oysters. Envision a lunch tray like you used to get in the cafeteria in 5th g race piled 6 inches high and you would be about right. These were not shucked like they would be in a higher class joint but came with a dish towel to hold them and an oyster knife to shuck them yourself. There must have been 2 dozen or so total for $14.95…worth it but we were glad we didn’t pay the extra 7 bucks for all you can eat. About halfway through the tray our fried oyster dinner showed up and we split that as well (well, the oysters and fries anyway…Neil ate the hushpuppies and Connie the cole slaw).

Verdict…the steamers were OK but not outstanding…if they had been shucked they would have gotten a better grade but since neither of the adults are highly proficient oyster shuckers they took longer to eat than they should have. The fried ones were outstanding; although they were more of a light tempura like batter rather than the cornmeal that we fry them in over on the Gulf Coast. The beer was cold and tasty albeit a little hoppy.

We also met some new friends…Jason and Kristin and their young son Brody. He’s in the Air Force stationed here and they are transferring shortly to Oklahoma. They were at the table next to us on the veranda and we chatted while we ate about life in the Navy, AF, and Japan. Here’s a picture of the family we took as they were leaving.

Connie had taken a picture of them before but since he was smiling in this one they quickly had us grab another one for them. They then headed off followed shortly by us and we made our way back to the house.

After that it was TV until bedtime. Tonight we’re headed off to the Summerville SC Elks Lodge for beer and bar snacks for dinner. Tomorrow we’re off to see the salvage wrack of the CSS Hunley…which made the first successful submarine attack on an enemy warship in an attempt to break the naval blockade during the Civil War. Then we have a couple of hikes scheduled for this week as well as dinner at High Cotton…our second favorite real restaurant in this area (the favorite one closed some years back when Robert the owner/chef retired).

Then…Friday we head off on a 2 day travel segment to the Northern Virginia area. We were going to stop and see our friend Stu and his wife…but turns out they’re out of town this weekend for a race up in the DC area so we’ll just catch them on the next road trip.

Cyas.

Tuesday morning we got up at 0600 and after coffee and breakfast got up and started getting ready to leave about 0800. As per usual, Connie did the inside and Neil the outside. He didn’t have much to stow since we only put the lights underneath the house but he got them rolled up and re-stowed them and our outside chairs in the basement. After that he got our holding tanks dumped and the hoses and such stored away.

Meanwhile Connie got the inside finished up and about 0920 or so we went through our pre-underway checklist, got hitched up and ready to go. We left Pelican Roost almost exactly on schedule a few minutes before 1000.

We stopped for lunch at an El Cheap truck stop in Georgia…had some pretty good fried chicken. Once we were at the South Carolina welcome station about 2 hours from our original destination (the Joint Base Charleston Fam Camp) we called them to see about openings…this was our plan so that if they were full we could just go directly to the KOA in Mount Pleasant. Turned out that the Fam Camp was full…they had some overflow available but that’s water/electric only so we told them we would call them back and decided to just go to the KOA. Called the KOA and they’re booked solid for the next 3 weekends for some reason (despite it being early in the season and we didn’t figure their would be any issue with site availability). 

We regrouped a little bit and did a little more campground searching in the Charleston area…called 2 more places and both were likewise full. At this point…Neil said that maybe we should just move our SC stop to Columbia instead of Charleston and while we were considering that Connie decided to check and see if there were any other military campgrounds in the area. Turns out that the Naval Weapons Station at Goose Creek about 20 or so miles up the Cooper River from the old Navy Base had a campground…a quick phone call got us 10 days in site 24.

We reprogrammed our GPS and headed for Goose Creek…on arrival at the base we slightly misinterpreted the directions notes that Neil grabbed off of the campground website and wandered around the housing area on the base for a few minutes before finally figuring out where the campground sites were. We drove directly in and headed for site 24…only to be intercepted by the camp host who wanted to know who we were and why we were here. We told him that the reservation folks told us to just drive in and go direct to the site…but apparently they forgot to get the word out to him. Nonetheless…he quickly finished up the paperwork for our registration and we got backed in just fine. Here’s a shot of our setup.

As you can see; we’ve got a nice concrete patio/driveway area and although it’s not a concrete pad there are concrete strips for the wheels. We had to back through a mucky area right at the road intersection about one BAT length out of the frame to the right (it’s a really long site) but that was no worries. Since it was pretty cool and looking like it wanted to rain we skipped most of the outside setup until today. Neil’s headed out for a bike ride in a bit but he’s going to put up the flag and signs before he head out.

What a nice little find…no noise, woods behind us…way better than the Air Force Base where we would have planes landing throughout the day and night. We’re really glad we happened across this one. Had some burgers and leftover potatoes and veggies for dinner and slept late this morning. 

Connie’s off to get her nails done and Neil is doing outside setup and bike riding. Late this afternoon we’re off to the SMART Muster at the fairgrounds nearby…turns out it’s less than 2 miles from where they used to live…I’ll go by and grab a picture of the first non apartment they lived in way back in the late 70s. After that it’s the SMART dinner and entertainment then we’ll see about fun stuff and work for Connie maybe some tomorrow…probably the latter since it’s going to be cool but Friday and over the weekend are supposed to be warm and sunny so we may save the fun stuff until then.

Cyas.

We had a pretty decent couple of days over the weekend. After my last post on Thursday we had a few jobs for Friday…Connie worked in the morning and Neil handled some computer stuff. Following that and lunch we headed over to the beach about 1/4 mile east and then walked aways down the beach and back. Probably 2 miles almost total…but it was a bit windy coming back.

Saturday was beautiful…warm, light breezes, and sunny…so we sat outside in the afternoon and watched the world go by…this included a couple of large merchant ships that headed on upriver to the civilian port but not any warships pulling into the Naval Station.

Sunday we again walked over to the chapel for Mass and in the afternoon again sat outside. Our patience was rewarded as CG99, the USS Farragut got underway late in the afternoon…we were surprised that they would leave yesterday rather than this morning but maybe they saw the forecast for high winds today and decided to leave early. Neil thinks that’s unlikely as they would have folks on liberty and no easy way to recall them. 

Overnight the wind kicked up to 25-30 knots…it’s blowing pretty good here right now. Connie got up and lowered our bat wing TV antenna and the satellite dish about 0300 then we went back to bed until around 0600. After coffee and once it was past 0800 we headed down to the laundry…which amazingly enough is free here…and discovered that the water was off from 0800-1000. We loaded the washers, left a note that we would be back, and Neil went back about 1000, found out the valve replacement was on hold while public services regrouped, and started the wash. After that he was off to fill BAT up with fuel and he’ll spend the rest of this morning finishing up the laundry while Connie works.

We did get a few pictures on Saturday. First up…a pano view of about 160 degrees looking directly North towards the St. Johns River. The Naval Station docking basin is just out of the frame to the left, the water in the distant middle is the Atlantic and looking over top of Connie is the way to the beach.

There was also a pair of Ospreys fishing in the canal right next to us…we got a couple of nice shots of them hovering, hunting, and repositioning for the next pass.

We’ll do some putting away this afternoon and will be out of here tomorrow morning for our 250 mile drive up toe Charleston SC where we plan to stay at the Air Force Base Campground. They don’t take reservations so we have a backup plan at the KOA if it becomes necessary.

Don’t have anything really planned for the rest of today…Connie’s working and with the laundry and getting ready to travel we will be productively busy.

Cyas.

So…what’s the oldest settlement in the United States? If you asked 100 people this question I’m sure that the most popular answer would be the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, MA. However…those folks would be wrong as the Pilgrims landed in 1620; so let’s try again. A whole bunch of the others would be the Jamestown colony in VA…which would correctly be the oldest surviving English settlement…but again not the first as it was in 1607. Again, close but no cigar.

Anybody that’s been to the Outer Banks of NC has heard the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke NC which was essentially disappeared and nobody knows why. Another great guess…but as in the above two it’s wrong as the Lost Colony landing was in 1584.

So let’s try it from the earlier side…looking back the first settlement was (or would have been if it had not been abandoned after being devastated by a hurricane) in Pensacola FL which was established by the Spanish in 1659. No cigar here either as it was abandoned.

This brings us to the final pretender…the landing of the settlement at Jacksonville in 1564 at a place called Fort Caroline on the southern side of the St. Johns River which leads into Jacksonville. Unfortunately…this one didn’t survive either…but was wiped out by soldiers from the actual oldest surviving colony in the United States. The trouble was that some of the French settlers pretty quickly took to privateering and started preying on the Spanish gold ships heading back home from the New World. This naturally attracted the attention of the Spanish crown and resulted in an expedition led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1865. He proceeded to establish a settlement that is still in existence today. Naturally this settlement attracted the attention of the French at Fort Caroline and their leader Jean Ribault made a fateful decision in Sep 1865 to sail his soldiers down and attack the Spanish rather than just march the 50 odd miles down there for the attack. Unfortunately for Jean…September is hurricane season and his ships were devastated by a storm. This led to another fateful decision by Pedro…seeing that the French were almost undefended he marched his forces North (being smarter than Jean was) and attacked Fort Caroline wiping the men out and appropriating the women and children. He then marched back to his settlement and finished establishing it

Oh yeah…the name of the settlement…Saint Augustine FL which is the oldest surviving European settlement in the United States. It predates those in the Arizona territories by Spanish coming up from Mexico by 4 or 5 years.

So what does all of this have to do with a blog post? Glad you asked.

We spent 3 days this week touring the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve…this is run by the National Park Service and encompasses 3 different sites under one management system.

Tuesday we headed off on a gray and pretty dismal looking afternoon to the Fort Caroline National Monument which is part of the Preserve. Nobody knows where the actual Fort Caroline…numerous archeological digs over the years have failed to find the site. The best guess is that it’s either underneath a nearby subdivision or lost to some changes in the river channel over the centuries. Anyway…the Park Service has the original plans of the fort since one of the colonists was a map maker…and they built a 1/3 size fort to the same design in a spot near the river that (assuming that had been the actual land contours 450 years or so ago) would likely have been selected as the fort site.

The colonists had friendly relations with the local Timucuan tribe led by Chief Saturiba…he lent the colonists 80 braves to help build the fort. Since he needed to supervise them they built him a shelter to watch from…that probably looked pretty much like this.

Here are some shots of the fort entrance, interior, and a look over the wall towards the St. Johns. The walls are about 8 feet high on top of a 10 foot or so earthen berm with a moat at the bottom.

After this we had sore knees so we headed back home. For dinner we went out to Outback since the Irish Pub we wanted to go to was closed.

Wednesday we headed out for our second day in Timucuan…this time in the Theodore Roosevelt Preserve this is south and east from the Fort Caroline area. We went on a nice hike of about 3 miles out through the marsh, along the side of the river, and back through some pine bottoms.

Here’s a nice spooky looking shot of the path and then of a Little Blue Heron that we spotted down by the river wildlife overlook. This overlook is about a mile or so downstream past the point you can see almost at the left side of the last Fort Caroline Picture above.

We also spotted this Great White Heron…but he was way out…so the picture isn’t the best.

Our final stop for the way was at the site of the old Willie Browne cabin…he was the landowner here who donated most of the land that now makes up the Theodore Roosevelt portion of the preserve. Nothing is left but the foundation at this point.

With that we headed home, had a shower and hit Culhane’s Irish Pub which was our original destination last night…but they were closed as they are normally closed on Monday nights. Last Monday being Saint Paddy’s Day they naturally opened so closed on Tuesday instead.

We were a bit disappointed that the Murphy’s Stout they were supposed to have on draft was temporarily not on draft as they had devoted about 6 or 8 taps to Guinness for the holiday. We managed to stifle our disappointment with Guinness and Smithwick’s though and ordered some food. We had two appetizers…the first was potato skins with bacon and cheese. These turned out to be more like potato wedges rather than just skins and were full of nice crispy bacon and Irish Cheddar Cheese. Far and away the best potato skins we have ever had. Second up was a pair o Lamb Sliders…essentially mini burgers made from ground lamb with spicy mustard, some sort of other sauce on the bun and onions/lettuce/tomato. Again…these were truly outstanding and we left sufficiently stuffed with food that was not only the best bar food we ever had but was better than a great number of restaurants we have eaten out. We’ll definitely keep this on our radar for our next stop in Jacksonville and might even go there again before we leave.

We got up this morning and for a change it was warm and sunny so we set off on the third leg of our Timucuan journey. This time we had to cross the river (we took the ferry near the base rather than make the 30 mile drive out of the way to the nearest bridge and stopped by the Kingsley Plantation area. This was a cotton plantation from 1811 to 1865 and we got some nice shots of the plantation house, slave quarters, and river views. The house is not your typical southern plantation house as the design was changed to better get ventilation and cool breezes in the hot muggy summer seasons.

From there we headed another 20 or so miles north and were originally going to visit Fort Clinch which was a Civil War era defense fort. After looking at it we decided to skip the fort and head off or another hike instead…but stopped at the picnic area first for a chicken salad wrap that we picked up on the way…and luckily came across our only wildlife siting of the day…this little gecko or lizard (we couldn’t tell which).

After lunch we headed off to the Willow Pond Nature trail for a 1.5 mile or so hike…the hike was nice and we saw the most vivid neon green Duck Grass we’ve ever seen (it’s the free floating small green plant all over the water surface)…but alas no wildlife.

After that we were pretty tired so we headed home and had dinner. Tomorrow we’re going to go over and take a walk down the beach…probably veg out over the weekend as we tend to not do fun stuff on the weekend to get smaller crowds. Monday will be laundry day and Tuesday we’re off to Charleston.

Cyas.

We worked pretty steadily this week getting all of our last minute pre-travel preparations done…Connie worked, Neil packed and lubed and sorted and organized and all of that jazz. We did take time out for Bingo on Tuesday evening…and had an outstanding day of it. Connie won the last game on our last Bingo night and ended up with $58 to take home with her…a nice send off. Wednesday we had lunch at Banana Joe’s…again pretty decent food and then we did a couple of errands. Friday night we went out to the Elks again for the Fish Fry…and Neil scored twice. He fetched a new keg from the cooler in the back for Marlene the bartender and scored a free pitcher of beer. When that was done we noticed that today’s Letter of the Day was L…which means that any Lodge 2742 member whose last name starts with L gets their second drink free…or in our case half of our second pitcher. 

After that we had to go by Home Depot for an emergency purchase of a toilet plunger…not for the toilet but for the shower. Our gray tank sensor is reading erratically and Neil thinks it’s got grease or something stuck to the inside of the tank. He had Connie pour a cup of powdered Calgon into the shower and rinse it down…figuring that the sloshing around would help remove whatever it was while we traveled on Saturday. Unfortunately she failed to rinse it down gradually and forgot that Calgon sort of makes a solid mass when it gets wet…so she ended up stopping up the shower drain…hence the emergency plunger purchase. Once back home we quickly removed the clog and all is now well with the drain although the erratic readings are still under further review.

Saturday we got up early and had coffee and breakfast…then Connie stowed the inside of the house and Neil finished up outside. We hitched and got on the road about 1030 for our 312 mile trip up to Jacksonville. Our route was up I-74 North about 30 miles to Sarasota then we switched to US-17 which ran all the way to join up with I-4 a bit west of Orlando…and I have to tell you the traffic through Orlando on Saturday afternoon on I-4 sucks. Bumper to bumper, lots of idiots cutting you off, road construction blockages, another generous helping of idiots…did I mention that the traffic sucks?

We finally got through Orlando and things eased up for awhile…burt then there was construction and narrow lanes the last 15 miles or so before we got to I-95. At least the idiots did less cutting you off on that section and other than being narrow and crowded it wasn’t too bad. Once on I-95 we had smooth sailing the last 2 hours up to the Jacksonville area. Hopping off the freeway we had a 15 mile or so trip around to the east side of the city to the Mayport Naval Station where we pulled into the next to last open spot in the campground…and are set up in site 47 for the next 10 days.

We met the folks next door and discovered they are members of an RV group named SMART that is composed of military RV people. We got some membership information and discovered they are having a muster (it would have been a rally if they were just RVers…but they’re military RVers and the military has musters ya know) Mar 25-18 in Ladson SC which is just outside of Charleston where we will be for 10 days starting the 25th. Craig said they would be happy to have us for an evening campfire/happy hour thing so we’ll probably pop over there and see if this is an organization we might want to join.

Neil had a nice 22 mile bike ride this afternoon since it was warm and sunny…headed south into the 30 mile an hour breeze (ahead of the storm front coming in tonight through Tuesday mid day)…but at least it was downwind on the way back.

Connie has to work some while we are here…it’s going to rain through Monday and Tuesday so she’ll do that the next two days and then Wed/Thurs we can go have some fun. In the meantime here are a few shots that Neil grabbed with his iPhone 5s this afternoon right before it started storming.

Here’s a shot of site 47…looking south towards our site. No water out our back window but all of those sites were full when we made the reservation. Notice the slightly ominous looking sky in the background.

Turning around and looking Northeast…you can see the St. John’s river and then the Atlantic Ocean on the far side o the breakwater. We’re almost right on the coast here with the beach being maybe a quarter mile east of us.

Finally, turning back towards our rig and then looking 40 or so degrees to the left so looking southeast there were some really dark and stormy looking skies.

The rain finally rolled in right about dinner time…which was a sort of Stroganoff dish with pork and onions. Neil added a bit of Sherry Wine Vinegar and Worcestershire Sauce to it to give it a Saurbratten type flavor…we liked it and it was pretty easy to make since the Stroganoff part was a package of flavored noodles out of the pantry. Afterwards we watched TV until bedtime.

Cyas.