Charleston, SC

Left Hilton Head and my brother and his wife on Monday morn...waved as we passed by their hotel...had said our goodbyes after dinner the night before!!  Sad as we don't see them very often...
Fortunately after they dropped us off on Sun eve we decided to put the awning up, chairs and table away etc because just as we finished a storm came up with wind, lightening and thunder...it was like a fireworks display!!  Very warm and humid but a heavy rain!

Arrived in Charleston after only a couple of hours and set up the campsite in a great county park within 15 min of downtown..price was similar to any RV park but the campsites are huge and the park has a climbing wall, a huge splash pool, dancing water fountains for the little ones and best of all for Molly (our dog) a huge 2+ acre dog park with beach access to a lake.  Had lunch and decided we could make it into town for a Grayline tour....Charleston like Savannah is a beautiful town filled with historical beautiful homes but bigger and on a peninsula with great downtown parks on the water and marinas.

On Tuesday we went back into town to tour on foot by ourselves...very easy town to navigate...and Art took a lot of pictures. Rained intermittently but we didn't melt!!   Later on, checking his camera he realized the settings had been wrong so went back to retake them this AM.   Tues afternoon Molly got to go to the dog park...she had a ball...goes into the water midknee but if she steps into a spot one inch deeper she scares herself!!  Funny to watch...and there are dogs there all the time because it is a county park and people buy a year pass for $15 I think.

After retaking some pictures of this beautiful city this AM we toured the Charleston Museum...looked pretty small as we entered but that was deceiving..it was large and had a great variety of displays!!  This afternoon we are catching up on laundry chores etc because tomorrow we leave and will be going to a forestry campground in North Carolina and need to get in before the big holiday weekend!!  This is a 1st come campground so hopefully we get a site...as all other RV parks are booked up for the most part. And we will be roughing it...no wifi or cable tv etc....just electricity.

Forgot to tell you that in Savannah I tried shrimp and grits which is on every Southern menu...I had been warned as most people not from the South don't seem to like them but I thought they were good with the shrimp sauce that was on the grits and the grits were smoother (not gritty) than I had been told..sort of like mashed potatoes which are only good because of the butter or gravy that you put on them!!   Then yesterday I  had fried green tomatoes which Art shared with me as it was like a side that I ordered...we both thought they were great....isn't anything that is fried???  Anyway I plan to try anything new to me at least once...will let you know if I get food poisoning!!

On Monday we will drive in to Williamsburg, VA where we have made reservations due to the popularity of the area...we will be visiting Arts brother-in-laws sister and her husband who are lucky enough to live there!!!

Made it to the East Coast

Well we have reached the opposite coast this week!!!  WAHOO!!!

Missed my Sunday posting.....busy and sometimes wifi connection is NOT what the parks promise!!!

Left Nashville and it's rain and flooding the Sunday of my last posting and drove to the Smokey Mountains.  Driving through Knoxville, TN and then entered what one of my brothers described as the "tackiest place on earth!"  Pigeon Fork and Gatlinburg, TN would be a great place to take your kids to......Dollywood, street after street of gift shops and things for kids (anyone before high school age) to do endlessly!!! 

We camped in the Smokey Mountain, NP and did go back into Gatlinburg as their was an Arts and Crafts loop that we drove around and stopped at about 10 of the 100+ shops that very few had some worthwhile handmade things to see...there also was the Arrowmont Arts and Crafts school that had no students at the time but we viewed a gallery of some of the instructors work painting, photography, pottery etc

In another building Art saw the woodturning workshop and some of their work..the school had a catalog of classes that were weekend to week long classes over the year.

We did meet a couple of interesting people that we will have stories to tell you about!!

Asheville, NC and a tour of the Biltmore Estate on Wednesday....made the Hearst Castle that we've been so impressed with for years look like a cottage!!  Amazing what people do with their money???   Then the next day we took a trolley tour of Ashville.

Saw a lot of beautiful neighborhoods...saw the house which Zelda Fitzgerald had died  in with 5 other women due to a fire...she was there because it was a psychiatric sanitarium at the time!  The city had a lot of small health institutions in the neighborhoods as people came for the air quality for consumpiton (tuberculosis) at the time,,,,,

On Friday we arrived at probably the nicest RV park we will ever encounter!!  It was on Hilton Head, SC....check out the site  We had a site backed up right on the water/marina and loved just watching the boat activity and nature.  Spent the weekend touring Savannah and Hilton Head Island with my brother Mike and his wife Sandie .... they will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in June and at each meal we celebrated that or his and my birthdays in June!!!  Had some great food and talked and talked.  They drove up from Vero Beach, FL (about 6 hrs) and stayed at a hotel only 2 miles away from us!!!  They had visited these areas quite a few times so were are tour guides as well as we took a trolly tour together of Savannah...lots of movies have been made there and the book/movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" was completely about Savannah....am going to have to read it again now that I've been there!!

We are in Charleston, SC now...arrived here by noon yesterday and took a Grayline tour and saw such beautiful old houses and an huge open market area that we are getting ready to go back today and take pix and tour on our own..

Love hearing from you...

Stay well to all,  Pat and Art

Despite the weather..we move on

Well I left off last week before we went to Maria's, home of the best margaritas!!  They certainly had the most...over 100 versions are listed and they have a book out about them!!  The ones we had were very good ..not any better than at Tomasitas where we had much better food the day before!!!  However I must confess we only had the $7.50 version...the prices went up to $75 !!!  This depended on the quality of the tequila that was used...

Monday, May 10th we drove from to Santa Fe to Sayre, OK stopping when we heard about the tornado line in OK City about 120 miles east of our location...there were quite a few tornados reported and we drove past a Love truck gas station off I-40 the next AM that was completely GONE!!  We saw all the debris...

We spent the night on Tues at a great Arkansas state park in Russelville...it was on the Dardanelle Lake and had been recommended by a knitting friend.  Thanks, Liz!!  The people we met were great but both of us confessed later that we had only understood some of the stories due to their accents!!

Wednesday we arrived in Memphis, TN and stayed at Graceland RV Park!!  We saw Graceland on a walk around the perimeter with Molly but didn't really need to pay to see the inside...I think we saw a documentary on TV at one time..  Took a shuttle into town to see Beale St which has all the blues and rock and roll bars and restaurants.....had a great meal of ribs, cole slaw, beans and corn bread at BB Kings place!!  Wednesday night happened to be Bike night on Beale street..at least a thousand motorcycles were lined up and down the street and they just kept coming as others left!!

Drove on to Nashville, TN the next day where we had an adventure finding a campground!!  The first one I had chosen was a corp of engineers campground on a lake supposed to beautiful!!.  After driving quite a bit off any main roads we came to some barriers in the road...two lane road where no turning around was possible in our rig...fortunately a truck behind us moved a barrier and went on ahead and called back via cell phone that only half the  road was flooded and as we went on so was the campground!!  Then we went to a state campground that I saw on the map but wasn't in the book...it was only a day use park!!  Called a KOA park next and after taking all my info etc she realized it was closed due to the flooding (she must have been in some central location and just reading her listings)  Finally found a RV park far enough away that had no problems.

On Friday we went to a civil war battleground and the the home of Andrew Jackson (our 7th president)
His home and grounds were beautiful but they did not make him out to be very charming!!

Yesterday we took a tour bus into Nashville....toured the Ryman which was the old home of the Grand Ole Opry and had been built as a church for a famous preacher originally... then we toured the Country music hall of fame, were driven by all the famous music studios etc...never even saw some areas including the Grand Ole Opry House due to the flood damage!!  In the evening we went to the Grand Ole Opry show which was held in a large Baptist Church (big enough for 2,500 people) but the attendance was really down apparently due to the confusion of where things were being held...this was the 4002nd show I believe and there had never been a cancelled show since it's beginning!!  We had a great time and Nashville is a great town....very beautiful skyline and downtown area as well as the suburbs.  Would recommend it to anybody!!

Well it's Sunday AM but not Mother's Day so I don't know if I'm going to get a special breakfast or not...maybe I'll have to start hinting!!  It's raining and the local stations are all voicing their concerns about more flooding!!

I really think we are bad omens for the locations we are coming to or from!!

Would love to hear from you all...miss everybody!!

Pat and Art

Arizona and New Mexico

Happy Mothers Day to all...I am waiting for waffles and strawberries made by Art.

We are in Santa Fe, NM and enjoying all the shops, galleries, food & margaritas!!

This first week we drove to Barstow on Sunday stopping in Bakersfield in the afternoon for our first ice cream testing site. Dewars was recommended by a friend of one of our daughters. It has been a family owned ice cream parlor for 100 years and has several locations. Very old time ice cream parlor style. The ice cream was disappointing in the fact that Art's triple chocolate flavor had a non distinct chocolate taste and my peanut butter/ chocolate swirl was chalky.

On to Barstow overnight and the next day spent some time walking around Winslow, AZ, Art's place of birth and taking pictures. Made it to Flagstaff that afternoon and visited with Lowell an old jr high friend of Art's. He certainly keeps in touch with people !

The next day we drove the Petrified Forest and Painted Forest loop...beautiful and interesting formations....

In Barstow we met Dave and Patty who were traveling from the Bay area to Native American sites...they told us about Chaco Canyon National Historical Park. We had never even heard of it but decided to drive there before going into Santa Fe. It was quite a drive into the park which was over 10 miles of washboard like dirt road in our 5th wheel!!! Took over an hour....but it was worth it. Ruins of large complexes of attached rooms built in rock starting in 800 AD

It was very educational and interesting to see the construction and engineering capabilities of these first tribal people in our country!!

Today we drove to Taos which was smaller but we decided we like Santa Fe better...more to see and do...also we heard the really best margaritas in town are at Marias so we have to try those tonight...also well know for their food...really everyone has their own favorites!!

Thinking of you all and wishing we could have brought you all along!!