Southern States Adventure Part III

July 21, 2022

Southern States Adventure Part III

June 18: Boy is it hot and sticky in Louisiana. We arrived in the late afternoon at our campsite, and I prepared dinner as the boys set up camp. We had a leisurely morning in camp since most previous mornings we’d be up and ready to get on the road by 7:30 or 8:00 am. The plan today is to head into New Orleans to tour the area, have a late lunch and head back to camp for the evening.

Cajun Seafood Boil

Yummy beignets

And a trip to a New Orleans would not be complete without a tour of an old cemetery. I have indoctrinated both my kids into checking out cool cemeteries along our travels when time permits. I made sure some "time permitted" for New Orleans. Cemetery photos courtesy of Leah.

Creepy doll by a crypt

June 19: Left early in the morning to drive through Mississippi into Alabama to visit the USS Alabama Battleship near Mobile, Alabama. Spent most of the day here and then on into Ponce de Leon, Florida for our Harvest Host stay at Babushka’s Bakery which meant, no power. It was warm but surprisingly not as sticky as it was in Louisiana. The bakery was closed, but when the owner returned from their family BBQ she opened up the bakery for us and the one other family staying the night as Harvest Host guests. I bought a couple of tasty breads and each of us a muffin/cupcake for our morning breakfast.

Babushka's Bakery Harvest Host stay

Babushka's Bakery tucked in the trees

Scott is wiped out from this heat

June 20: Upon the suggestion of the owners of the bakery, we took a slight detour to Panama City, FL so we could all get our feet in the Gulf of Mexico. Beautiful beach and weather. If we had more time, we all agreed it would be fun to hang out at this beach for the day. We cleaned up from the sand on our feet & legs, got back in the truck and made our way along the Florida panhandle into Jacksonville, Florida to Hannah Park Campground. The plan is to stay here for a couple of days and go visit St. Augustine, Florida tomorrow.

June 21: The campground is awesome and each site is pretty secluded from one another. It’s so tropical, I feel like I’m in Hawaii. We are a short walk to the Atlantic Ocean where we walked yesterday evening and surprisingly the water was much warmer than I expected! Another beach we’d like to hang out at more during our travels. We’re off to St. Augustine where I’ve learned there is a Columbia Restaurant in town. Years ago I visited a Columbia Restaurant with my sister in Sarasota and had the best Sangria and tasty food. So lunch menu is set for today.

Lake near campground-No swimming-due to alligators

St. Augustine, FL-Oldest City in U.S.

Enjoying my tasty Sangria

Cemetery gates locked so no tour

Rock found in our Florida campground

We posted it & left at our campground near Nashville, TN

6-22-22: Short drive today but we have a couple things we want to see as we make our way through Georgia into South Carolina where we have another Harvest Host-Whippoorwill Farms. This location offers power for a fee so we’ll take advantage of that. Our hope is to drop the trailer and then return south 40 minutes back to Savannah. We have a self-guided tour at a the Prohibition Museum in historic Savanah so the plan is we’ll have a late lunch and tour the museum and check out the rest of the city.

View from restaurant in Savannah

Savannah, Georgia-photos courtesy of Leah

Kids notice some "people" below ground

6-23-22: Whippoorwill Farms. Sitting on a covered deck, drinking coffee and doing bible study. Listening to the sounds of pullet roosters learning to crow. The young farm hand filling the ½ dozen feeders for the pullets side of the large run before moving to the other side of the road to do the same for the adult chickens. Some type of lizard with a swelling red throat is doing pushups on a nearby wooden post- to impress me I suppose? My bible study is cut short by the all the distractions of the farm life happenings, yet still so peaceful as a breeze moves through the trees on the 40-acre farm in Ridgeland, SC-our home last night.

Tiny home to rent at the farm

I love canopied covered driveways

Today we’re off to Charleston, SC for a couple of days and then to a campground for our accommodations the next couple of days. We have two tours scheduled in Charleston. Fort Sumpter is a timed tour tomorrow and then we’ll check out historic Charleston. Today after we get situated at camp, we’ll have a few hours at a Middleton Place-a self-guided plantation tour.

6-23-22 (evening) Well, plans were delayed this afternoon. After checking in at Lake Aire RV Park, we drove to our campsite, parked the truck and trailer and began to set up. That is when Scott noticed the rear passenger truck tire was flat. (Our best guess is we picked it up in the campground as they have construction going on to expand).

As the kids unhitched the trailer, set up stabilizers and hooked up the trailer with power, Scott grabbed his jack and tools and began removing the flat tire and installed the spare tire. As this was going on, I looked for tire shops and located a Walmart a short distance away, which was perfect as we had some restocking of supplies.

When we arrived at the Walmart at 2:30 pm, the lady manning the tire shop register said that all the mechanics had gone home for the day! So while the kids and I went shopping for supplies, Scott called 3 tire shops and everyone of them said they could not help us as they were short staffed! So we drove to our “last hope” tire store -Honest A 1, and thankfully they squeezed in repairing our tire and said we could pick it up in an hour.

We drove around the surroundings checking out the area of South Carolina when 40 minutes later the call came that our tire was ready, so we picked up our repaired tire and headed back to camp. Scott and Nolan replaced the spare with the repaired tire, and we collectively agreed that pizza was in order for dinner and I found the closest place for pizza before we called it a night. Tomorrow is going to be packed now with both Fort Sumpter/Charleston tour and the plantation!

Area where Scott figure bolt in tire came from

June 24: Squeezed both tours in for the day

Fort Sumpter was our 1st tour as we had to arrive by 8:45 to catch the 9:30 ferry. We were the first tour out so we had the privilege of witnessing the US Flag raising for the day.

We departed our tour back in port and searched around for somewhere to eat. Due to the fact that it was right at 12:00 when we got back to Charleston, we dragged our feet a bit and browsed the gift shop-when it reopened- and spent time looking online for a place to eat. After much deliberation we took our chances on this place called Big Guns Burger & Bar. And boy it did not disappoint! We arrived after a 25-30 minute walk back toward where our truck was parked and found this hole-in-the wall dive bar that served some of the best burgers we've eaten. It was a hit all around. Once our bellies were full we made our way back to the truck and off to our next adventure for the day: Middleton Place Plantation. Since we were short on time we opted for the Garden tour & slave barrack tour only.