March 30, 2012 

the Hilton Head mascot dog.......Shadow, another golden retriever

Another beautiful day on Hilton Head Island....the weather is perfect here! Baked blueberry coffee cake for breakfast in our oven, so nice to do that since we don’t have an oven in the RV....I’m lying in a hammock near our suite as I write this....so peaceful, the sounds of the birds waking up and getting on with the day all around me and the warm, bright sunshine beaming down on me...the little kids are at the pool sliding on the waterslide....they were in line waiting as the lifeguard opened the gate this morning.....I will be sad to leave here, wouldn’t it be great to be a vacation club member and come back here??? It is a beautiful resort and we’ve had a restful stopover here. We don’t have many long stops so I am treasuring the peacefulness that I feel right now....we are soon back in the RV and on the road again...I am on my way for a walk to see what I see....some of the things that I saw: a marsh that is at the edge of the resort with a long pier that goes out into, kayakers in the bay, people on stand up paddle boards, crabs, fish, many friendly cast members and a hint of the resort dog, Shadow (who just happens to be a golden retriever that looks a lot like my two at home) .....people have come out to join me as I sit in quiet solitude on the pier and I wander down the pier to search out my own little brood in the pool, maybe I can coerce them out to watch the crabs hunt for fish.......well, it took them a while but they finally said farewell to the great pool, hot tub, and water slide to come out to the marsh....they are glad that they did....they all liked watching the crabs.....back to load up the carts and make the hike to the front of the resort and load the RV....while Pam gets the RV, the kids load up on lemonade from the reception area and I continue to search for signs of the resort doggy, no luck, she is probably in the shade somewhere as it is very hot today......We load up and head over to the shops that line the harbor nearby.....we found some very cute shops with great mementos of our short but wonderful visit to Hilton Head Island....very friendly shopkeepers!! Christian got to check and add oil while we gassed up the rig....he is becoming quite the skilled young man......He knows how to hook up when we stop and check the oil, he even navigated for me the other day when I was driving, WOW! On our way to Savannah to see the historical sites there, we are later than we intended so we are hoping to get there and still be able to see something interesting....got to the history museum just in time to see a short film and the exhibits...walked across the street and visited the Battlefield Park, which made the trip! This is the site of the bloodiest battle of the American Revolution War Dec. 29, 1778.....there Is an earthen fortification built so that visitors can see the size and shape of where the British and Americans fought for control of Savannah, unfortunately the Americans lost and Savannah lay in British control until the end of the war....very sobering to look out over the field from the top of the fortification....

Gracie riding the slide at the pool.....

 

Christian shoots out like a cannon!!!

 

three little muggins peeking over the edge of the pool......

 

Gracie in her strong woman suit....

 

 

Christian, Gracie and Brookie at the pool....

who is this sea monster hiding in the pool??

 

 

taking a walk down to the marsh area....

 

 

 

Mickey lives here in North Carolina.....

out for a walk we found a little friend taking a stroll across the street.....

 

this is the resort we stayed at.....leaving on our way to Georgia

 

and we enter Georgia....

 

We drove around Savannah looking at the beautiful old buildings and statues of Oglethorpe (who founded the city) and we unwittingly found Juliet Gordon Lowe’s childhood home....I took a picture of Gracie in front of it and as we drove around the corner we saw a sign in the restaurant a block away that said “Girl Scout Special”.....we saw a military ceremony paying homage to POW/MIA soldiers, and a really old cemetery.....at the end of it, I thought the buildings pretty but look forward to seeing Charleston and Mt. Pleasant, SC.....on our way to Mt. Pleasant, we found a Walmart and stopped to grocery shop.....Madison and Brittany made dinner in Walmart parking lot while we worked quickly to restock the food supplies..... the kids eyes lit up when we entered the RV with all of the new food.....Arrived to the Mt. Pleasant KOA, bathrooms are grody!!! On the other hand, the internet works great there....so happy to finally be able to post pics and blog in a timely fashion......

 

trying on hats at the Savannah Museum

 

 

 

Battlefield Park in Savannah Georgia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



March 29

From Gracie:  Today we went to the beach across from the hotel. I saw 4 dolphins in the  water and  one came up to surface  really  close.  I wish I could touch the dolphins.... the sand is really white and so hard that people were riding their bikes on the beach.  Then when we got to the hotel we went to the pool that was at the hotel and rode the water slide about 7 or 8 times before it closed.  Tonight we went to the club house and played BINGO!!!!!  Miss you all!! <3 Gracie!!!!

We slept in and we are HAPPY about it....Pam and I got up and walked to the storage place that we have to park the RV at while we are here, a little over a ½ mile away.....it made a nice morning walk.....we loaded up the rest of the food that we wanted to bring over to the hotel and made our way back.  We must have looked a site with bags attached to us like vagabonds......very funny!!!  Kids moving in slow motion but they got excited when we mentioned the beach......we caught the shuttle for the short ride over to the beach area....

Riding in the shuttle to the Disney beach house, looks like Mickey has been here....

we just expected to be dropped off to the beach access and go on our way but in the Disney tradition, we discovered a beautiful pool clubhouse, pool and game area and a spectacular beach...

We immediately went to the beach access and walked through the dunes to the beach area.....it was so pretty, with a light breeze, sunshine and lightly rolling waves.  Gracie started looking for beach treasures and found some small shells...a couple of minutes later, Christian ran up to me and wanted me to come and take pics of something he had found...turns out that the beach has more than a few dead jellyfish (which was cool to see)

Gracie's treasures.....

.....look hard and you can see the fin on the dolphin....

Out in the surf, we caught sight of a school of dolphins playfully darting around in the surf pretty close to shore....Gracie could hardly stand herself, she was so excited! I tried hard to get a pic but they are hard to get...... 

Gracie jumping in the surf, what a treat to be able to play in the water

The girls played in the water, jumping the waves and enjoyed that.....The sand is a very fine (and hard enought to ride bikes on which is cool) and sticks to you and Christian was very frustrated with not being able to get it off.....back across the dunes to enjoy the clubhouse and pool.....

....a rousing game of Marco Polo.....

the kids swam forever and finally got out to play fusball and jump through the water spouts in the ground....

...jumping the water spouts at the Disney Beach House

from the pool area, I noticed a beautiful golden retriever walking with his/her owner down the beach......I miss my doggers!!  On our way back to the hotel room, we found the other pool on the hotel grounds and the kids ran to slide on the waterslide and swim some more in a different pool!! 

shuffleboard competition.....

Later on, it was shuffle board and a game of bingo in the community room....

playing shuffleboard down near the pool.....

Bingo in the Community Hall....

bingo anyone???

There are mickey mouse heads and Disney touches  everywhere you look so we still feel like we are at Disneyworld....... I really wanted to lay in the hammock right outside the back of our suite (maybe tomorrow) but dinner and laundry came first (especially since KOA laundry rooms are not free and here the “in the suite” laundry room is)......my legs are on fire from the extreme sun that I took in today...I will need to reapply more often..... more trouble for Brittany and I on our laptops, we can’t get any internet to work now......can you feel how frustrated I am with internet connections....WHY CAN’T  IT JUST WORK???  My journal part is good, but if I can’t get online.....I can’t add pics or post it!!!  I need a Starbucks....internet there always works and I get a killer ice tea to go with that!!!

March 28

Up with the sun, still trying to catch up the blogs...it takes a really long time to get the pics loaded...A couple of KOAs ago, I found a USA sticker for the RV with state stickers to add as you travel through so today we finally had a little time to adhere it to the RV....the kids enjoyed being able to add the stickers for the states that we have traveled through thus far:

California

Arizona

New Mexico

Texas

Louisiana

Mississippi

Alabama

Fort Castillo de San Marcos

Today, we will travel through Georgia and South Carolina to our next stop on Hilton Head Island.....first stop on the way will be in St. Augustine to see the oldest inhabited city in America (we visited the Fort Castillo de San Marcos)....beautiful, right on the water, many boats and old architecture....Christian, of course, was enthralled by the cannons and fortified effects of the walls of the fort....we stood at the original entry gates of the city, it gave my heart a pitter pat to stand in the space where so long ago the explorer Ponce de Leon once stood and where wars were fought by Spain and Britain to keep or gain control of the area.....this is why we are here......

....at the city gate of St. Augustine.....

Add caption

Christian with the cannons at the fort...

ok, traveling northward we made our way to Jekyll Island, one of the islands that we will be visiting today. 




Hurrying all of the way, we reached the Georgia Sea Turtle Rescue Center with just short of an hour to visit before the closed.  Although it would have been nice to have a little more time her, it was just enough to go through the visitor center, see the patients in the hospital area and look for the box turtles in the outside area......it was a great review of facts that Christian, Brookie and Brittany remembered from their Swimming Creatures class from 2 years ago, amazing the things that they remembered.....I’m so glad that we got to go there

the turtle in aqua is a full grown loggerhead turtle....big!!

the turtle named Tim.....in the hospital area...

.....back into the RV to drive 2 hours north to Hilton Head Island......we arrived around 9 pm, early by our standards of late....checked into a beautiful suite at Pam’s time share(Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort) and settled down the kids for the night.....the weather is beautiful so I sat outside on the huge deck attached to our suite.....internet worked great until it froze while I was trying to post to the blog and it deleted all that I had just worked hours on......how fascinating, time for bed.....will try fixing tomorrow.......

March 27

Today started too early but realistically too late.....does that make sense to anyone else??  We slept until 9:00 and the kids and adults were all out of our groove....moving very slowly and inefficiently....leaving Orlando today to head over to Mims to see NASA and spend the night at a new KOA there.....maybe we will find better internet service there????  One can only hope....We called Bill to connect with them and tried to figure out our day.....Today is the first day that we are actually veering off of our carefully planned itinerary and at this point, none of us really cared!!  So shooting from the hip, we decided to go to the back lot of Disney to the employee store with Bill, Vic and Jenna to do some more shopping....the girls were all excited...Christian not so much!!  We found some killer deals on sweatshirts, $15 marked down from $60, WOW!!   Christian got excited when he saw the t-shirt and shorts that I found for him and when we were checking out he found a couple of pirate play figures that he begged for...so by the time we get home, he may actually enjoy shopping since we apparently seem to be doing a lot of it.....the kids have been writing postcards as we journey through all of the states and we are trying to keep in touch with cousins, friends and family with those....trouble is, we keep checking in and out of our KOA’s after hours and it is hard to find post boxes so forgive us if you get a postcard that we wrote in one state with a postmark from the next state!!  It’s all good....after our foray at the Disney back lot, we decided to take the kids to lunch at....wait for it, yes, you guessed it right....TACO BELL!!  We promised the kids about a week ago to get them Taco Bell and we just haven’t got there yet, shame on us!!  So this is the perfect opportunity, being that we are here with Vic and she is the new manager of the Downtown Disney Taco Bell store.....the kids acted like we were taking them out for fine steak dinners, aren’t kids funny??  It was fun to see Vic’s new store, it is huge and beautifully remodeled....I’ve never seen such nice art work in a Taco Bell, it is all different scenes or posters of Disney characters and parks.  Kind of fun!  Now it was time for the dreaded goodbyes....never my favorite part of visits, especially since it will be an undetermined amount of time until we see Bill, Vic and the kids again.  It is so hard to live so far apart....the kids were sad, too.....Jenna and Christian really had a great time being together these last few days and have a great rapport going.....we all hugged and kissed and Bill grabbed me so hard he cracked my back about 6 times.....something he has always done since I’ve known him.....the kids all loaded into the RV and I found Christian in the back crying....sad but cute that he knows that he really cares about Jenna and will miss her.....he asked me if he could facetime, skype and text her...technology!!!  So, they WILL keep in touch....and Jenna is saving her money with a plan to come visit, We hope she does.....on to Cape Canaveral....

we got there after the museum was closed but we got to see things on the outside (a recreation of a space shuttle, rocket garden and the Mercury/Redstone 1^st US Space Manned Vehicle). 

Mercury/Redstone Rocket

look closely.....the kids are there

Rocket Garden.....

Along the road in the canal, the kids spied a couple of floating alligators so the day was a hit!  When we arrived at the KOA, the kids and Pam got hooked up while Brookie and I started the laundry...ooops we didn’t get back to the laundry room until a few minutes after closing, so our clothes got locked in for the night, no big deal for the rest of us but Pam’s jammies were in the drier...funny!!  As we were going back and forth to add quarters to the drier, we met a nice golden retriever who looked so much like Arrow....we enjoyed petting him (Comet was his name).  Luckily, we haven’t seen too many bugs and the mosquitos are out and biting but now as bad as we thought there would be.  Something we are all grateful for, the ones who do have bites are itching like crazy!!! 





 There are many squirrels here and they are very brave, running over the path very close to us as we walk or sit around the campsite......