December 26th

Well there goes another Christmas, we hope everyone had a good time with family and friends. Our gathering of about 10 of us was really nice. It is amazing what can come out of a small van and camper to make a potluck Christmas dinner. We had minced lamb tacos, mushroom beef, chicken, bean salad, coscous, rice, thia noodles, fresh fruit salad and a delicious Danish almond/rice desert, all very tasty. The evening was clear and warm with a slight breeze, just perfect.
Today the beach is a little more active with Mexican families, but we were surprised that there were not more families camped on the beach over the holiday, they just seem to come for the day.
Now our interest is in making our plans to travel to Belize, finding campgrounds and a place to leave the truck and camper while we go out to Tobacco Caye for a few days so Wolf can do some diving.

Dec 18, 2009

We have found our spot for Christmas and New Years. We are in a funky campground called Bonanza. It is located just north of Tulum and south of Playa del Carmen, on the Caribbean. There are not many sites, none with hook ups, so, we are boon docking. There are tenters, young and old, and the rigs are the same as our small camper ie: vans. Very international group which makes it very interesting. We also have 3 couples that we met before on our travels north of here and Dave and Donna are still with us.
We will be here until the second week of January and then we will start our treck south to Belize. Unable to post any photos as we are not on high speed.

Best wishes to all

December 12th update

Short update to let you know we are safely in Mexico. We are at Pelanque, in the province of Tobasco and will be doing some Mayan ruins tomorrow. Great little camp ground in the jungle, listening to the Howler monkies and watching fireflies. This is our best spot yet. Glad to be out of the USA, got a little bored with strip malls after a while. We will be heading for the east coast again in a couple days and working our way up from Tulum towards Cancun and looking for some dry camping beaches away from the crowds. We are still in the company of our friends Dave and Donna and it is because of them that I can send this blog. They have satellite internet!!!!! Had to get a place that has internet down here.
All is well, cannot post any photos right now, but will when we get a chance
New Orleans was great, still alot of damage there from Katrina, many places not even fixed up again. The French Quarter did not get damaged much because it is on higher ground. As one man said, those Spaniards knew what they were doing when they built the place.
Merry Christmas to all.

Update of our travels/ Dec 2/09

We are still alive and well it is just difficult to get wifi so now I will update our travels since the beginning of November.
We survived Hurricane Ida while at Myrtle Beach with heavy rains for about a day. We left the beach on Nov 12th and headed south to S. Carolina and our first stop of Charleston S.C. Some very old and lovely buildings dated back to late 1700's, but unfortunately not alot of info posted on these buildings. The city market was there in the 1600's and was the hub of action, now it is full of artists and crafts and jewellery etc, no more farmers with their  produce. We unfortunately went through Savannah Georgia at dark so just headed to Walmart for the night. White is definately the minority here, but we had a 24 hour security guard driving around the parking lot so felt very safe. One thing I forgot to mention, "BOILED PEANUTS", very popular but very BAD, how to wreck a peanut, boil it in salted water, just gets soggy. 
Onward to Brunswick Georgia: started around 1771 and George Washington proclaimed it as one of the five original ports of entry to the Colonies in 1789. The Old City Hall was built in 1889 for a cost of $33,000.00 and restored in 2002 at a cost of $2.5 million!!!! There was a beautiful street with historic homes from 1895-1896, they have been restored.
From here we went to Jekyll Island, great history here. This island has a huge long causeway out to it, but prior to that being built access was by boat. In the early 1700's an English man named Horton got the island as a homestead. It changed hands over the years but the old Horton house has been saved (just a shell) but at least it is still there. In the late 1800's the wealthy from New York (Rockefellers, Goulds, J.P. Morgan, Pulitzer's, Goodyear's etc) developed the island into a private club. Huge houses were built as cottages, some have been restored to hotels, others are not being used.(photos are after this blog). The large Jekyll Island Hotel is where the rich men from New York, names mentioned above, came together in 1910 and proposed the Federal Reserve Bank-much against the wishes of the founding fathers of America, who had kept this at bay since the 1700's. But they did their dirty deed and in the end these few men got their bank which now lends to America!!!!!
The grounds are beautiful, large oak tress dripping with Spanish moss. It is now  a state park, very fortunate, there are some private homes but no big condos and high rise hotels.
Got into Florida on Nov 14th and spent night at  Anastasia Island State Park, just outside of St. Augustine, known as the oldest city in the nation. Spoke to a camper there as I was surprised at the number of people camped for the weekend, and, she said you can't camp in the summer as it is too hot and humid and the mosquitos are unbearable.
We were fortunate to discover that we were in the area at the time of the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch, could not pass this up. We headed to Titusville, Florida and found our way to the JFK Space Centre where we saw the huge building that the shuttle is assembled in, but we were advised that there was no viewing area to camp at. We went back to town and found a park directly across from the launch site and scoped it out for the following day. Went to Walmart and found this one did not allow overnight parking, only one we have found like this. So, we found our cheap hotel book and went to the Comfort Inn for the $45.95 special  only to find that the price was now $165.00 p/night due to the launch. No way, so we drove south 20km to Cocoa and stayed at the Walmart there. Next morning we were up a dawn headed back to Titusville and found our spot at the shore side park. Within 2 hours the crowds started coming with their chairs and coolers to spend the day. We were there around 6:30 am and the shuttle launch was for 2:28pm, so it was a long wait, good thing we had our camper popped up so we were comfortable. The wait was worth it, what a spectacular display, what a once in a life time sight, absolutely amazing. The launch went at 2:28pm on schedule without a hitch.
From the coast we headed inland as we had the thought that we would spend a day at DisneyWorld since we were so close. Found a cheap hotel $37.00, and it was cheap. Started looking for tickets to Disney World only to find that it would cost $85.00 EACH for a day pass, sorry we are too cheap, not doing it. So after our night in the CHEAP hotel, we headed to the Gulf of Mexico and started our 2 week state park stays.
We found some lovely hard pack sand beaches that were a joy to walk on and the weather cooperated with us. St. George's park was our first stop, but got there after the gates were closed so waited for another camper to come along and open up for us. Found our friends Dave and Donna there so spent  three days there enjoying the walking.Our next park, St. Joseph's, and this was our favorite spot. Camping was right close to the beach, the beach again lovely to walk on, and, we had our own pet squirrel. Lots of shells on this beach as well, campsites nicely treed and washrooms very clean
The next three state parks, St. Andrew's, Henderson Beach and Gulf State were disappointing as the camp sites were a long way from the beach, so we cut our stays there short.
The area around Panama City and Panama City Beach is just full of huge hotels/condo developments, not alot  of action at them, and over the Thanksgiving weekend not that busy. The area around Pensacola has alot of closed down businesses so things are not that prosperous here. But, there is a huge church every 2km, and a dollar store, the two most popular things!!!!!!
Dec 1st we headed into Alabama, Mississippi and Louisianna, Alabama and Mississippi have very small coastal borders along the Gulf of Mexico but they are busy. We drove through Biloxi, Mississippi which was badly damaged during Hurricane Katrina and all along the coastal road there is evidence of large historic homes that were destroyed.  All you see are huge foundations and stairs, there are blocks and blocks of empty lots for sale. There has been alot of rebuilding of businesses and some of the homes, but still alot of nothing. We drove on two different bridges that had been rebuilt as they were taken out by the waves and wind and surge.  The large two bridges going across Lake Pontchartrain into New Orleans were damaged and there are two new larger/higher bridges being built.
We are in New Orleans at present, had a great amount of rain yesterday on our trip here and during the night, but today, the sun is out at times but it is still cloudy. We will be doing our New Orleans touring in the next two days.
Photos follow.

Nov 21st, St. Joseph's State Park Florida, along Gulf of Mexico and yes another wildlife creature that loved us

Nov 17th St Georges State Park Florida, yes the bottom photo is an alligator

Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch, out of order of course

Jekyll Island Geogria

Lovely large trees on streets in Brunswick, Georgia

Old City Hall 1889 in Brunswick Georgia, and some of the homes from 1895

Alley in Charleston S. Carolina and one of the many homes

November 28th,

Have not been able to post for sometime as we have not had internet. At present we are sitting on the side of the highway in Panama City Beach Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico. We have been staying at state parks for the last 12 days or so. Hope to get on some sort of internet soon so I can update. Our trip thru Florida has been good, although, it is chilly, not as warm as we want. Further up dates to come, just want to let you all know we are fine.

November 9th, and Hurricane Ida is heading our way

We have been at Myrtle Beach since the 4th and have lovely sunny warm weather. Have walked the beach for a couple hours everyday and just basically relaxed. Dave and Donna (friends from Van and Mexico) arrived on the 5th so we have been having our dinners together and visiting.

Hurricane Ida is heading into the Gulf of Mexico, where we are heading, so we will hold back for a few days. We are going to feel the effects of it with rain starting tomorrow for a couple days. They are not sure how much rain we will get in S. Carolina, but because they have had so much rain in the last couple months the ground is soaked so really cannot hold too much more.  The photos attached: number one is the sky we are experiencing now as the storm approaches,  two is the beach on Sunday, far more crowded in the summer, three is the sky we have been having for the last 5 days, the last is us on our beach walk.

We are leaving Myrtle Beach on Wednesday and heading down to Charleston, it is supposed to have alot of Civil War heritage to tour.

We have arrived at the beach and sand and sun

We finally got out of the rain and will spend a week here to unwind after all our driving. The blog is updated to today Nov 5th so there is alot to read and many photos, hope it was not too boring. We now have to find a place to lay low over the USA Thanksgiving longweek coming up, do not want to be out on the highways and byways.

Our campsite at Pirates Land Myrtle Beach S.Carolina

Wolf having his wine, who could tell!!!!!!

Sun and warmth and seashore

Nov 4th we finally got to into South Carolina and Myrtle Beach area. Now this is a busy place, we were amazed at how large it is, but the beach goes forever and of course so do the highrises hotels and condos. One T-shirt shop and restaurant after another, we were a little concerned as to what we would find for the rv park. We found the parks at the south end of town and there are three in a row, all very large, like they hold over a 1,000 units, which compile of transient RVs, full time rv's, rental rv's and cottages, indoor and outdoor pool, laundry, store, etc. It takes a while to walk about them for sure. The first one we went to had a great deal, stay for 7days pay for 5 days at $27.00 a night, nice spot, but as we were reading thru the brochure of does and don'ts one items in bright red "NO ALCOHOL PREMITTED IN CAMPGROUND", OK not for us. Went next door and got 7 days pay for 6 and wifi and you are allowed to have a drink in your spot, but do not display it on your table, be discreet.
One thing for sure in this area, very very Christian.

Beach is lovely, nice long hard sand. One fellow behind us goes out in the morning and does his surf fishing and has a big heron standing right near him waiting for a treat.

Not a very big ferry, but it holds over 50 vehicles when full loaded. We took this one for 25 min from Cape Hatteras to Oracoke Island, and then the same type from Oracoke Island to mainland, a 2.25hr trip. Good thing it is all in inside waters, pretty protected

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Nov 1st, was a rainy day which kind of put a damper on things we wanted to do. We drove to Fredericksburg, Virginia but did not stay because it was raining so hard. We decided to head south, so backtracked a little to the east and south towards Chesapeake Virgini,a. Enroute we did stop at Yorkville, Virginia. This lovely little community was bombarded by the American Fleet at the end of the American Revolution in the late 1700's. The significant thing is this is where the final surrender of the British to the Americans took place. About 80% of the town was damaged by cannon balls and it was rebuilt to it's former glory. Still pouring rain so we headed for the Walmart hotel in Chesapeake!!!!!!!

Next day it was into N.Carolina and Hatteras Island. Now this was an interesting place to travel, you are right at sealevel.  If the water comes up even a metre from global warming, the houses on the beaches are going to be gone. They are already built up on stilts. The road was being cleaned by graders as there was a very high tide and high winds so the road was covered in sand. Miles and miles of houses along the beach on either side of this very narrow barrier island, it is known as the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and also the Outter banks. There is a free ferry from Cape Hatteras town to Ocracoke Island, 25 min, and it is all through a very winding channel, not alot of water so it is well marked. You could see people surf fishing all along the sand banks. We spent the night at a private campground called "TEETERS" in Oracoke. Not fancy for sure, even had your basic cockroach in the bathroom, no shower that night, but it was only $20.00. The town is very tourist orientated with loads of shops selling "STUFF". We were catching the ferry next morning for our 2.25 hrs trip across to Cedar Island and then heading south. Nov 3rd we caught the ferry at 10:30am and drove along another very narrow strip of land where the homes had sea water right up to their driveways. All had boats in their yards, wonder is that for a quick get away when the hurricane comes or the tide really rises!!!!!!!! This little island is linked to the mainland by a bridge and then we were back to some higher ground. The whole area is in deep rescession, no one seems to be working, all seem to be fishing off the roadways. Not alot of boats in the water, but there are alot of boats about, hard to figure.
We arrived at Wilmington S. Carolina around 5pm and parked at the Walmart Hotel again.  People here seemed a little better off judging from their clothing and just the way they carried themselves and the vehicles they were driving. Great deal on wine at Walmart as well!!!!!! There were 4 other rigs parked for the night along with us.

Dove

The 1600's replica of the DOVE used to bring supplies from England to St.Mary's Maryland.

Chesapeake Bay

Oct 31st, we headed over the peninsula between the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, about an hour drive. Enroute we stopped at Charlotte Hall,  for a market. The first part of the market we saw was a resemblence of Mexico, everything you could want from socks to extension cords, we were a little disappointed thinking that was it. As we walked around the back we found the Amish had their own area with fresh produce, eggs and baking as well as furniture. We stocked up with our veggies and fruit at a very reasonible price. Two fellows were selling puppies and they were sooooo cute, I told Wolf we needed to get in the grove of things and have a dog like all the other rv'rs!!!!!!! NOT.
The drive was basic with alot of little towns and a couple of bigger ones, we nearly got wiped out in one larger town next to a mall, some jerk decided he was going to pass on the right when the lane ended and he hit a sign post, shearing it off, and it came across the front of us and we could not swerve out of the way because of a vehicle on our left, so we ran over the base and sign. No damage to truck but had we been a little further ahead of him it would have hit the passenger side door.
The next town we visited was St. Mary's and it has alot of 1600's history but not alot there. It was actually the capital of Maryland in the 1600's. A very protected port where the English brought in supplies. Not alot written about the place but they are doing alot of archeological digs and finding some very interesting things. The town is now a college town and that is about all that is there, just the dorms and school buildings, all  very old and well looked after. They have also built a replica, to the best of their knowledge, of a 46 foot tall ship, the DOVE.

We found a state park at the tip of the peninsula, Point Lookout State Park, and it is right on the point, sites were large and private.


This State House was reconstructed from material found close to building site.

Puppies for sale

there were two fellows selling puppies,they, the puppies were so cut. The wagon in back is the mode of transportation for the Amish, no vehicles and hydro to their homes, very green!!!!

Amish market

Product of the day, chicken or duck, notice sign above cages.

Blog update Nov 5th

Charlotte Hall Virgina, Amish market.

Oct 30th, finally updated this blog, make sure you click on Older Posts to get the complete update.

These are photos of gigantic fossilized bones of the creatures that walked the earth as long ago as 210 million years. At the centre of the hall is the 90 foot Diplodocus longus which was found in Utah in 1923 (top photo)

This 13 foot tall African bush elephant is in the rotunda centre of the Museum of Natural History and has been since 1959

Lunar module used to land on the moon (copy of what it looked like - original is in pieces on the moon and in space)

Apollo space capsule that the astronauts came to earth in from the moon

WHITE HOUSE

Capital Hill