Smiles in Savannah

I can’t say enough about Savannah, Ga.  It is a place we have always wanted to visit and it really lived up to our expectations.
It is a city rich in history, beautiful architecture and deep Irish heritage.

In 2012 Savannah had the largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the history of the country with 1.2 million people attending.
Our first stop was Forsyth Park which occupies 30 acres in the historic district and consists of a beautiful fountain and the Confederate Memorial. It is also in this park where the scene from “Forest Gump” when he was sitting on the park bench talking to the elderly lady was filmed.

We loved walking down the brick and cobblestone streets and admiring the historic homes and the arches over the streets formed from the giant live oak trees covered with moss.
   

After wandering through several of the 13 squares in the historic district we walked down to the harbor front.  We were fortunate to explore this rich city with our good friends Tom and Carol Sykes who were also spending some time here.  Here we are waiting for Barry Kelly’s Irish Pub to open because no time with them would be complete without gathering for a cold beer.
 
We got tired of waiting for it to open so we went to Moon River Brewing for lunch and a cold one.

The waterfront was lined with several shops, restaurants, WWII Memorial, and the best candy shop.


From here we walked through the historic district up to the city market where we stopped for another beer (seems like a pattern developing) and listened Billy Greer from the group “Kansas” sing “Dust in the Wind”.
We enjoyed the city so much that we decided to go back a few days later and this time Barry Kelly’s had just opened for the day. It is one of the true Irish Pubs in Savannah. 

Another stop was St. John the Baptist Cathedral….

followed by a stop at Fire Headquarters and the Firefighters Memorial which by the way was on Floyd St.

This does not touch on even a portion of the sights we saw or the photos we took. 



Historic Savannah is also where much of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” was filmed.  Now I will have to watch the movie and we will surely revisit this city!

A Special Visit

We knew that our trip down to Florida had to include a stop-over near Cary, NC to visit my brother, Paul and sister-in-law Linda.  It had been two years since we had seen them and we were very excited.  Unfortunately, the closest RV park to them was RVacation RV Park in Selma, NC about 45 minutes from them.  It was a nice park right off of I-95 with nice pull-thru sites. Our site had a nice view of a small lake inhabited by all kinds of waterfowl. Not a bad park for a few nights stay.

We got quite a chuckle out of the sign as you enter the park.  It read “Speed Limit 8 miles per hour, seriously!” We thought maybe it should have a question mark rather than an exclamation point!
After getting settled, Paul & Linda came out for a visit and then we went out to dinner to Ruby Tuesdays.



Friday morning we road into Cary to visit at their place.  We decided to leave Mickey at their place to do some sightseeing since he made himself right at home.






Our first stop was Southern Seasons in Chapel Hill where we had a great lunch and the guys did some beer tasting.  Their favorite was Sweet Josies, a dark beer followed by a good Octoberfest.  Not only is it a restaurant but also a store featuring all the chocolate you can imagine, coffees, teas, gourmet foods, cookware, etc.  I could not leave without buying some chocolate.
Our travels then took us through the UNC campus and a ride through the upscale neighborhoods. 
From UNC we drove over to their rival school, Duke University.  It was a perfect day to walk through their botanical gardens.

While we were at Southern Seasons, Ray spilled coffee down his shirt so we had to make a stop at the Duke bookstore so he could buy a t-shirt.  This prompted one of the students to ask him if he was wearing his shirt to countdown.  Maybe they thought he was an alumni, or possibly a professor?
Our final stop was a visit to see the University’s chapel.  Among the buildings on the west campus, Duke Chapel was the first to be planned at the last to be built.  It was dedicated on June 2, 1935 and continues to be the central building  whose purpose remains “keeping the heart of the University listening to the heart of God.”



The tower of the chapel rises 210 feet high and the chapel itself seats 1500 people.

The photo on the right shows the pipe organ which contains 5,033 pipes controlled by a pedalboard and four keyboards.

We dropped Mickey back off to the RV and ended the evening with dinner at Outback.  We had such a great time, laughed so much and were so thankful for their hospitality.  I am sure it is in the cards for us to stop for a visit again!

Amish Sights and Sounds

We left our summer home on October 13th and arrived at Country Acres RV Park in Gordonville, PA, close to Lancaster.  We really loved this campground.  It was very well kept and we had a nice pull thru end site overlooking farmlands and countryside. As I am writing this I am looking out the window and watching the Amish plow the cornfield behind our site.
When we arrived and I stepped out of the truck this is what I saw.

The insulation in the underbelly was full of water and was so heavy it dropped the underbelly.  We had no clue what was leaking so we propped up the underbelly and left the water off. Fortunately the park had very nice restroom and shower facilities close to our site.  The following day Quality RV Repair sent out a mobile tech (the owner of the company).  We were very impressed with him.  The result was, no leak.  We had kind of figured this since there was no smell to the water.  The way the sides of the rv slants down it allows for rain water to enter the underbelly.  The tech has seen this many times before.  We were very relieved that it was only that, and only required resealing the underbelly and putting some small holes in the bottom of it to drain the water.

We love the peacefulness of this area and the ways of the Amish. It is so picturesque, especially in the fall with all the colors changing and beautiful mums everywhere.  We spent most of our time riding through the countryside with Mickey in tow and stopping at Amish produce stands, shops and Mennonite bakeries.

Since one our standard snacks to eat are pretzels we took a ride to the Sturgis Pretzel Factory in Litiz, PA. For $3.00 we had an informative tour and were taught how to twist pretzels.  From there we strolled down main street taking in the sights of all the historical buildings and homes. And no trip to Litiz would be complete without visiting Wilbur Chocolate.  On that note, I think it is time for a chocolate caramel.