GRANDKIDS AT THE LAKE

My 3 grandkids that live in H-town have been chomping at the bit for me to get home so they could come stay with me at the lake.  They love it there.  Mr. W has a boat and has had a boat since our kids were little.  Mind you, his boats are always old, used boats.  But, they seem to get the job done. His Dad always had a boat.  Mr. W was raised fishing and he learned to water ski when he was 5.  Son and Daughter learned to water ski when they were very young and grew up fishing and playing on all kinds of water toys pulled behind the boat. So, you guessed it, the grandkids have been fishing and playing on water toys pulled behind the boat. The grandkids love it here too because now that they are older, they have a lot of freedom that they don't have in the big city.  They can go ride their bikes around the park, play at the play ground without an adult being with them, and things that you can't let kids do anymore in the world they live in.

This year, Boy-child declared that he was going to learn to ski.  He had tried last year.  Mr. W had cut off a pair of adult skis the best he could and Boy-child had tried on those.  It is a pretty difficult thing  to keep those skis together and straight AND learn how to stand up, keep your balance, and handle the rope, especially when you are 8 years old.  But, during the year this year, Mr. W's brother, Uncle Darrel, found a pair of kid's skis that are tied together at a garage sale.  Since Boy-child now had those skis, he was confident that he could do it.

Daughter-in-law (DIL) also bought a 2-seater water toy that Girl-child couldn't wait to ride. Squeaky told me that she did not plan to ride anything except Pops' boat. That would end up changing! :)

Saturday, while the grandkids were here, Son and DIL came up for the day.  So, as soon as Son drove up, Boy-child was ready to try.

Put the rope between the skis

Hold your skis straight

Keep your knees bent

Here we go - Hold on!

And he's up!

He didn't go too far each time he got up on Saturday.  He would pull back on the rope which is a big no-no but is something all new skiers do. So, after many times of getting up and falling, Son decided it was his turn to ski.  Boys never really grow up.

And he is up!

Let him get the feel of this since last year........

OK, now he remembers what to do......

Show off..... :)

One last cut across the water before he lets go because he is working muscles he hasn't worked in a year!

Next was the 2-seater and oh boy was that fun! AND guess who decided that she was going to ride something after all?  Miss Squeaky! She had the biggest grin on her face once she got started.

Squeaky and Girl-child

Look at Miss Ballerina with her feet turned out.

And off we go!

Hold on Squeaky! Look at that smile.

 

Later on with Boy-child and Girl-child riding it. Pops (Mr. W) doesn't take it so easy with those 2!

After their ride.

The next day, Boy-child decided to try to get up on the skis with no one in the water with him to help. He popped right up and skied all around the cove 1 1/2 times. Way to go!  He also asked Pops to untie the skis and see if he could get up with them untied.  Guess what?  He did it! I see another generation of skiers in this family.  Don't you?

Daughter and her family will be here next week.  Son and his family are coming up for the day on Tuesday so we can all be together.  With as competitive as Son and Daughter are, I'm sure I will be blogging again about who skied the longest or stayed on the tube! Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be fun.

BACK IN THE PROMISED LAND

Last Wednesday, I crossed over into the Promised Land.........Texas! Home sweet home! You are right, I am one of those obnoxious Texans that believes there is no other state like her state in all of the United States. It was good to get back and see Son and his family.  I have missed them terribly. I did want to comment on a couple of parks that I stayed at on my trip back home.

The first night after I left Skidaway State Park, I stayed at Florida Springs RV Park in Bonifay, Florida.  Mr. W had seen on their website that Escapee members got a 50% discount.  Knowing how we love a discount, he gave them a call.  He booked a site for the night. The people at the RV park didn't know their website said that Escapee members got a 50% discount, but they said they would honor it.  When we arrived, we were not impressed.  There are a lot of people who live there. They parked us in a spot that was right on the road and had no trees around.  Mr. W checked the voltage at the electrical pedestal and the 50 amp wasn't working.  We reported this to the office and moved over 1 site.  We prepared to spend the night.  Later on, someone else pulled in to the site where the 50 amp wasn't working.  We talked to them the next morning and asked if the 50 amp was working and it wasn't.  We asked if the office mentioned anything about it not working and the office had not.  These people had pulled their cord to an empty site and plugged in.  The restroom had one (1) bathtub/shower combo.  Not showers, but a bathtub/shower. Yuck.  I almost always take a shower in my trailer, but the thought of this is icky! This will not be a place we visit, even for just one night, again.

The second night on the road, we stayed in Robert, Louisiana at a Jellystone Park.  It was a C2C park and there were no additional charges so we paid $10 for the night.  The sites were big.  There were 3 pools, a water slide, a lake with canoes and paddle boats, a pavilion, 2 snack shacks, miniature golf, planned activities, cabins/chalets and much more.  It will definitely be a place to stay again if we are in the area.  You can't beat the price if you are C2C.

One of the things I figured out on this trip is that I tried to visit too many places in too short of a time.  I allotted 1 week at each stop.  I should have done less stops and spent 10 days to 2 weeks at each place.  That's what this trip was about.  It helped me figure out how to travel while doing this thing called full-timing.  When you spend most of your life having only a week or 2 at the most to "do vacation", it is a whole new mindset when you aren't on a schedule or vacation anymore.
Whenever I get back to H-town, I never have enough time to do everything I need and want to do.  I have several doctor appointments set up for yearly check-ups, I have friends that I want to spend time with, and of course I want to see those grandkids.  I will be here until Thursday and then I'm headed to "the lake".  The grandkids are going with me for a few days.  We plan on having a good time! :)

So, my blogs will probably not be as often for a while.  Please check back periodically or sign up with your email on this page and you will receive an email when I post a new blog. I will be around "home" until the middle of September.  I'll be checking in with posts of things going on around home. Those posts may not be as interesting to you but they will be just as interesting to me!

Talk to you soon!

SKIDAWAY STATE PARK

While in Savannah, I stayed at Skidaway State Park.  My same friends that recommended James Island County Park in Charleston had recommended it.  They are batting a thousand right now.  This was an awesome state park.

Driving in is just gorgeous.

The sites are laid out where you have plenty of room.  In most state parks I have stayed in, there are not sites in a row where you can see who your neighbor is.  That is not the case here.  There is a section of pull thrus where you can see your neighbor, but you have plenty of "acreage" between you.

 

Every site has a concrete tent/picnic table site next to it.  The actual RV sites are on crushed rock.  That is one thing I have noticed about RV sites on the east side of the Mississippi, whether in a private or public campground, there are very few that have concrete RV sites.  The roads might be concrete/asphalt and they may have a concrete pad for a tent or your picnic table, but the majority seem to have crushed rock for your RV.  That's not a bad thing or a good thing, just an observation.

The park has a couple of hiking trails.  One of those you can also ride bikes on.  You can ride your bikes on the regular roads throughout the park.  There are several picnic areas and several pavilions that you can either reserve or if no one has reserved them, they are first come-first serve.  There are a couple of play grounds throughout the campground for the kids.  They have an amphitheater where the ranger gives talks or demonstrations on different topics during certain parts of the year. 

 

 

There is a gated community just down the road and a very nice small shopping center that consisted of 1-small, private grocery store; 1-what they called the general store that sold souvenirs, candy, and ice cream; 1-small private hardware store; 5 banks; and 1 very large Merrill Lynch building.  Let's see, what do you think that tells you about the people who live in the gated community? Can you spell money? I'm just saying...........

This is a fairly new state park.  You have to go across a causeway to get to it.  The developer of the community made a deal with the state that he would develop this area and give them the land for the state park if they would build the roads out there.  It is not close to much, but it is not far away from most things.  I was about 30 miles from Tybee Island which is the nearest public beach and about 15 miles from downtown Savannah.  They have tent only sites, sites with water/electricity only, and sites with full hook-ups.  I had a site with full hook-ups.  It was not cheap, but I'm glad I stayed here and will definitely stay here again if I am in the area.  One thing I have learned on this trip is that I don't have to have sewer at every site.  Mr. W and I have done just fine staying in a site with no sewer for a week to 10 days. 

This is definitely a state park to visit if you are going to be in the area.

JULY 4TH RIVERBOAT CRUISE

Before I arrived in Savannah, Mr. W and I had tossed around the idea of going on a riverboat cruise on the Savannah river to see the fireworks on July 4th.  On the drive down to Savannah, we decided to go ahead and book it.

River Street was one of the places I had been told to visit by several people. After seeing it on the city tour the day before, I knew this was a place that I wanted to come back and visit on my own because I was going to need more time to see everything I wanted to see. It is actually below street level, faces the river, and is full of shops, restaurants, bars and vendors.  It is where the old cotton exchange use to be and they have turned the old warehouses into shops and restaurants on the upper level or street level facing the street and even more below that face the river.  There are 2 parts to River Street.  One side is the shops and restaurants that has a sidewalk in order to walk easily by the shops. The other side is a river front plaza that is all concrete and has benches and a few permanent outdoor open shelters that are full of vendors.  An old cobblestone road runs down the middle.  It is original cobblestone and is very unlevel and hard to walk on.

When I had done the city tour the day before, the downtown area was not very crowded.  The tour guide even mentioned the fact that numbers were down from they expected.  There was a hurricane in the Atlantic that had been swirling around and so everyone felt that the uncertainty of where it was going to hit had kept people from the coast.  I was hoping that would be the case for watching fireworks on July 4th. Boy, was I wrong!

The riverboat cruise left at 9:00 pm.  They were going to start loading at 8:00 pm.  The cruise lasted for 90 minutes so we would be back at the dock around 10:30 pm.  Mr. W decided that we should get to River Street around 4:00.  He was concerned about finding parking and finding it in an area that we would feel safe to return to after 10:30.  There is very few parking areas on River Street.  In fact there are a few free spots on one end and 1 parking lot on the other end.  This part of River Street is about 10 city blocks long. We actually got the last spot in the parking lot. 

The decision had been made to walk through the shops, listen to the bands that were playing on the plaza, have dinner at one of the restaurants and then board the riverboat.  The later in the day, the more people on River Street.  People were coming early to claim their spot to watch the fireworks on the street.  They had set up blow ups for the kids along the plaza.  They had scheduled 3 bands to play on a stage that had been erected on the plaza.  Everywhere you turned, something was happening. We had hoped it would be a little cooler than it had been the day before.  There was a slight breeze down on the river so it was a little bit cooler.  However, the key word in that sentence is "little". :)

Soon it was time to start loading the riverboat.  People had started lining up to board before 7:00 AND they had been standing in the sun and heat. Not my idea of fun. So, around 7:45, we decided to get in line.  We boarded and since we wanted to be outside, we looked for a place to stand on the upper deck at the railing for the cruise.  After an encounter with a very drunk old man (he was much older than I am and mean so I'm calling him OLD), we found our spot along the railing.  The drunk guy is a whole story on its own.  However, I'm always dumbfounded as to why people get so wasted that they are obnoxious to so many people, it wasn't just to us, in such a large setting and then continue to drink.  He totally embarrassed his wife and did pass out before the cruise was over.  Sounds like a fun night for them, right? (She said very tongue in cheek.)

However, we did meet a group of young adults (late 20s/early 30s) from Columbia, SC.  They were a great group.  I told one of the couples that Daughter and family had just moved to Columbia and 3 of the couples began giving us all kinds of information to give to Daughter.  The conversation then moved to their personal lives.  One of the couples had just moved to Utah for work and had come back to visit so they could come as a group to Savannah to see the fireworks.  They had planned to go to one of the bars on River Street after the cruise to hear some acoustic guitar music.  I think if we had shown any interest in going, we would have been invited. 

The fireworks were great and we were really glad we went.  It turned out to be a really fun night. After we docked, we went back to one of the candy stores we had visited and bought some pralines and dark chocolate pecan clusters.  I'm sure those are on my healthy diet don't you? I mean, after all, nuts are protein and dark chocolate is an antioxidant.  See?  And, no one wants melted dark chocolate that has been carried around all afternoon! I'm sure the antioxidants would probably melt right off. So, we stopped by afterward. :)

What a great way to celebrate the birth of our great country.  No matter what our problems are, we still live in the best country in the whole world.  I so admire all the forefathers who had the vision and the courage to start a nation of freedom.  Happy birthday America!  This truly is the land of the free and the home of the brave.

River Street side of the old warehouses.  This area is below street level.  This is where most all the shops, restaurants, bars, vendors are.

This part goes under a hotel.  The mirrored sides you see are shops that you can enter that are part of the hotel.

Our boat for the cruise

There was a lot of boat traffic down the river early on.

This was a memorial of WWII casualties from this county.  The name of the memorial was "A World Apart".  This was on the plaza.

This was on the street level side of the warehouse.  They had these bridges built to get to the shops and restaurants.

These were the blow ups that they had there this weekend for the kids to enjoy.

One of the bands that were performing.  They had some great music by all of the bands.

The upper deck of our riverboat

Picture from that upper deck of the boat.  It was a wee bit crowded don't you think?

This is a shot looking down the other way.  That is a second boat that went out for the fireworks too.

Drum and fife going through the crowd on shore.

Sunset as we set sail

And the fireworks begin!

I really love the colors reflecting on the water.

Part of the big finale

Bridge that we cruised under on our way back to the dock.

We started second guessing ourselves that day as to whether this was going to be worth fighting the crowds, finding parking, the heat, etc., etc. (In our younger days, those things would have never crossed our mind.)  But, it really was worth it.  We had a great time.  We would do it again if we are back in Savannah on the 4th of July.  The cruise did sell out.  So, if you find yourself in Savannah on the 4th and want to do this, book at least 2 days before.  One interesting fact that I did not know, Savannah has the 2nd largest St. Patty's Day parade and celebration in the US.  Boston has the largest.  So, if you like to party on St. Patty's Day and can't make it to Boston, Savannah might be your place to be.