Monday 20 November 2000

Oh joy - it's dry for packing up and travelling. Doing it in the rain is a real pain: you get wet and muddy, the inside of the trailer gets wet and muddy, and you have to clean up at your destination before you can unpack. Only about 100 miles this time down to Whispering Pines RV Park at Rincon near Savannah GA, a city recommended to us by a number of people. We were put in a site which required backing in at an acute angle, but it went ok more by luck than judgement. We were also located next to the water storage tank for the campsite; at irregular intervals it would make strange and very loud gurgling noises as it sucked water up from the well and topped itself up. Other than that, a nice spot - cheap, attractive and quiet except for the water tank. We were originally planning to stay for just four days, but after an hour or two we extended our reservation to a week. Discovered the first catch to Passport America: although we got the 50% reduction on our original four days it's not available on reservations longer than that; apparently it's at the discretion of the campsite as to what periods they'll honour it for.

Met Kay, who had been staying there for four months but was just in the process of buying a house in the delightfully named Frostproof, Florida. She recommended some good places to see, and told us about the Volkssport organisation which she's really into. It originated in Germany but is now world wide, and it maps out good walks of varying lengths and difficulties. Apparently you just go to a designated place at the start of the walk, say a Visitor Centre or even a gift shop, ask for the 'Volkssport Box', take a copy of the route, do the walk, then get your card stamped to prove you've done it. It's all a bit organised in an efficient Teutonic manner, but it does give you excellent routes for walking and sightseeing plus an incentive to exercise. She gave us her Savannah route so we could give it a try.

Went to the Visitor Centre down the road for brochures, restaurant discount vouchers etc. Looking at the stuff when we got back, we discovered that each state has, apart from the individual state flags and anthems, a vast number of state 'things' of which it is presumably proud. For example, in Georgia the state vegetable is the Videlia onion, the state fruit is the peach, the state bird is the brown thrasher, the state mineral is staurolite etc. etc. What's it all about? Do they have a state intestinal parasite? A state microorganism?

Tuesday 21 November 2000

Duly set off into Savannah to do our walk - about six miles, but we were game. This was the first city in America whose layout was planned rather than just evolving; it's on a grid system, but with 21 squares at various intersections and a big park in the middle. It is a very attractive place, with a compact historic city centre which is easy to get around on foot. Unfortunately a number of the better buildings were torn down in the 1950s and 1960s, including the old market, in order to build multi-story car parks, but they've now come to the belated conclusion that this was a bad thing and are preserving what's left.

The city was founded by James Oglethorpe in 1733, and it was he who laid it out. It was originally intended as a place for debtors from England to be sent rather than leaving them in debtors' prison, but as it turned out only about a dozen debtors were ever sent; the remainder were colonists who paid for their passage. There were a number of enlightened principles to be followed, such as common ownership of land, and lawyers, alcohol and slaves being forbidden, although this was not because of any distaste for the institution of slavery on the part of Oglethorpe; he just thought that it would make the colonists lazy. However, after the first few years the colony went somewhat downhill; Oglethorpe was sent off to fight the French and in his absence the settlers brought in slaves and considerable quantities of strong drink. John Wesley went out there from England in 1736 to try and put them straight, but he gave up and went home the following year. However, after 1744 the city became an important port and things improved.

Came across some interesting dentists' signs, guaranteed to make you want to visit ...

Savannah is also the home of the first American Girl Scout headquarters, founded in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low who was also born here, but I'm not sure why I mention this.

We abandoned the walk about two thirds of the way through due to the extreme cold and wind rather than exhaustion. Predicted temperature for tonight is 22°F, an all-time record low for this time of year; time to disconnect the water again.

Wednesday 22 November 2000

By early afternoon it was warm enough to venture out, so we went to Wormsloe, the home of Noble Jones who was one of the original settlers. Not much left of it now, except for some ruins and a superb mile-long avenue of Live Oaks (an evergreen oak tree which grows southwards of South Carolina). The house, in common with all the early non-wooden buildings, was built of tabby (probably a corruption of tabia, a North African word for the same material), which is a mixture of lime made by burning oyster shells, sand, more oyster shells, and water, used as there is no local stone or clay. It's still employed as paving material in Savannah. The oyster shells come from huge Indian rubbish mounds built up over hundreds of years. Fascinating stuff, eh?

An interesting advert on the TV this evening, for the 'Propulsid hot line'. Anyone whose health had been affected or who had died as a result of using this drug was urged to call the hot line, presumably to join in suing for vast compensation. We thought that if it made you capable of watching TV and using the phone after death it must be pretty good stuff.

Thursday 23 November 2000

Thanksgiving Day today, so most things are shut. Watched the Cosby Thanksgiving Show and Back To The Future on TV until it warmed up, then went to Tybee Island, a sort of Georgia equivalent of Hayling Island but more up-market, and walked along the beach in the wind together with a number of families having a post-turkey stroll. Lots of interesting seabirds, including pelicans, a big blue-black job that looks more like a blackbird or raven than a seabird, and little sparrow-like things that run along as if driven by clockwork.

Had pretty good traditional turkey and ham dinner in Cracker Barrel, a chain restaurant which had stayed open for the holiday and was doing a roaring trade among people who couldn't be bothered to cook the big meal.

So far the plan to spend a lot of time relaxing in the sun, reading, swimming etc. has come to naught. The south-eastern states don't seem to be as hot at this time of year as we'd expected, plus we've had long unseasonably cold spells. With luck Florida will be an improvement.

Friday 24 November 2000

An interesting message box when I tried to shut down the laptop this morning: 'Cannot load EXPLORER.EXE. You must reinstall Windows'. Sure enough, when I tried to restart it, just a blank screen and flashing cursor. Oh well, it's run without a terminal crash for about three months now, which must be some sort of a record for Windows 98. Tried reinstalling twice with no success: EXPLORER.EXE just produced a page fault during startup and although I got a desktop nothing would run. Phoned the Dell helpdesk, to be told: 'That's the third one of these I've had today. The only way to recover is to reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows and all your applications from scratch'. There is a special eighth circle of hell reserved for Bill Gates, and he can't get there soon enough for me.

By an enormous stroke of good fortune, I'd backed up nearly all my data, including the web site and pictures, to Zip disks about three days ago, so at least I'm not going to lose everything. It's only going to take about two days of continual work to get back to where I was this morning, so that's all right.

Went into Savannah in a foul mood to finish our tour round the city. Saw film about Mr. Oglethorpe (see above) in the Visitor Centre, then had lunch at their restaurant picturesquely located in an old railway carriage. Had the Thanksgiving Special again: a big mistake, as the 'turkey' was made of assorted bits of mechanically reclaimed meat glued together and possessing absolutely no flavour whatsoever. We have come to the conclusion that restaurants attached to tourist attractions are to be avoided like the plague; their clientele are not likely to be repeat customers so they have no incentive to produce decent food.

 Walked along the riverfront area, including Factors Walk ...

... where the factors used to stand on the bridges and buy the cargoes which were being unloaded from the ships and brought along the street below. Also saw the statue of Savannah's 'Waving Girl' ...

... a woman whose fiancé had been lost at sea and who spent the next 43 years standing by the river and waving at passing ships in case he was coming back. For this you get a statue?

Spent the evening installing software and swearing.

Saturday 25 November 2000

Found a great shop - axes sharpened, safes opened etc ...

In the afternoon, the Telfair Museum Of Art, with excellent stuff by local artists, followed by the best preserved house in Savannah, the Owens Thomas House. Ate outdoors in the evening in a tapas bar - crab soup, wild boar sausage, Cajun shrimps and garlic bread. Terrific.

On our return we discovered that the trailer had been overrun with tiny sugar ants. Spent the evening vacuuming and otherwise disposing of them, and putting anything remotely sweet into plastic bags and boxes. What fun we do have.

Sunday 26 November 2000

Rubbed down and sprayed some rusty bits on the trailer chassis, installed software, mopped up more ants.

Monday 27 November 2000

Packed up ready to drive down to Brunswick, about 90 miles south of Savannah. Got chatting to one of the employees at the campsite shortly before departure; after discussing his Scottish ancestry he somehow started talking about how he'd been unfairly accused of being prejudiced by black co-workers, and followed this with a varied succession of racist remarks. Not a great deal of self-knowledge there, I'm afraid.

Came off I95 at exit 6 as per the instructions to Golden Isles Vacation Park, but from then on nothing tied up. Eventually stopped at a petrol station and discovered that they'd recently changed the exit numbering system: the old exit 6 is now called exit 29, and we'd passed it about half an hour ago. Back up the Interstate and found it easily enough this time. Got the 50% Passport America reduction on our two night stay, so maybe there is something in at after all.

Lunch at the GA Pig, a sort of wooden shack at the side of the road offering barbecue and other pig products. We'd picked up a leaflet about it in Savannah, and fortunately it was located less than a mile away from our campsite. The decor, service etc. are less than stunning but the food is superb ...

... the speciality being a pork sandwich compressed and toasted in a sort of medieval torture device.

Drove onto and round Jekyll Island, apparently the home of millionaires, for which you have to pay $3 gawping fee. Quite pretty but nothing special; more tabby ruins, nice beach and pretty sunset ...

Discovered that the campsite has the most disgusting toilets we've encountered, and possibly in the whole of the USA: floors covered in wee, no paper, curtains instead of doors on the cubicles, discarded underpants on the floor etc. Considered taking a photo for the web site but decided against it on the grounds of good taste. Perhaps this is why the place is so cheap.

Tuesday 28 November 2000

Visit to the Okefenokee Swamp Park, which is why we stopped here (apart from the GA Pig of course). The swamp became a National Park in the 1930s; prior to that it was inhabited by a few isolated people who found a dry bit in the middle to live on and who made a living catching alligators and making moonshine. Okefenokee means 'Land of the trembling earth' in the local Indian language; large mats of vegetation solid enough to support a person's weight accumulate on the surface of the swamp and can be walked on with care.

Because it's right out of season we were amongst only about a dozen visitors for the day and more or less had the place to ourselves. Did an hour's boat trip out into the swamp, which is very peaceful and beautiful ...

... but lacking all the wild flowers and vegetation which start to appear in the spring; fortunately it also lacked the flying and biting things which come along in the summer. We may go back in March for another look; at that time you get some of the flowers but it's still a bit early for the insect life.

Apparently it's the 50th anniversary of Walt Kelly's cartoon character Pogo the Possum who was doing a photo shoot at the park ...

Saw a giant basking alligator up very close ...

... and had my picture taken holding a real one ...

Oh, the things I go through for my public. After the live alligator and snake holding demonstration, there was a wonderfully surreal presentation on the stage: full sized animated singing and dancing model bears ...

.. at which we were the sole but delighted spectators. Only in America.

Took the scenic Walked round the rest of the park, including a wildlife area featuring a real bear who sits in a tyre ...

Back for a second meal at the GA Pig: the pork / ribs / sausage combo this time. Altogether a most satisfying day.

Tomorrow we go to Florida for some sun (some hope).