Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

10/23 - 10/26/12
Ocean Lakes Family Campground
South Myrtle Beach, SC

A new state for us, yea!  Our trip of 95 miles was a sunny uneventful drive of 95 miles.  We left early with the leaders as we were assigned to be parkers here in Myrtle Beach.  Along the way here we stopped in Calabash at the NC/SC state line area. We had to pass by a restaurant that had burned at 3:00 am, it's a complete loss.  Very sad to see the employees standing around staring in disbelief at the still smoldering timbers.

Our leaders knew of this large lot that we could park in.  We had Lunch at Ella's sort of early, about 11:00, by the time we left there was a line waiting for lunch.

We arrived at Ocean Lakes Family Campground in plenty of time.  They have five lanes for RVs to park in, two deep, it reminded me of lining up at the border crossing to Canada.

 This is the largest RV park we have ever been to, about 2,000 RV spaces and about 2,000 sites with homes on a leased piece of land about the size of  two rv spaces.  They have a small grocery store, a small restaurant and an several enormous laundries and several swimming pools and snack shops with hand dipped ice cream.We are very close to the ocean, in fact we can hear the waves crashing on shore. The beach here is very nice, sand and waves as far as you can see.

Tonight we had tickets for a live show called The Legends,  which was paying tribute to famous musicians.  We say "Little Richard", "Alan Jackson", "Bobby Darin", "Elvis", "Celine Dion".  They were all spectacular.  "Alan Jackson" looked, walked and sang like the real Alan Jackson, you could not tell them apart.  Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, but the group was worth seeing.

We visited The Brookgreen Gardens.  I'm not sure how to describe it, but I'll try. We had a docent led tour of gardens, sculptures, history lesson of Archer and Anna Hyatt Hunnington who created  this non-profit outdoor museum with majestic oaks and world-renowned sculptures.  There are expansive garden, pools, trails, a zoo, butterfly house and an educational center to learn about Gullah/Geechee people who were the slaves from West Africa.  They were brought here because they knew all about growing rice.  The area here was a large rice plantation at one time.

At the entrance to Brookfield Gardens

Our Docent leader Patty Lou, she was excellent and has a real love for her "job".

There is so much to see here that if we lived here I would have to have a yearly membership so I could come often and explore.

Boat ride through one of the creeks that ends at the Intercoastal Water Way.

It was a warm sunny day
floating down the river
and Larry, one of our caravaners couldn't resist
"resting his eyes"












Back at the campsite Buddy and I enjoyed several nice long walks along the ocean, the salt water and sand is so good for both of our feet.  Tomorrow we will be driving a whopping 85 miles to Charleston, South Carolina, I hope the hurricane Sandy stays away from us.  We have a full tank of fuel in the truck and the Airstream has a full tank of fresh water, and empty sewer tanks, plenty of food and a new box of wine; what more could you ask for.

Have a blessed day, thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

Wilmington, NC

10/19 - 10/22/12
KOA
Wilmington, NC
Stop # 6

We arrived in Wilmington ahead of schedule so we were able to stop at the Poplar Grove Historic Plantation.  The estate known at Poplar Grove was purchased from Francis Clayton in 1795 by James Foy Jr. (1772-1823), the 628 acre plantation, a self-supporting agricultural community, produced peas, corn, beans and peanuts, held some 64 slaves; and served as an aid and resource to neighboring small farmers.  The tour was spectacular and well worth the effort (we pulled our trailer into their parking lot).  Again no pictures were allowed inside the house which was very well preserved.  I almost forgot to mention, like most old houses it burned in 1849 and was re-built to exact specifications in 1850.

Note the slant on the porch, I thought it had settled but we were told that it needed to slant that much because of the storms that could go through here.  They did not want any water standing on the wood.

It's hard to see:

Gents & Ladies
Indoor Out House

Two rooms in above house.


They are getting ready for their Halloween Fund Raiser so there is black plastic and spooky things everywhere on the plantation.

Notice the door frame

Peanuts was a major cash crop

The peanut picking machine

I never realized that turkeys could be black and white.

He is so handsome and he knows it.

A dinner cruise on the Cape Fear River, moving up river toward the Memorial Bridge.  The entire span in the middle between the tower raises up for ships and sailboats.  Occasionally the span will get stuck up there and they have quite a traffic mess.

Our table group on the Henrietta III,

We toured the Battleship North Carolina.  Just a few facts:  Commissioned on 4/19/41, was a protector of aircraft carriers, designed to carry 1,800 men however by the end of WWII she carried 2,300 men, the crew slept in metal bunks stacked five high, 729 feet in length, made it own electrical power, could carry 120 days of food supplies.  There is just too much to list, go to www.battleshipnc.com

She could launch these types of planes, sort of like a sling-shot.  However planes were not able to land  on the ship.

  Sorry, I forgot what this type of plane and launching is called.

 Bunks stacked five high.

The top bunk does not have a mattress on it so it's hard to actually see.

The ship has an excellent self guided tour all the way to the engine rooms and up to the top where the captain is.  They have a very good display of loading the bombs, you just have to be able to climb up the steps and not be claustrophobic.

Our last activity in Wilmington was a great trolley tour. I am in the third open window shielding my  eyes from the sun.

We have found that most cities that have a trolley tour are usually the way to go, you learn so much.

This is a fantastic city, full of history, our four days here just make us want to come back again.






This is the end of our stay.  One more thing, we usually don't stay in KOA's because we don't like them, however this is probably the best KOA we have ever stayed in we would stay here again; we will be staying at a KOA again in Charleston/Mt. Pleasant area I hope it's a nice one too.

Have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

Chocowinity, North Carolina

10/16 - 10/19/12
Twin Lakes Campground
Chocowinity, NC

After leaving The Outer Banks we traveled through Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge where Judy and Emma were for a couple of months ( We met Judy a few days ago).

Along the way we continued to go through fields of corn already cut now and beans; then we started seeing fields of cotton.  Most of the cotton fields were at one time tobacco farms.  Now cotton is more profitable.

Cotton has been pressed and then made into these huge bales.  I don't know how they transport these large bales, they are the size of a flat bed trailer.












Another name to learn to pronounce, Cocowinity, pronounced Chalk a win ity, is in the Tar-Pamlico water shed which then goes to the Pamlico Sound.  On the north side of the river is the town of Washington and home to the North Carolina Estuarium, a must see. No pictures allowed.

On our way to Chocowinity we stopped in the Historic town of Bath.  This is my new favorite place to live.  A very quiet beautiful place on an inlet off of the Pamlico River.

Also the home of Blackberd at one time

Just a little south of our campground and then east is the Aurora Fossil Museum and digging for shark teeth.  Another well worth site to see.  There is a phosphate mine near by and they bring truckloads of gravel that is 5 - 10 million years old and full of shells, coral and shark's teeth.  Yes, we did find some shark's teeth from Tiger, Copper and Requiem Sharks.  The museum is excellent in showing shark's teeth, shells and phosphorous from 5 - 10 million years ago.