Florida so far...

One would think that once you get to Florida the skies clear and the temperature increases to warm hanging-out-at-the-beach kind of weather.  It was 20+ degrees warmer in Flagstaff than here in Florida.  This Arctic blast prompted us to continue south at a faster rate than we had anticipated.  There is a pretty large national forest just north of Orlando where we set up camp.  While staying at the Clearwater Campground we enjoyed a 25 mile bike ride and managed to pick up a canoe. 

   

Ron's parents met up with us in Orlando about a week before Christmas.  The weather was once again leaving something to be desired so we headed to the Kennedy Space Center where we saw the crawler that brings the shuttle out on to the launch pad, the shuttle on the launch pad, one of the three remaining Apollo rockets on display, and Ron was able to pet a moon rock.  The last shuttle launch was scheduled for Dec. 17th and we were going to be able to see it, however it has been postponed due to cracks in the outer fuel tank.  We will keep an eye on the next scheduled launch date.  During our time in Orlando we stayed at Lake Louisa State Park where we located an old orange and lemon orchard.  We harvested as many lemons as we could carry and are still reaping the lemonade benefits.

   

From Orlando we headed down to Key Largo to stay at a very colorful little place on a canal that Ron's parents rented for all of us.  Our first trek as tourists in the keys was to Key West.  After a walking tour we had really tasty lunch at B.O.'s Fish Wagon.  This was our warmest day yet so we headed to Fort Taylor State Park where we toured yet another fort and Betty and I enjoyed a dip in the ocean.  On the way back to Key Largo we took a detour to track some very small endangered Key Deer where we spotted ~1% of the remaining population of 500.  OK, we only saw 4.  But all right from the car.  Continuing our drive back, the Key West Key Lime Company put together a brilliant billboard promoting their key lime pie as a way of preventing scurvy.  How could we pass that by? The pie was ~$20 which all of us winced at until they gave us a free sample. DELICIOUS.

   

       

Looking for more entertainment we headed to the Everglades National Park.  Our first stop featured so many gators, birds, and miscellaneous critters that we thought they must have staged the scene.  Gators were literally piled up on each other.  The photo shown here could not even encompass all 19 gators present in this one small area.  Also spotted was a very rare American Crocodile.  Christmas day we enjoyed a morning paddle where a manatee swam directly underneath our sea kayak and very tasty turkey dinner.  Ron's parents are ditching us tomorrow and heading back to Oregon and we are headed up to the Everglades to put together a 10 day canoe trip.


 

    

Tour de Fort

From Savannah we headed down the Atlantic coast.  Our first stop was at Fort Pulaski where, due to the soggy and cold weather, we had our own personal tour of the fort.  The planning phase of construction for Fort Pulaski began under the instruction of General Lee but he left prior to any work on the fort began.  It took so long to build the fort that by the time it saw any action during the Civil War that the walls were easily destroyed by Union forces.  Going back in time, our next stop was at Fort Fredrica.  Built by the British to protect the "debatable land" between Georgia and Spanish controlled Florida, Oglethorpe's men were able to protect it when the Spanish attacked (mainly due to the fact that the Spanish couldn't see what was really going on through the gun smoke).  At Castillo de San Marcos we toured the Fort where the Spanish had launched their attack on Fort Fredrica.  Oglethorpe had attacked this fort with a 50 day siege that did very minimal damage to the fort.

  

Savannah, GA

Oh the land of spanish moss and a plethora of historical markers.  On the way to Savannah we discovered Ron's new favorite food - Hot Boiled Peanuts!!  Ok, he was really upset that they were more like a bean than a peanut. We arrived refreshed and rejuvenated after our stay in Atlanta.  Skidaway Island State Park (awesome) was our home for the duration of the stay.  We checked out the Green-Meldrim House which was General Sherman's headquarters while he was there.  Our tour guide was an older lady who informed us that "some people still aren't over it, but me, I'm from Boston".  She also gave us a tour of the church next door where tourists are generally not allowed.  We also saw the cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Tybee Island, the Bee Company, and the tourist strip.

 

Atlanta

We tucked in from the cold and wet weather for a week at Patricia and Bob's house.  It was a fantastic break from traveling and included a lot of great beer and fish and chips, and amazing art.  We checked out a Dali exhibit at an Atlanta museum.  We also checked out the world of coke; pretty much a long infomercial about coke but we did get to taste over 60 kinds of sodas from all over the world.  Needless to say after that we didn't feel so good.  Also had some really good pizza at Antico Pizza Napoletana.  Basically we just spent the week in Atlanta eating, drinking, and laying around but hey the weather was cold.  Now its off to Savannah and then down the coast to meet up with Ron's parents in Orlando.

The Natchez...



The old trace

From the Louisiana coast we decided to head diagonally across Louisiana and Mississippi to visit Alexis's Grandmother in Decatur Alabama.  Lucky for us we stumbled across the Natchez Trace Parkway.  The parkway is part of the National Park system and follows and historic trade route.  At the start we toured the town of Natchez, visiting some historic cemeteries and old slave auction areas...  Not a lot of info on the old slave trade, this seemed to be a common theme in the area.  We did however find some pretty good BBQ.  We spent three days driving along the Trace (it's over 400 mile long) camping along the way and stopping at all sorts of interesting points.  Saw some Native American mounds, old trading posts, more cemeteries and plenty of swamp/forest. The parkway its self is really quite pretty, the park service has done a nice job of making it feel like your in the middle of nowhere.  Some of the informational signs are a little dated.  One sign for a spring metioned that Indians probably drank from it...yeah they probably did.

We had a really nice visit with Alexis's Grandmother in Decatur.  Alexis got to learn some about her family history and even got a bound version of the Snead family history.  Should make for interesting reading along our trip.  Headed to Atlanta to Visit with Patricia and Bob. 

 


 



Turkey!

From the Galveston area we headed along the Gulf Coast into Louisiana.  There were signs everywhere warning of alligators.  We stopped at a nature preserve and spotted a gator lurking near the information kiosk.  He was clearly used to people and kept waiting for us to feed him chicken on a stick (if only we had some). 

From there we headed for Indian Creek Campground just south of Alexandria and stayed over for Thanksgiving.  This place was absolutely amazing.  We camped right next to the lake and were surrounded by huge trees.  The leaves were changing colors and the weather was beautiful.  Our 9lb turkey and pumpkin pie were cooked in our dutch oven.

Houston, we have a problem.

We spent three nights at Galveston Island State Park with a view of the Gulf.  The camp was great but we couldn't seem to get in the spirit of things.  What not to do when in the Houston/Galveston area:
1)  Do not let a bird somehow maneuver a poop inside the drivers side window.  Rons shoulder and arm were the targets of this successful attack. 
2)  Do not take a ferry ride to nowhere in search of lunch.  The ferry had deposited us onto a peninsula with nothing around where hurricane Ike did the worst damage.  Many of the damaged houses were leveled but there were still a few skeletons around.  We came across a Mexican restaurant that was packed and looked promising.  The food made Taco Bell seem like a five star restaurant.  Foiled.
3)  Do not underestimate the ego of Texas State.  We toured a monument which claimed to be the tallest in the world and marked a battle which the local literature claimed was the most important in the world (the battle lasted 20 minutes).  The general feeling of the place was creepy to say the least.  Our tour was saved by our discovery of Battleship Texas.  The ship was set up so you could poke around and explore.
4)  Do not let a mosquito bite you next to your eyeball.  It will swell up so large that you cannot open it.