Springs and Sink holes

A lazy week for us this week in Ocala, Florida. Situated in North Central Florida, it is the self proclaimed horse capital of the world. We had a nice camping ground that over the week gradually filled from next to nothing to almost full as the snowbirds from the North started turning up for their long sojourn in the balmy Florida Winter. At the start of the week Summer was still in control with temps in mid thirties but by the end Autumn had arrived and the humidity was low and the temps in the high twenties.

There are many springs in the area created because of the limestone rock that under pins most of SE USA. This area was once all under water and in the limestone formed at that time are many crevices and holes that hold the bountiful groundwater produced over the summer months. In some areas this water bubbles up producing huge clear springs that are some of the biggest in the world. Where an underground cavern collapses you get a sink hole. We visited Juniper Springs.


And wandered along the lovely board walks that the state park provided and after the walk Wendy had a refreshing swim in the spring font itself.




It was very tropical and almost no one there.

Later in the week we visited the biggest spring in the are called Silver Springs, that besides showing off the spring also has a theme park featuring native animals. We got a two for one pass otherwise we would not have bothered. We went in a couple of glass bottom boat trips, and watched four wildlife shows.




The Springs are the source of the Silver River and wild alligators are everywhere. They aren't interested in humans unlike Saltwater Crocs. We also saw lots of turtles sunning themselves on the floating logs.




There were very few people there, a hundred if they were lucky. But in the quiet crowd free natural beauty it was a lovely day out.



This is the actual Silver Springs source with a glass bottomed boat above.

This afternoon we visited the Tiffany museum in nearby Winter Park that holds the biggest collection of Tiffany glass in the world. We also visited one of the famous Outlet Malls on International Drive.

We have a lovely campground in Orlando courtesy of the city council. Right on a lovely lake in an oasis of calm and beauty in the centre of Orlando with alligators just 100 yards away in the big lake. And all at a remarkably cheap price.

This week is our last on the RV, so we have some cleaning and packing to do accompanied by a trip to Universal Islands of Adventure Theme Park and to the Kennedy Space Centre on the coast. Then we leave the RV n storage to fly to San Francisco for a few days before flying home to NZ in time for the Semi finals of the Rugby World Cup. This is also our last blog musing for this year. Next year we will be back when we set forth from Florida to the bayous and head north through the mid west and up the Mississippi River. This year has been all about the first settlers of the country, and the Revolutionary war and the Civil War. Next year we follow the trails of the settlers in the great western migration that followed the civil war.

Join us again next year. Y'all have a great day now!

Way up the Suwannee River

This week was to have been a discovery of Georgia’s coastal islands, but alas fate turned us in another direction. We did get down to a lovely State Park on the Coast near King Bay Submarine Base where the Trident Missile Submarines are based. Whilst setting up the Fifth Wheel we noticed that the bedroom slideout wasn’t level and was tearing the seals protecting the inside against water. We tried adjusting it but to no avail, so we decided to take it to a service centre in Jacksonville, Florida in a couple of days time, which left one day for exploring.

So we decided to go gator hunting in the Okefenokee Swamp. The swamp is the largest freshwater swamp in North America and the source of the Suwannee River so beloved in the song by Stephen Foster – Way down the Swannee River. Except that he spelt it wrong because it wouldn’t parse properly.

We drove up to the Okefenokee National Park and went on a boat cruise through the swamp.

A bleak and uninviting place but filled with life especially alligators and turtles. We saw lots of them lying still in the water keeping cool in the very hot sun. One alligator had just hatched 18 youngsters and she was caring for them as we stopped to say hello.

Nest day we drove to Jacksonville and met with the RV dealer who was going to fix the problem. He diagnosed a broken bed roller which was quite complicated to fix, so we went off to the local mall in the air conditioning for the day and when we returned all was done. Then we headed south further into Florida and stopped near the oldest town in the US called St Augustine.  Founded in the mid 1500s by the Spanish. It has a lovely very old fort looking out over the Intracoastal Waterway.

It also boasts the oldest school house in America.

And several lovely museums converted from turn of the century hotels built by a railway tycoon called Flagler.

St Augustine has a lovely old historic district, heavily restored but still with some charm, though the town itself is very touristy. It was Federal Lands Day on the day we visited and we had free admission to the fort.

Then today we headed further south to Silver Springs near Ocala where we will be until the end of the week. This is central North Florida – Horse Country as it is called.

I thought on this second last blog of this year that it would be good to record some observations on Americans as we have seen them over the last few months. We have been amazed at how patriotic most are. Very respectful of their flag and very respectful and grateful to the men and women in their armed services. In NZ and other British and European countries we treat servicemen and women as just another career with no special respect.

We have also noticed our there is a huge section of the populace that are very conservative. There is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between. Some politicians pander to this offering simplistic solutions for very complex problems. Lots of churches have sprung up as well with all kinds of weird names. Religion is big business in the US and even the smallest of towns has so many churches that it is amazing. Most seem to be small independent churches where the pastor has decided to form his/her own church as a career option. In the local bookshop there was one aisle for travel books and three aisles for Bible Books.

Consequently there is a lot of polarisation between conservatives and liberals and the government is in paralysis at present. The system of checks and balances that has stood America well in the past is facing its greatest challenge. Compromise is a dirty word. The favourite expression is ‘My Way or the Highway’. 

Southern Charm

We left Chapel Hill bright and early on Monday and picked up the fifth wheel that had been serviced, and headed south on that great highway linking the North of the US to the South - the I-95. We were heading for Charleston in South Carolina, some 300 miles away. Whilst not the Capitol of SC it is certainly the best known city in the state.

Next day we drove to one of the great plantations that created the wealth that the south rose to prosperity on. It was called Boone Plantation and the entrance was through a magnificent drive lined with Live Oaks (so called because they are evergreen) and draped with that uniquely southern plant - Spanish Moss (an epiphyte).




We visited the slave cabins and heard a lively talk from an African American on the Gullah language that developed after the War between the States ( as the south calls the civil war, or the war of northern aggression). It is a type of pigeon English. We also visited the lovely plantation house.




The weather was superb all week. Hot but not too hot and sunny. We also did a coach tour of the estate and saw the various crops that they still produce.

Next day we drove into Charleston and admired he lovely antebellum houses (houses built before the civil war) especially on the river in an area called the Battery.




Charleston grew wealthy on the backs of cotton and rice using the slaves for labour. After the war it fell into a long slumber and has only recently woken up. Later that day we went on a cruise around Charleston Harbour and out onto the Intracoastal Waterway which runs down the entire length of the eastern USA inside numerous barrier islands. We saw lots of dolphins and they rode our bow wave for a long time. We passed the USS Yorktown, a WWII carrier that has taken up residence in Charleston.




On Thursday we drove down the coast to a town called Beaufort, also on the Intracoastal Waterway. It was very beautiful with lots of antebellum houses.




It is quite small and very manageable to visit with not many tourists. It is surrounded as are all the southern coastal towns by salt water marshes with rivers and creeks running through them often for many miles inland.




Great fishing and boating with lots of wild life. Alligators abound in the fresh water ponds and creeks. We had a nice lunch there by the waterfront and admired the local inn that has stood there for many centuries.




Yesterday the weather turned cloudy but that brought a welcome coolness down to the mid twenties from the mid thirties. We left Charleston and headed south again for a 100 miles to Savannah in Georgia. We are staying in a lovely Island State Park right on the Intracoastal Waterway just over the bridge over THE Moon River wide than a mile which we crossed in some style. We went to a talk by the park ranger on the local reptiles and saw snakes, turtles and gators from the area. Afterwards we went on one of the many trails around the island underneath Live Oaks and Spanish Moss and the ubiquitous Palmettos that grow everywhere in the South.




Today we visited Savannah. We were a bit disappointed in it as it often run down and whilst there are some lovely squares and parks like the one below, there are also many ugly buildings.




But all the transport was free so we caught a bus with no windows down to River St and a free ferry for a tour along the river and back.




Savannah also declined after the Civil War and only recently like Charleston has it revived its heritage and started to develop its own personality. More lovely antebellum homes completed our visit to this charming southern city.

This week we visit the sea isles off the Georgian coast and head across the border to our last State for this year - Florida.

Ex Hurricane Lee decided to play it tough with the US and after it made landfall in Louisiana it headed north and drenched the whole of the East Coast and especially the Blue Ridge Mountains where we were. We were hoping on Monday to go down south to Asheville, the highlight of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But the prospect of a day's driving in the pouring rain and spending the next couple of days in heavy rain put us off so we decided to stay put and spent the next three days listening to the heavy rain on the roof.

On Thursday the rain eased and we drove across North Carolina to Chapel Hill to have a service done on our fifth wheel and to meet and stay with our friend, Mary who lives in Chapel Hill.

One day we drove down to Pinehurst, in the Sandhills region where the US Golf Open is held each year. A nice area to live in. We had a lovely picnic in the city park.

This week we head in to the real South and will be visiting Charleston and Savannah.

Location:And the Rain came Down

The Blue Ridge Mountains

We had a lovely campsite in the Shenandoah River State Park and on our first day there we decided to visit the Shenandoah Battlefield Trail centred around Front Royal. But it was a bit of a disappointment with really nothing other than plaques marking historical events. So we called it a day and went back to the park.

We were staying near the Blue Ridge Mountains. These are the first major mountains that are reached from the East Coast and were a huge barrier to settlers for over a hundred years. They are a concentric series of ridges stretching out for a hundred miles east to west with the Blue Ridge Mountains the highest and the most Eastern. All along the main ridge for 550 miles runs a road. In the north it is called the Skyline Drive and further south it is called the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We drove up to the Skyline Drive thousands of feet about the Shenandoah Valley on one side, the the Piedmont Plain on the other, and admired the glorious views.

There were lots of places where you could pull over and admire the view. You can see for miles and miles.

There were lots of deer feeding gently at the side of the road and very little traffic – virtually none which was a surprise as 20 million people visit the Skyline Drive and Parkway each year.

We got back and Wendy wanted to go  to the State Park Visitor Centre so she drove up their by herself while I made a cup of tea. When she came back she was all smiling and burst out with “I have just seen 4 black bears”.

She was so thrilled as they are not common to spot during the day at all.

We moved on the next day to 200 yards from the border of Virginia and North Carolina in a town called Galax. It is only a short distance from the Blue Ridge Parkway which slopes gently up from the West to the ridge and then drops precipitously don to the eastern plain. At 5 o'clock that night there was a thunderstorm which did not damage to our campground, but very bad damage just a short distance a way knocking out the power. All the lines men were over by the Virginia Beaches fixing lines there after Hurricane Irene had gone through, so in the end we were without power for 28 hours.

We drove up on to the Blue Ridge Parkway but it was a hazy day as Hurricane Lee in the Gulf of Mexico was already gearing up for an assault up to us. But the views were still stunning and the traffic quiet.

The James River flows right through a cut in the Blue Ridge Mountains and even a long way from the sea, as we, are it is an impressive river. It was canalised all the way up here in the 1800s.

Hurricane Lee is threatening bad weather for us this week and Hurricane Katia is hovering off the coast as well with an unknown track as yet. We continue our way down the Blue Ridge Parkway this week  to its southern most point near Asheville, North Carolina (Hillbilly Country) and explore the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee  (Weather permitting).

Almost Heaven except for Irene

A quiet week but a remarkable week also. We moved to Belle Isle State Park, a lovely quiet area on the Northern Neck, One of the necks as the four Peninsulas separated by the great rivers of the James, York, Rappahannock and Potomac are called. It is an ex plantation. A plantation is one of those old estates like in Gone with the Wind that traditionally grew tobacco in the older days. These days it is sorghum and soya.

We were relaxing in the afternoon when all of a sudden the fifth wheel started a rockin and a rollin. We looked at each other and simultaneously said "earthquake". It lasted for about 20 secs. Turns out to have been centered about 30 miles away. The biggest Eastern Earthquake in a hundred years or so they say. Probably haven't lived in NZ or California!

The next day we went on a drive around Northern Neck to the quaint seaside village of Reedsville. Lovely merchant's house dotted along a smaller river leading to Chesapeake Bay. Skipjack yachts used to carry cargoes around the bay, line the river bank.




We wandered around the lovely trails in the park, many overlooking he Rappahannock River. All these rivers are HUGE, many miles wide where they meet the main bay as you can see below.




We were due to head up to Washington DC on Friday but Hurricane Irene forced us to evacuate Belle Isle State Park as the eye of the storm was due to pass right over it, so we moved on to just outside Washingtin where we though we would be safe. But alas that park was also closing so we decided to miss Washington for now and headed another 70 miles up into the Appalachian Mountains where we hid in the Shenandoah Valley until the storm passed on. It was not as bad as everyone thought it would be.

Today we moved again a few miles down the road to the Shenandoah River State Park where are camping down by the river in a lovely setting on the border of West Virginia. Amost Heaven as John Denver sang.




This afternoon we went for a long walk through the park and along the river bank where many Civil War battles were fought. The storm has passed and the skies are blue and the air very clear.




This week we will explore the Shenandoah River and the famous Skyline Drive before heading south on to the Blue Ridge Parkway that winds it way along the Blue Ridge Mountains for some 400 miles. Mountain Momma here we come.

Location:T-Bird Dr,Front Royal,United States

Chesapeake

This week we have been exploring the southern part of Chesapeake Bay. The bay is huge stretching some 300 km along one side and 20 km or so across. Say the size of Northland from Auckland. The rivers on the western side are huge. The James River must be 3 miles across and the other rivers like the York and the Potomac are also huge.

We stopped for 4 days on the eastern shore in southern Maryland, a part they call Delmarva. It is a peninsular comprising The State of Delaware and parts of Maryland and Virginia, hence the name. We stayed in Jane Island State Park, a beautiful park near the crab capital of the world in Crisfield.

We had a great spot just feet from the bay.





It is a quiet sleepy area, but there the waters teem with Blue Swimmer Crabs and the kids at the park spent hours with their chicken necks and nets catching lots of crabs on the jettys.

The sunsets were lovely as we faced west over the bay. It's too wide to see the other shore.





We didn't do very much except small trips to the town and other nearby villages to buy some crab meat for some delicious home made crab cakes. One day we went on a long kayak around the island. We stayed on the mainland and the island is separated by a small channel. There are numerous reed island and water trails to explore.





It was the nicest camping spot we had had anywhere. But alas it was time to head on, so we headed south down the peninsular and over the border in to Virginia. We reached the cape at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay and crossed the most impressive 18 mile bridge and tunnel spanning the entrance to the bay. Not once but twice the bridge dips into the water and dives into a tunnel under the bay allowing the huge aircraft carriers and battleships of the American Atlantic fleet based in Norfolk unrestricted access to the open sea.

When we reached the other side it was all smoggy which we put down to pollution but in fact it was smoke drifting from a huge fire in The Great Dismal Swamp. (great name!)

South of Chesapeake the climate was noticeably different. It was becoming sub tropical with lush greenery, tropical flowers and a hot sun. It is in fact the same degree of latitude north as Auckland is south (37 degrees) and it seemed very similar with the lushness and humidity.

We stopped the night in Williamsburg, heart of the Historic Triangle of the early settlers. When we arrived at the campground the ground start to shake and with a huge whoosh a fast train roared by just feet from where we were due to camp. We asked for a different spot so they put us on the other side of the campground just feet from a busy main road. So we checked out the next day and went to a lovely state park at the confluence of the Chicahominy river and the James River. Another quiet lovely spot.

Yesterday we visited a recreation on the site of the town of Williamsburg where they have people dressed as they would have been in 1699 and houses in that style.





To go in the houses costs $40 but to wander round costs nothing so we settled on the latter and saw recreations of famous events, sword fighting and pipe and band marches by British Soldiers.





Some of the buildings are very grand like the Governors Palace above and others much more modest.

In the evening we went to Captain Georges Seafood buffet and dined on all you could eat crab and shrimp amongst other delicacies.


That's an Alaskan King crab legs, and a Blue crab in the picture.
Williamsburg is a very pretty town and area, with lots of trees and parks and water everywhere. One of the top tourist destinations in the US.

Today we drove to Jamestown, home of the first English settlement in America. There were recreations of the original sailing ships that brought the first settlers to the country.




It was well presented if not very authentic. The original settlement has long since decayed and nothing remains of it, so recreations like the original fort are the only way to display what it was like.





This afternoon we have been to Yorktown scene of the famous last battle of the American war of Independence in which the British under General Cornwallis surrendered to the army of George Washington effectively ending the war. Not much to see now days but it has been well preserved.

This week we continue our circumnavigation of the Chesapeake and spend most of the week further North at The Belle Isle State Park. The weather continues fine and very hot.

Location:John Tyler Hwy,Williamsburg,United States

The Finger Lakes

We arrived in Ovid in the Finger Lakes, New York State after a long drive over the Adirondacks. There are many classical names in the Finger Lakes after an early surveyor. Names like Seneca, Romulus, Ovid, Aurelius, Ithaca. The lakes  are long and thin and spread out like the fingers on a hand- hence the name. Formed by retreating glaciers in the last ice-age dumping glacial rocks in the river valleys. For the past few months since we left Quebec we had become used to the countryside being soft rolling wooded hills or tall wooded mountains, but here in the Finger Lakes we arrived into fertile farmland and the centre of the Eastern USA wine district.

Lovely barns dot the countryside and we spent a day touring round Lakes Cayuga, Seneca, Skaneateles and Owasco.

Corning, home of Corning Glass is also nearby and we drove to their museum of glass and spent a day watching exhibits of the history of glass and seeing demonstrations of Glassblowing.

There were some lovely exhibits of modern day glass designs that took our eye. It was a lovely day and the museum is very well managed and easy to walk around with lots of demonstrations from optical fibre to smashing glass.

On the way back we stopped at Watkins Glen State Park and walked down a chasm following a narrow path carved into the sides of the walls. For a State Park it was fantastic. It was only 12000 years old so goodness knows what it will be like in another 12000 years.

There are 800 steps along the path so thank goodness we had read that there is a car park at the top and a shuttle bus at the bottom to take us back to our car. Watkins Glen was about to host its annual NASCAR car racing days when sports car race around the town. But the gorge was more than enough for u.

Next day we took the car in for its first service. It has done 9000 miles or 15000km on one oil change so that was excellent. We got a service special whereby the garage paid for the 10 qts of oil so that was a great saving. On the way home we called into Taughannock State Park where there was an another amazing waterfall – taller than Niagara but alas not as wide.

That afternoon we went wine tasting along the Cayuga Lake Wine Trail tasting some nice wines and some rather average ones. We discovered many different grape varieties developed at Cornell University which is situated nearby. Names like Pasta, Marechal Foch, Melody and Noiret.  Niceish.

Then it was time to keep heading south and after another long drive we arrived at The Artillery Ridge  Campground in Gettysburg, scene of the great Civil war battle and Lincoln’s famous address.

We were planning on spending a few days touring the area but alas fate played another card. I had been experiencing atrial fibrillation for some days now and it was getting worse, so we decided it was time to go to the ER at nearby Gettysburg Hospital. I was admitted very efficiently. I though they would be more interested in the colour of my credit card than the colour of my blood. But they didn’t wait to get those details and wheeled me into the ER room and I went through a series of ECGs, blood tests, X-Rays and examinations over the next few hours. The end result being that late that night I was discharged with a diagnosis of Hyperthyroidism, a condition that amongst other things can cause heart palpitations. I had to go back next day for more tests and eventually we agreed that we would treat it with some medication before leaving it to the specialists in NZ to sort out on our return.

I have been feeling better since the medication kicked in so here is hoping that they got it right as they admitted that they were not used to treating this condition. We have managed to tour the famous Gettysburg Battlefield in a marked automobile discovery route that takes you over the 48 square miles that the battle was fought in. It was very interesting see the sites of the various fights that made up the Battle of Gettysburg.

The picture show the view of the battlefield from Small Round Top being the Union lines with the Confederate Lines in the trees beyond. It will be 150 years since the battle in 2013 and all around the US there are commemorations happening at the scores of battle sites where fighting started after the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. We weren’t able to do as much as wanted. We had hoped to go to another famous battleground in Antietam but alas.

Tomorrow we hear south again and into Maryland where we are staying at a lovely State Park on the very edge of the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay at Crisfield. It’s the Crab capital of the world, so they say. So Maryland Crab Cakes here we come!

The Adirondacks

On our first day in the Adirondack Mountains we drove into the High Peaks region and drove up one of the highest mountains in the area called Whiteface Mountain. We parked near the top and took a lift in the heart of the mountain up 28 floors to the summit where we had panoramic views. Down below we could see the H shaped Lake Placid.

We drove down to the lake which hosted the 1932 and 1980 Olympic Winter Games. We couldn’t get to the lake edge as it is all private property but the town of Lake Placid was bustling and full of reminders of its Olympic heritage.

We stopped for a picnic on a smaller lake nearby, by a long pontoon and watched all the owners of holiday homes without road access cruise up to do their shopping.

Then on another day we walked into the Ausable Chasm, one of the oldest tourist spots in the States, but certainly a long way off the best. Expensive, with staff that saw visitors as fodder and not the basis of their pay. Still it was a nice walk from the Rainbow Falls where the chasm starts deeper into the gorge.

As chasms go it is pretty minor but on a hot day it was relief from the sun as we hiked along the paths fastened to the steep sides of the chasm with Ausable River tumbling over rocks below us. Most visitors then paid another $10 on top of the $16 they had paid already (all plus 10% taxes) and went on a short anaemic raft trip at the end of the chasm. We walked in peace along the rim and watched them float gently in the current below us.

Afterwards we went to a small museum that highlighted the local Underground Railroad, that escaped slaves used to escape to Canada (we are only 40 miles from the border here). It’s not a railroad and it’s not underground but a route with safe houses and kind helpers who passed the escapees on from one house to the next until they were safe in Canada where slavery had been outlawed in 1824.

Yesterday we took the ferry from New York State over Lake Champlain to Burlington in Vermont.  Burlington is the largest city in Vermont and nicely situated on Lake Champlain, which is the biggest fresh water lake in the USA other than the Great Lakes. About 100 miles long by 8 miles wide. It was a beautiful day.

Behind Burlington we could see the Green Mountains of Vermont and in the other direction the high peaks of the Adirondacks. It was the annual Festival of Fools in Burlington and free entertainment all over the place from slapstick to acrobats. We had a wood fired pizza for lunch at an outdoor cafe on the main street while listened to some slapstick comedians balance a goblet of wine on their heads. It was very hot.

This week we start heading South again with a four day visit to the Finger Lakes in South East New York State, and then onto Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to take part in the 150^th year commemoration of the start of the American Civil War in 1861.

Upstate New York

It’s been a quieter week this week as we further explored Rhode Island and then moved through Connecticut to Central Massachusetts.

On our last day in RI we went on a Lighthouse Cruise around Narragansett Bay which is the huge bay that Rhode Island surrounds. We went past 10 lighthouses such as the one by the Newport Bridge called Plum Point Lighthouse.

We also sailed into Newport Harbour past all the mega yachts and also the site where the Newport Jazz festival is held every September.

There were boats everywhere and huge super yachts tied up in the lovely dockside area.

Then it was time to leave RI and we drove through Connecticut State and up into Central Massachusetts, which was good as we have learnt how to spell it now. We encountered near our campground scenes of utter devastation and then remembered the terrible tornado that had cut a swathe through the area on June 1st.

 

Over a 40 mile by 200 yard wide strip, every tree had been pulled out of the ground  or stripped of its branches, houses demolished, vehicles destroyed and people killed. It was horrific to see what damage had been caused. Luckily our campground was a mile or two off its track and spared. It was a lovely quiet place and we stopped for four days and didn’t do very much in the sultry heat. We did drive around one day and admired the lovely countryside and villages with their English names like Northampton, Worcester, Sturbridge and more American sounding ones like Belchertown. We visited the world’s largest candle store – Yankee Candles and made our own layered scented candle before having a picnic lunch at the top of a nearby hill called Mt Sugarloaf, where we looked down over the wide Connecticut River with the Berkshire Mountains in the distance.

The river along with the Hudson river which we crossed twice today are the two main rivers in the North East of the US and along which the first settlers travelled.

Everywhere we see rolling hills covered with green woods stretching into the way beyond. It is very pretty.

Today we drove 250 miles to Upstate New York as the Americans called the area of New York close to the Canadian border. We are in the Adirondack Mountains, part of the great Appalachian Range that stretches from Canada to Georgia and are here for a week on the banks of the Ausable River. Other than a few late afternoon thunderstorms the forecast is good.