Stops #66 to #70 – Tony – "Purposefully Unrushed"

South Carolina and snow do NOT get along. But we have Snowball, the trusty Land Cruiser, so we got along fine. Time for some tropical weather! No hot hot heat? Fine. We’ll settle for some tropical trees. We decided to stay at a City Park near Charleston and holy cow did they have a Christmas light show. A driving loop with a hundred little scenes like these:

Such a nice warm welcome to Charleston!

Bee and I had a nice run around the park in the morning and then it was off to explore downtown, and look out across the bay at Fort Sumter.

On our way to Savanna from Charleston, we stopped by a really really old tree called the “Angel Oak”. It’s big. Nay! HUGE.

And another stop along the way at a really really old (I’m sensing a theme here…) church ruin. Built in 1730 and burned twice, most recently during the Civil War. “Hallowed grounds” felt about right.

We checked into our campground on the outskirts of town, then drove into Savanna to see the sights. Downtown Savanna was planned meticulously by the first settlers. The city grid is interrupted every couple blocks by a park built on all four corners of the block. Tricky to navigate traffic, but it’s elegant to experience. Felt like Denver with so many green public spaces.

We walked all around Forsyth Park, saw some monuments commemorating the losing side of the Civil War, which prompted a rather heated debate about the ethics of celebrating the lives of individuals who fought to propagate slavery.

We came closer to agreement after our next stop: the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters.

Built in 1819, this positively gorgeous mansion in downtown Savanna took 2 years for construction to complete because the owner insisted on some of the latest and greatest technology, including some very creative indoor plumbing (the first in the nation, if I remember correctly).

Lafayette, an infamous french general who fought for the good guys in the Revolutionary War and early abolitionist, stayed in the house on his grand tour of the USA. He gave an impassioned speech against slavery from the balcony window (first photo). At the time, this would have been blasphemous, considering the political views of the region.

It’s hard to put into words how moved we were by the tour of the paltry slave quarters and then the magnificent mansion. Between 9 and 15 enslaved people lived in the carriage house with the horses while a family of 5 lived in the grandiose house. To say the relationship between the people who lived was ‘complicated’ is an understatement.

We washed the history lesson down with some of the most delicious southern cuisine we’ve ever had at The Olde Pink House just around the corner!

Snowball hit a major milestone on our way to the next stop. Happy 300k, Snowy!!!

Jekyll Island is a state park that feels like a resort town. People said the summers are peak season, but the weather was so nice during winter I can’t imagine why that isn’t the busy season. Their loss, our gain! It was a privately owned club way back when, so there are all sorts of old mansions in various states of upkeep. It seemed like each was built with a different style, so cool!

We don’t mess around. Ha!

A pair of lions guarded one ruin, and we couldn’t resist a ‘rrraaaaarr’ selfie.

A beautiful beach walk capped a long day touring around the island. To answer your question, yes, I did go swimming. I’ll leave the pics of that out of blog though…

I went on a nice long sunrise run with the dog, and we were off to St. Augustine!

Finish this sentence: It wouldn’t be winter in the south without… you guessed it, another rainstorm! At least this one is in Florida, so the inch of rain is accompanied by a perfect 70 degree day. Hunkering down doesn’t seem so bad here, right?

After two days of 100% humidity spent playing board games (or maybe bored games?), we said goodbye to the Atlantic and headed west to Tallahassee. It felt good to finally be headed in the rough direction of home. The only campground I could find was an RV park right off the freeway. Our expectations were quite low, but they were exceeded! There was a delicious hipster farm-to-table restaurant within walking distance, and the people were very nice, if not a little overzealous with their Christmas decorations.