Tybee Island March 2014

March has marched in and marched out of Tybee Island. The weather was trying to warm up but it was a struggle. One day it would be sunny and 75 and the next it would be overcast, rainy and 45. It was a busy month. Two of the couples that were working departed early and that left us a little short handed for the big weekends in Tybee and Savannah.

The first big weekend was "MARDI GRAS". Tybee had a big parade with floats and golf carts and the beach chair twirlers. As you can tell by the crowd (that's our friends Larry, Jacki, Tiaga and Mary with Holly) we had to fight for a spot on the curb. From start to finish it took 15 minutes. Now that is my kind of parade.

We all got beads from the parade participants but as you can tell Tiaga received more then anyone else. I just can't believe they thought she was cuter then me!  The park was full but no one got out of hand and everyone had a great time.

The next big weekend was St. Patrick's Day. They say that Savannah has one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades in the country but I guess that is when it isn't raining for two days straight. It was still a big parade. This one was 2 1/2 hours and I heard that a lot of the bands and groups didn't show up because of the rain. It had been pouring the day before and all night then slowed down to a drizzle for the parade. Families had screen rooms and shelters set up with stoves and heaters and made breakfast right along the parade route.

They still had a good showing with floats and bands from other states, some a far away as New York. The Budweiser Express team was there along with Ronald McDonald and the Coke polar bears.

The Crab Shack  (that's a restaurant on Tybee Island) had a float and they were still celebrating  Mardi Gras. The Coast Guard brought one of their boats in case someone need to be rescued from one of the many puddles along the route. I guess if the weather had been better and everyone had shown up it would have been four hours long.

My sister Pam and her husband Evans and son Josh came for a visit our last weekend on Tybee. We had a great time catching up as we haven't seen them in a long time. We went into Savannah and walked around at the farmers market and we also took them on a tour of Tybee Island (that took all of five minutes...remember it is a island). We spent most of the time just visiting and watching b-ball tournaments as Josh is on the basketball team in school. We hated to see them go so soon but they had a long drive and we had to get packed up to leave Monday morning.

Sunday morning they called us up to the office and had a little going away party for us. Kim made us a cake and we had a chance to say good bye to all of the other volunteers and park employees. It was a great seven months and we really liked being on Tybee. The weather wasn't always great but it was better then back home. Some days just seemed to drag and others flew by. Besides that, how many people can say "I worked and lived on a beautiful island". I guess we can cross that off the bucket list.

We have left the island and some new friends behind. Headed for Florida (everyone says not to come home yet) for a little "vacation". Then heading home to see family and friends. We will attend our granddaughter Chloe's graduation from Hudsonville and then we'll be heading to California.  I sure hope the snow is gone when we get back but if it isn't, I sure hope Krista and the girls have our parking spot shoveled. I'll let you know next month.

Tybee Island Febuary 2014

WARNING: For those of you who are suffering from cabin fever, these pictures may cause a niggling of Spring fever. Here it is February already and that means it is springtime in the south. We've been busy showing our friend Mary around Tybee Island and Savannah. We have spent time in Historic Savannah looking at some of the homes and going to the squares in the area. There's 15 total  squares and they are all beautiful and unique.

Along with being beautiful, the historic  homes are well kept. It's interesting to walk around and imagine about the history of them. Many of these homes look like single family homes and you have to wonder what the people who now live there do to afford such luxury.  We won't be around for it, but they have a tour of homes every year much like the Heritage Hill tour in Grand Rapids. We would love to get inside a few of them.

The facing on these steps are covered with ivy. How would you like to see that on the honey do list? "Trim the steps". A lot of the houses also have the wrought iron fencing around them, many of it original and hand made. 

We drove to South Carolina to the Boone Hall Plantation with Mary, Jacki and Larry. It has some of the original buildings still standing. The plantation house is not the original but was built by later owners. We saw a picture of the original house and it wasn't as near as fancy, but the tour guide said our perception of these plantation houses come from the movies. We were supposed to keep in mind that the owners of these plantations were farmers and didn't have the opulence we associate with plantations.

This is Jacki, who talked about life on the plantation and gave us some Gullah history.  There is still Gullah cultures around South Carolina and we hope to go into one of the Gullah communities before we leave this area.

Here are some of the slave quarters that are still standing on Boone Hall Plantation. These homes were occupied by the slaves who worked in the house or who had some special skill such as blacksmiths or carpenters. The field hands lived in wood houses closer to the fields.

These pictures were taken next to a branch of a Live Oak tree on the grounds of the plantation. The live oak trees are huge and if the branches grow close to the ground, you might think they were  a log laying there, but they are alive and well. Many of the live oaks here and in the Savannah area are very old; many over a hundred years. That's Holly, Jacki and Mary on the left and of course, Holly and me in the picture above.

This is a fountain in Forsythe Park, one of the squares in Savannah. We had gone there to walk around and found this beautiful fountain and a farmers' market. The picture below was taken at Clary's Cafe where we dined outside for lunch. (I did start with a warning).  For those who have read "Midnight in the Garden Of Good and Evil" you will remember Clary's Cafe as the place where Luther Diggers always had breakfast (or not) while plotting how to poison the water supply of Savannah. It is a popular place for the locals and the food was good!

I said last month that I would tell everyone about our next job. We have accepted a position in Northern California in Quincy.  It's at Pioneer RV Park which has 62 sites.  We will be working three days a week and three to four hours per day. I know it's a rough job but someone needs to do it.  Quincy is an old gold mining area so maybe we can pan for gold on our off days and make our fortune. We will be there from June 1st to the end of October. Well, that's all for now; one more month and we'll be done here. We plan on being home the middle of April so PLEASE GET RID OF THE SNOW. Thank you and we'll see you all next time.

Tybee Island January 2014

 Hope you all had a good New Year. We celebrated with the other volunteers here at the park. We had some good food and a roaring fire and as you can tell, some alcoholic beverages. The island had fireworks down on the pier at midnight but we decided to welcome the New Year while sleeping since I had to get up and work the next day. 

We're still finding things to do here in Georgia. We spent a day at the Georgia State Railroad Museum. They have some nice equipment on display and some well kept and restored buildings. They have different tours during the day and the person conducting them was very knowledgeable about the equipment.

They have a couple of restored business cars that we were able to walk through. Those were the days when the well-to-do traveled in style.

The museum has several restoration projects on going from steam engines to passenger cars to freight cars and street cars.

In case you didn't know by now we love to visit lighthouses. This one was on Hunting Island in South Carolina. It was made to be disassembled so that it could be moved if the shoreline changed. It has had to be moved once since it was built to keep the Atlantic Ocean from taking it over. Even though I have a problem with heights, I still love the climb because the views are fantastic.

This lighthouse had a little sign on every landing to tell you how many steps you have left before your heart attack. This one only had 167 steps. Just a walk in the park compared to some we have been up. Even after the climb we are still smiling... of course it is always easier coming down.

We like to go into Savannah for dinner or lunch down by the river. We get to see the large ocean- going freighters coming and going. It always seems to draw a crowd. Savannah is a busy east coast port. I have an app. that shows the ship traffic all over the world and it's interesting to see what ships are arriving and where the ones that are leaving are headed.

Our friend Mary has come down from Michigan for a visit. She was a week late but the weather up north was not cooperating with her plans. The weather is up and down as is the temperatures but at least we don't have that white stuff all over the ground. We have two more months here on Tybee then we will be working our way home. Chloe graduates this May so we will be home for that. Then it will be off to our summer job in Quincy, California. More on that later but it sounds like it will be a fun summer. We are enjoying all of the snow up north, so please keep it UP NORTH. See ya'll next month.

Tybee Island December 2013

Here we are at the end of another year. We've been on the road now for two and a half years and we still love it. We miss family and friends back home, but we have also had the time to see family and friends that live in other states and make new friendships. People we meet and learn that we work camp and live on the road year around often ask us how long we plan on doing this (our kids ask the same question). The answer to that is "as long as we can". For those of you that have been with us from the start, you know we love to explore and meet new people and those that have joined our travels since we started this adventure and haven't gone back and checked out our early blogs, you need to give them a look. We've only had one set back since we started and that was last summer when both Holly and I had to have a full knee replacement of our right knees. That held up our travels for four months, but since August we have been back on the road.

The month of December saw us showing our friends Jacki and Larry some more of Georgia. On one trip to Jeckyll Island we stopped and visited the Smallest Church in America. It really is small...there are 12 chairs and that's all. It sets on Highway 17 just north if Darien, GA. After a short stop we continued to Jeckyll Island where we did some shopping and walked on the beach. We let Tiaga and Brutus run and play. They had a ball and fell asleep as soon as they got back in the Jeep.

This area is so full of history. Holly and I took a trip up to Fort Jackson which is just out side of Savannah. I've mentioned before that there are a lot of forts in the area and this is one of the most recent we've explored. It was very educational to learn that the Confederate army had two ironclad ships stationed here. The fort is right on the Savannah River and when the Union Army started to close in they took one and and sank it right off shore. We were told that the U.S. Navy plans on trying to raise it next summer.

The person that was working that day and explaining things about the fort as gave a cannon firing demonstration. He was knowledgeable and didn't hold us responsible for the South going 0-1.

This is the year we went home for Christmas. We spent the last two in New Mexico with just the two of us so it was nice to be home and share it with all the kids and grandkids. I took a lot of pictures but I don't have a lot of room here to post them. I would end up missing someone so all I'm posting is the newest grandson Jason...oh, and also Murphy and Brutus. Merry Christmas, Boys! It was good being home but way too cold. It didn't take long for us to become accustomed to a warmer climate. It's chilly here now, but nowhere near the freezing temperatures of Michigan.

That's about it for now. Between work here at the park and Christmas shopping and traveling to Michigan, we've been staying close to home. We hope you all had a Merry Christmas with your families and friends. I'm going to leave you with three signs that we keep seeing every time we drive around the island or into Savannah. They are self explanatory!  That's all for this year. We  hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year. See ya'll in 2014.