After four months of being home waiting for our new knees to heal, we are back doing what we have learned to love. We are now at River's End Campground and RV Park which is a city park on Tybee Island, Georgia. We left home on September 3rd, arrived on the 5th, and started work on the 9th. I work in Operations which includes doing maintenance around the park (no bathrooms!) and escorting campers to their site. Holly works in the office taking reservations and checking campers in.
River's End was a private park that the city of Tybee bought in 2006. It's the only campground on Tybee Island and has about 140 sites and 6 cabins. We're about 14 miles from Savannah and we're within walking distance of two beaches and one very tall light house. When we arrived here the weather was hot and not just hot, I mean HOT and humid. It stayed that way for the first two weeks that we were here. We were miserable. It has finally cooled off some and we're finally able to shut off the AC which had been running 24/7.
As I said, we have two beaches. One is on the Savannah River where it meets the Atlantic Ocean (thus the name of the park, River's End) and the other is on the Atlantic Ocean which is called North Beach. We were at the river beach a couple of days ago and saw several dolphins swimming and playing in the water. The picture to the right is of the river beach. We enjoy going to North Beach at sunset and sit and wait for the stars to come out and listen to the waves.
There is a shuttle that runs from the island to Savannah and at $3 each one way, it's a great deal. We went into Savannah the second week we were here (when it was really hot and humid). We walked around the Historic District for the afternoon and saw a small portion of the city. We visited St. John the Baptist Cathedral. Very beautiful and very large. We walked to River Street and had lunch, walked around a little and looked at a few shops then walked back to the visitors center and caught the shuttle back home. We decided it wasn't a good idea to have made that trip in the heat of the day.
This is a shot of the Tybee Light House from North Beach, taken on 9/11. We haven't explored it yet but will before we leave. We do know that it is 178 steps to the top and houses a 1st order Fresnel lens. More on the light after we visit and make it to the top. I just wanted to use this picture because I really like it.
This is our spot in the park. We are located under three huge oak trees that are hung with Spanish moss, which is neither Spanish nor moss. It's an air plant that is apparently a distant relative to the pineapple (what?) As lovely as it looks, it is home to chiggers. We are not fans of chiggers! Thank goodness they stay in the moss. We have a palm tree right next to us and about a zillion acorns that are constantly falling on the roof of the motor home. Our space is large and the envy of all who come here!
One of our trips took us to Bonaventure Cemetery, the largest municipal cemetery in Savannah. One of its claims to fame is it was featured in the novel "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". Many graves are from the early 1800's. There are quite a number of military personnel from the Civil War buried there as well. We saw graves from the 1800's to the present. A big draw is the grave site of singer/songwriter Johnny Mercer. Moon River and Days of Wine & Roses are two of his many compositions.
We drove to St. Simons Island and visited their light house. It's a nice restoration and we climbed the 129 steps to the light tower. This confirmed our decision to wait to climb the Tybee Island Light (178 steps) as a good one. While at St. Simons Island we also went to the Maritime Museum which is in a former Coast Guard station. They built a new station because the build up of sand between the station and the water caused the station to be about 300 to 400 yards away from the water.
Savannah is a busy shipping port and being right on the river, we get to see some very large ships coming and going. This is a shot of a container ship coming from the Atlantic and heading up river. As you can see, they come in very close to the beach so we get a good look at them. I'm still waiting to get a shot of the shrimp boats coming in. There's a spot not far from here where they tie up and unload their catch.
We dedicate this month's blog to our little Cairn Terrier, Reggie. He was suffering from congestive heart failure and died on Sept. 26. He was a rescue dog and he brought so much joy to our lives. He loved to travel and go for rides when we went out to explore. He is missed by both of us and his buddy Brutus. Rest in peace little friend.
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