Aloha MM's,
Today I am writing to you
from Tybee Island RV Park which is about 15 miles out from Savannah,
GA. I am sipping Peach iced tea—that's
how you know you are really in the South. There is an old Southern energy
down here that is almost palpable. As we have moved from State to State—you
can feel the change in energy. So far, we have moved from Ohio,
to Kentucky, to Tennessee,
to Georgia
and today we will cross over the border AGAIN to South
Carolina.
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| Oh the South...home of the mighty Magnolia. They smell so sweet |
Half the time I am so tired,
I don't even know what day it is! Needless to say, we need to STOP. Which was
supposed to be what this two days on Tybee was about. Yesterday we went to
have a 'leisurely' horse and carriage ride in Savannah,
seeing old town and eating at a good restaurant Vics, for lunch. It was
really good, but turned out to be a really long day...
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| Aaron at Vics on the river for lunch |
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Fried Green Tomatoes. Oh god, soooooooooo good. Aaron wasn't going to have any.
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| But changed his mind! |
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These crab cakes were soooooo good too. Full of...crab. Not always the case. But seriously yummy!
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And now I feel like a train
has run over me. Plus the baggage cart afterwards...
One of the things you have
to keep an eye on, to keep things in the flow is your own energy. If you are
so tired you can hardly see straight, you can't keep things running smoothly.
So instead, of racing off to see a bloody lighthouse this morning, (there'll
be millions in Maine), I am going to sit, write to y'all (we're in the south
now) and put up photos on FB that I am way behind with. This doesn't sound
very relaxing but I like writing and while I do this, I can sit here without
moving anything but my fingers. :-)
When I last wrote to y'all.
Hmmm. (I don't think they say that in the Carolinas, I
hope...) We were still in Kentucky.
We finished our Bourbon Tour—finally...and it was so much fun and
yes, we got the t-shirts! :-) You usually have to send in your stamped
passport for the t-shirt and they send it back with a t-shirt.
But, we went to the last
distillery on the tour at Four Roses, which was a lovely wee place and the
tour man had the thickest Kentuckian accent to date. I can follow accents
quite well but had to listen hard, as he exchanged all his i's for e's. The
Deesteellary. And his e's for a's. He was fun though and again—the nicest
people.
The lady in the shop chatted
to us and found out we were traveling, so she rung the Distillers Association
and talked to the man and he agreed to wait for us, until we got into Frankfort
and we could pick up the t-shirts in person! So nice! And EVERYONE in Kentucky
was like this. The most delightful people. We loved that. This by far, has
been our favorite State. The people were THE friendliest people on the
planet, no matter where we went.
We loved the energy of Kentucky
too. One day we were driving and Aaron said, "This is so soothing."
That was a great way to describe it. We felt lulled and rocked by Kentucky
and it's fun, friendly open people.
One thing about doing a trip
like this on energy is that you have to be somewhat in the flow and go with
the flow for it to be easy and fun. You can't set things in concrete, you
have to be able to change plans at will.
We were originally going to
go to Nashville and Memphis
in TN after Kentucky Bourbon Trail. But the Mississippi
was about to break her banks and they were mopping up water. Damn. But hang
on—lucky—because we had been going to take one whole day to do the
Bourbon Tour. Instead we took four! Despite being on a 'go with the wind road
trip'—we have tickets for an American baseball game on the 19th between the
Orioles and the Yankees in Baltimore, MD, so it's the one thing we have to be
on time for and have alloted days to things so we can get into Maryland on
time.
When we told someone we had
been on the Bourbon Trail. They said, oh, what a shame about the weather,
it's been raining a lot. We said, actually we didn't get any rain. They
looked surprised.
When we initially arrived in
Kentucky to start the
trail, the weather WAS raining, overcast and gloomy. We decided to
have a chat to the weather gods though and asked for some sunshine, not
too hot, no wind, no rain. We plugged in the address for Woodford Reserve on
our Garmin (we love that thing) and drove the route they said. The weather
was not looking that wonderful. It was raining and I as we approached
the address we'd put in, the rain was coming down. I grizzled at the
weather gods—Oy, what's the story with this weather? Not impressed!
We get to the place the
Garmin says is Woodford. It's not Woodford. Oh?
We drive around for a while
being lost.
We decide to forget the
Garmin and go to the main road and follow their signs.
We get to Woodford (we'd put
in wrong number in the Garmin—Operator Error) and Voila!—the sun is
out, not too hot, no rain, no wind. I had to laugh. Sorry weather gods I
said. I guess you had the right address and we didn't!
We continued to do this
throughout the stay in Kentucky
and each time we got perfect weather. Thank you weather gods!
On another energy level we
were also on. We set off from Kentucky
into the State of Tennessee.
Not a lot to see in eastern part of Tennessee,
but very pretty scenery along the way.
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| Although we did have to go through Corbin, KY, home of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken |
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| Me with the Colonel himself. The title Colonel is an honorary title in Kentucky and Tennessee. I had a friend Jim Bird the Third and his Grandmother was also a Colonel. |
We go past Chattanooga
and I see Loudon County
on the map. My families name is Loudon, so we veer off to go and see what the
town of Loudon is like. The town
of Loudon is not much to write
home about. But on the way into Loudon, Aaron was a bit peckish—so we
stopped at a local Chinese restaurant. You know the kind, 500 Chinese good
luck things hanging from the ceiling, strange Chinese Christmas carols
playing and a buffet. Aaron got a plate of food and as he was eating it, he
said, "I've dreamt about this place."
"This Chinese
restaurant?"
"Yes, this Chinese
restaurant, how weird. Of all the things to dream about, why this Chinese
restaurant?"
I said, "I guess it's a
very definitive sign that we're on track from the Universe." (Aaron is a
pre-cog dreamer—meaning he often dreams of places before he goes there and
then gets them in recall flashes when he is there. That happened in Seattle,
WA when we were there, he was getting
them about every hour!)
"But why this
place?" he said.
"I guess it would be
hard to mistake for some random place in Kentucky,
so at least we know we are on the right path." Very cool! Love this
stuff.
We are on path but
tired. We know this by a) how we feel, if we take the time to think about it
and b) the camper which reminds us when we forget to think about it.
Remember cars are
consciousness, so whatever is happening with your car, is going on in your life.
We had trouble starting the generator (no surprises there really) and Aaron
checked the battery. It was just about bone dry. Whoops. So 1 and 1/2 litres
of water later, about 2 quarts
for the Americans on board—she was topped up. Good grief!
When you run a battery down,
you are running down your own energy. Also the engine light came
on, because she was a bit hot coming into Savannah
and Aaron said, "I'm getting hot under the collar here, I'm fritzing the
engine." Sure enough, when we breathed a bit, and calmed down a
bit, things started cooling off a bit. We tried to start up the
generator for Leo, so we could run the AC, to go and see the Eighth air force
museum, and she wouldn't start, then you know—you need to rest.
Thus, we stopped here on Tybee
Island which is very pretty and
restful. The first night here, we went by 'Pirate Pedicab' to the seafood
restaurant Stingrays here on the island. Ben, our pedaller picked us up and
pedalled us to the other end of the island, showing us the lovely old houses
here along the way. It was a really fun relaxing way to travel and I'm
glad the Ben was a big hulking wrestler lad, otherwise I would have felt
guilty about him hauling us down to the other end of the island.
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| All the houses here were up on stilts, with big airy verandahs. Lovely |
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| Aaron loved his seafood. He'd eat it until he looked like a shellfish. :-) |
We ate some good southern
food. Conch fritters—they are very sweet and you can only get them here in
the South. Yum. Lobster and Crab bisque—nice and thick and flavourful. Yum
also. Aaron had an enormous seafood platter with all different types of crab,
shrimp, Louisiana crawfish (not
very tasty) and of all things—NZ green lip mussels. :-) Along with a corn
cob plonked in the middle and a pottle of coleslaw. All served with claw
crackers, wet wipes and tubs of melted butter. I also had that most
southern of desserts—key lime pie. Very very good.
We then waddled out of there
and called Ben again, and he pedaled our fatter selves back to the RV
park. I'm sure he was huffing a bit more on this leg...
Before we went to dinner, we
got on the computer and rung around to get a tour of Savannah.
Savannah is a very old gentile
Southern town and was once called the Paris of America. The photos don't
really do it justice but it's a gorgeous town, full of lovely old buildings,
southern charm, with hints of Europe thrown in.
Beautiful ironwork here that is hundreds of years old. The old inner city is
laid out in a grid pattern and every second block there is a wee park, full
of huge old trees, providing coolness in the heat, statues and park benches
to rest on. It's just gorgeous.
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| One of the many squares you can walk through in Savannah. Cool and shady. Very peaceful |
We realized as we were
trying to book something that is was quite busy and that a lot of the tours
were booked up. Whoops. I had my eye on a walking tour but none of them
were happening. Damn. But as so often happens—good! Because Aaron had a
sore leg muscle from the driving, so walking around would have been hard for
him. Plus, it was pretty jolly hot, and we would have been puddles on the
sidewalk by the end of the day. The trolley seemed boring. Too many people.
In the end, we went by horse and carriage and it was MUCH better than
anything else we could have done.
Dee, the horsewoman,
recommended Vics on the riverfront for lunch. So, we got into Savannah
on the local bus—leaving Leo Ray Jnr in the camper with the AC running. A
nice quiet peaceful day for him. He didn't complain at us when we got back,
so he must have had a nice day. :-) We then went on the local free bus to the
restaurant. Right on Savannah's
huge working riverfront, with paddle steamers, working tugs, big ships and
all manner of craft going up and down the river. Vics was easy to find and we
were up 4 levels looking down at the river. The food was really good too!
American food can be a bit bland, but this was so tasty.
We had fried green tomatoes—you have to try them, if you're in the South. Aaron braved the crab cake
and was glad he did, as it was mostly all real crab. Soooo good. I had a cold
cucumber soup with smoked salmon in it. Then Aaron had the Atlantic salmon
medium rare. Gorgeous food, great location, lovely friendly server. Great
recommendation by Dee. We then met up with her and
Daniella for our carriage ride around Savannah.
It was a great way to travel and again, very relaxing. So, great choices and
a good flow, despite arriving here and not booking ahead.
So you can see, that despite
being tired and needing to rest a bit more, we are on track and
on path. Remember to stop when things start not working or overheating on any
level. Sometimes you just need a short break to get things back on track and
running properly again.
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