Greenville SC

Thursday (4/28) to Monday (5/2):

As we were trying to get out of our site at the McKinney Campground, we ended up running over a tree stump and damaging the fiberglass on the front driver side panel of the motorhome along with bending the exhaust pipe for the generator. Not enough damage to prevent travelling, but we will have to do some repair work down the road. Not the best way to start out the morning. After leaving the campground we made the 115 mile drive up I-85 to Piedmont SC which is about 10 miles south of Greenville. We pulled into the Ivy Acres RV Park, got assigned to Site 305 which is a pull through with FHU's and got set up for the night. The park is located on a old family farm that has been converted into a RV Park. Most of the sites are occupied with people who live there for extended periods with a few sites available for short term rent. We spent some time trying to fix the exhaust pipe and seeing what temporary fix we could do to the fiberglass.

Our site @ Ivy Acres.

Damage to The Duchess.

We did some grocery shopping before settling in for the evening. There is rain in the forecast for most of the time we will be here.

On Friday morning I took the Jeep into the Powdersville Tire and Wheel Center to have the front brakes pads replaced. They finished up the job in about 2 hours (had to grind down the rotors). Now we have had all of the brakes replaced on the Jeep so we should be good for a long time.

Friday afternoon we drove into Greenville. We stopped at the Thomas Creek Brewery and sampled several of their beers. We especially enjoyed the  Coffee Oatmeal Beer.

From the brewery we proceeded to downtown Greenville. The downtown area has been revitalized over the last 15 years and there were numerous shops and restaurants along with businesses in the area. We walked around the main street and along the river park that is in the center of town.

After touring the downtown area we stopped by a second brewery on the way home, the Brewery 85 . We sampled their beers but decided we liked the ones at Thomas Creek better.

Upon our return the RV park, I got the Coleman Gas Grill out and we cooked a whole chicken that we had quartered. It took up the entire grilling surface and took a while to cook, but we will get several meals out of the chicken (and it ended up being very flavorful and juicy).

On Saturday we decided to do some bike riding along the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Greenville. This is a rails to trails project that extends over 30+ miles north and south out of the downtown area. We parked a few blocks away from the trails, rode down to the trail and then continued north along the asphalt path for several miles before turning around to head back. On the way back we stopped at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery which is located along the trail to rest our buns and get some tea to drink.

We returned back to the campground for an early dinner before driving back to Greenville to visit the Quest Brewery. They were having live music for the afternoon & evening along with having their tap room open. We sampled several of their brews and then each ordered a glass to take into the "brewery" where they had move the music because of the rains that had started. We met a couple from Greenville who worked together at GE Energy, Jackie and Darren. Jackie had served in the military for several years where she learned to speak Russian. She was stationed for a while in San Angelo TX (a hotbed of Russian spies). Darren and his family immigrated from England when he was in high school and they are all still here in the USA. The band we listened to played music from the 70's and 80's, so we recognized all of the songs.

Sunday morning we slept in while it continued to rain. After lunch we decided to visit downtown Greenville one last to do some shopping. We bought a few items at the Mast General Store along with some kitchen items at a Cooking Store that was closing down and giving great discounts.

Connie and I were both impressed with Greenville and it will be on our "places" to retire to when we are finished with our full time journey. On Monday morning we will continue north to Charlotte NC.

North of Atlanta

Monday (4/25) to Thursday (4/28):

We made the trip from Montgomery AL to the McKinney Campground which is a COE park located on Allatoona Lake. This lake is located north of Atlanta a few miles from I-75. We had reserved a site along the lake which ended up being just big enough to get the Duchess in. We again were among the trees, so no DirecTV again. This is a large COE campground with 150 RV sites.

I had to cut down a large dead limb before we could get into the site.

View out the front of the Duchess.

We had a great view of the lake from our Site 45.

On Tuesday we decided to venture into Atlanta. Heidi Ivey had given us a BBQ place in Atlanta to try and we were also going to visit the botanical gardens. Traffic around Atlanta is terrible. We know that Austin TX traffic is bad, but this is the worse place I have ever seen. There were construction or accidents every place we went. It took us 1.5 hours to get from our campground to the BBQ place and almost 3 hours to get back after visiting the gardens. I have no idea how anyone could do this every day.

We ate lunch at Fat Matt's Rib Shack. Connie had the pork ribs while I had the chopped pork sandwich. As with this part of the south, they serve only pork & chicken BBQ, no beef or sausage. The ribs and sandwich were good, but we both thought we have had better BBQ in Texas.

Small seating area that was packed the entire time we were there.

After eating lunch, we visited the Atlanta Botanical Garden. We were impressed with the gardens and especially the glass artwork on display for this year through out the gardens. The artwork is from an artist, Dale Chihuly, who has done these types of exhibits all over the world. Here are a few photos from our visit:

On Wednesday we decided to recover from our "commute" into Atlanta. We walked around the entire campground and then enjoyed the afternoon by sitting outside the Duchess. We read and watched the boats on the lake along with resting our eyes from time to time. Thursday we will leave to head north to Greenville SC.

Montgomery AL

Monday (4/18) to Monday (4/25):

Monday we made the 150 mile drive from Pensacola to Montgomery Alabama. We had reservations at Gunter Hill Campground, a COE park located a few miles outside of town. We had spent one night in this park last year as we travelled east and were able to get the same site (39) that we were in previously. It is a long pull through site with full hook-ups.

We were able to set up our canopy.

Lots of trees - no DirecTV.
Sites across from restrooms would have worked for satellite.
Sites 30, 32, 33, 34 & 41.

On Tuesday we put the Sea Eagle inflatable kayak in the water and paddled for about an hour and a half. We paddled from the area of our campground to the place where the water drains into the Alabama River.  On Wednesday we rode our bikes around the campground and over to a 1/2 mile oval race track that is located across the street from the entrance to the park. We had heard a car practicing and wanted to see where the noise was coming from.

On Thursday morning we paddled the kayak the opposite direction to see if there were any houses along the lake (there were none we saw on our trip the other direction a couple of days earlier). We did find one house along with some out buildings but that was the only one we saw on our trip along the lake. Thursday afternoon it started to rain and it continued through the night into Friday morning.

On Wednesday we discovered that the rear driver side window electric motor in the Jeep had gone out (the motor would only make a grinding noise when you pressed the toggle switch). The window would not stay up and upon researching this on the computer I found out this was a common problem with the Jeep Liberty built 2002-2006. We had the passenger side replaced last year while we were in Galveston. We were able to prop the window in the closed position if we were not driving the Jeep, so no water got in during the rains. Since we could not find a mechanic that could work on the window while we were in Montgomery, we decided to see if we could replace the power unit ourselves. We located the motor/regulator at a local Advanced Auto Parts and waited until Saturday morning to attempt the repair. We watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to do the job and were able to make the repairs ourselves. We took our time and got the window repaired in a couple of hours.

On Saturday afternoon we took a trip into Montgomery to visit the downtown area. We visited "Old Alabama Town" which is a collection of original and relocated houses & buildings from the 19th century located in the downtown area.

So I could remember where I was.

Connie in the old General Store.

Mike on the front porch of old log cabin.

Connie standing inside a Cotton Gin.

From there we took a tour of the Alabama State Capitol building. The capitol building has been designated as a National Historic Site. Within a few feet of each other two historic events occurred: Jefferson Davis taking the oath of office as the President of the Confederate States of America in 1861 and Dr. Martin Luther King giving a speech at the end of the Selma to Montgomery March for Civil Rights in 1964. Our tour guide was 70 years old and had been one of the participants in the march. In 1964 he was not allowed to enter the capitol building and now he is giving tours of the building. He gave us a brief "recollection" of the march and urged all of us to see the movie "Selma".

State Capitol Building from Dexter Street. 

Plaque commemorating the march.

Statue honoring the Confederacy.

We then drove to the River Walk along the Alabama River and walked along the water for a short while.

River boat in the background goes out for tours.

Amphitheater where they hold concerts.

We returned home and cooked bison burgers on the Coleman gas grill for dinner. They were delicious and Connie had done a great job on the seasoning of the meat.

Sunday we took it easy during the day before packing everything up on Sunday evening. Connie cleaned the inside of the Duchess while I put away the items we had gotten out during the week: bikes/kayak/canopy/etc. Monday we will head towards the Atlanta area.

Visiting friends in Pensacola FL

Monday (Apr 11) to Monday (Apr 18):

We left the campground in Mobile and made the short drive over to Pensacola on I-10. This was one of our shortest move being only about 60 miles. We pulled into our campground, Avalon Landing RV Park, and were assigned to Site 13. This is a small park and our site looks out over one of the brackish water canals located in the area.

View out side window of our motorhome.

Front view from our campground site

Our Site 13

We got set up in the campground and then called our friends, Cindy & Jessie Mayes, who have a house about 20 minutes away from our campground. We spent the evening with them and had a great time. Jessie cooked/smoked hamburgers, chicken and sausage on his grill/smoker. We all ate hamburgers that night along with banana pudding. Cindy sent some of the chicken home with us along with a bowl of banana  pudding. Connie and Cindy have know one another for 30 years since they met in the Dallas area. Jessie and Cindy have been married for 23 years and Connie was a bridesmaid in their wedding. Cindy pulled out her wedding pictures and they all talked about the "old days". Later they called another good friend, Karen Brunton, who still lives in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and spent another hour talking with her. I enjoyed meeting both of them. Jessie is scheduled for hip surgery this Thursday which we hope will go well.

Cindy, Mike & Connie

Cindy, Jessie & Connie

On Tuesday, I updated all of our financials in Quicken while Connie slept in. Later Cindy and Jessie came by the motorhome and visited with us for a couple of hours after lunch. Jessie knew of a mobile mechanic, Dean Lainhart, who came by during the afternoon and replaced the rear brakes on our Jeep Liberty. The rear drum brakes had reached the "end of the line" and had started to make noises when applied. He was a great mechanic who made quick work of the job and only charged us $120 for labor and parts. We decided to ask Cindy & Jessie to keep our guns while we travel in New England and Canada this year and they graciously agreed to do this (we will have to come see them on our Winter trip this year).

Tuesday evening we met Mike & Linda Cross who have been wintering near here in Navarre Beach Campground for pizza at the New York Pizza Depot  which is located near their campground. We had a nice meal before going back to their campground. We made a quick tour of the park and then sat in their motorhome visiting for several hours before returning home. It is nice to spend time with other couples who are full-timers to share info along with talking about our plans for this year.

On Wednesday we had lunch with Jessie & Cindy at a local Mexican restaurant, La Hacienda. We had some of their lunch specials which was a full plate of food along with chips & salsa. After lunch they took us on a tour of the area before we stopped at Hall's Hardware & Lumber. It started out as a hardware/lumber store, but these days they have expanded into all kinds of products similar to Zinger's in Austin. Jessie calls them the "Neiman Marcus" of hardware stores. We ended up buying several products: some rat/mice poison, pizza stones, dough rollers and some screws.  Since we were new to their store, they gave us a $5 discount on our purchase and a free soft drink. You can see they have a wide variety of stuff you can buy at their store.

Thursday morning we woke to a steady rain which continued all day. We stayed inside the Duchess and took it easy during the day. In the afternoon, Mike & Linda Cross came to our campground to see us and the motorhome. After giving them an update of the changes we had made in the Duchess and visiting for a while, we all went to dinner at the Blackwater Bistro. Connie & I split a lobster & crab ravioli dish while Mike & Linda had a shrimp pasta dinner. We ended up continuing our conversations until the place was ready to close. Linda & Mike are headed west tomorrow and will end up in Texas before they head north for the summer. We should see them again at the Escapees Escapade in Vermont at the end of July.

Friday we visited the National Naval Aviation Museum located on the local naval base in Pensacola. The museum is a history of the aviation and aviators in the navy from the early 20th century until today. It is the largest collection of naval aircraft in the United States and does a good job of displaying the aircraft located in the museum. We spent several hours there and did not get to see everything. If would take a least two full days to tour the entire museum and view all of the exhibits and aircraft. Here are a few photos from our visit:

We ate a quick lunch that we brought from home before we visited the Pensacola lighthouse. The lighthouse was completed in 1859 and has survived a number of hurricanes that have come through the area.

We heard from Cindy on Friday that Jessie was doing fine after his surgery and would be moving to the rehab facility on Saturday. We were glad to hear that Jessie was doing OK.

Saturday was a day we hung around the Duchess. We did laundry, updated financials, worked on our computer that had gotten a virus and tried to get the DirecTV box connected to the internet (finally was successful).

Sunday we went to the Pensacola Beach along with what seemed to be 100,00 other people (not quite that many but it seemed like it). We remember why we do things like this during the week instead of the weekends. Unfortunately here in Pensacola this was the first day we have had sunny weather during the week we are here, so we decided to take advantage of it. We finally found a parking spot on a side street and spent about two hours at the beach. The whitest sands I have ever seen is here on the Florida panhandle beaches along with being the cleanest beaches I have ever been on (I can only compare it to our Texas beaches).

Sign that leads you to the beach

A lot of people are following that sign

View down the beach

Enjoying a sunny afternoon - Life is Good

On Sunday night Connie went over to Cindy's house and they got in one last visit before we leave the area. I stayed home and watched the Spurs basketball game on the TV. Tomorrow we will start our trek north by heading to Montgomery Alabama.