August 2002
Itinerary:
Saturday 8/10
Lv Baltimore 10 AM, Arrive Santee SC
Stay at Days Inn Santee
Sunday 8/11
Lv Santee, Arrive Savannah, GA
Stay at Days Inn Savannah
Monday 8/12
Stay at Days Inn Savannah
Tuesday 8/13
Lv Savannah PM
Camp at Honey Hill, Frances Marion Nat'l Forest, SC
Wednesday 8/14
Lv Honey Hill
Camp at Salter Path Family Camp, Salter Path, NC
Thursday 8/15
Lv Salter Path
Stay at Island Inn, Ocracoke, NC
Friday 8/16
Stay at Island Inn, Ocracoke, NC
Saturday 8/17
Lv Ocracoke, NC 8 AM
Arrive Baltimore 7:30 PM
Saturday 8/10
We left Baltimore in bright sunshine. I had a church-related meeting early in the morning at Wenger’s home, and we left right after that. Carla had barely enough time to get re-acquainted with Baltimore before this trip. She has been at Camp for the preceding two weeks (Hebron and Roxbury). The traffic was not too bad until we hit Washington DC. After that it was very congested until Richmond, VA. It took us almost three hours to go from DC to Richmond. At times it felt tedious. We took Route 95 all the way down.
But the kids were occupied with various things, story-tapes, Andy brought his K-nex set, Carla had her music. We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest stop in VA. On the way, the Hebron campers (Chris, Andy, Carla) taught us some of their camp songs, and some of the memorable things they learned (the “tightey whitey” dance, the “Safety-Doorknob” game, Humpty-Dumpty song, etc.) As is the case for most family trips, over the course of the trip we had our share of squabbles, bathroom searches (some quite urgent), anxious moments, etc. Nothing too serious however.
We had supper at a Waffle House and remarked at the accent of the North Carolina waitresses, and at how relaxed they appeared and that they seemed to be enjoying their jobs and each other. We arrived at our destination, Santee, South Carolina Days Inn. After a bit of a hitch (they didn’t want our entire family of 6 to stay in one room, fire code or something) we got our room and had a pleasant night.
Sunday 8/11
We hit the road fairly early so that we would be sure to arrive in Savannah in time to meet Perry, Monica, Alex and Nicholas at noon as agreed. As it turned out, they were a bit late anyway, so we met them in early-mid afternoon. In Savannah, while we were waiting, we took a walk along River St. This is the part of Savannah along the Savannah River that used to be rundown warehouses but that has been fixed up very nicely and now is a favorite destination for tourists. We saw the statue of the slave family that has been only recently unveiled (about 2 weeks ago). On the base of the pedestal is a quote from Maya Angelou, which fairly graphically talks about the conditions on the ships on which the slaves were transported. Apparently this quote caused some controversy.
Perry’s family soon showed up. It was fun to meet Nicholas for the first time. He is a toddler, 15 months old or so, and just about the friendliest tot I have ever seen. Perry and Monica adopted him when he was a baby. Perry’s friend, Keith Roche from Zaire childhood days, has a girlfriend, who has a 16 year old daughter who got pregnant. All were glad that Perry and Monica could provide a loving home for Nicholas, because it was sure that this teenaged girl couldn’t. Alex, after being shy for the first 30 minutes or so, warmed up to us all quickly, and she and Hana hit it off tremendously, Alex talking a mile a minute.
We all walked a bit around the historic district, and stopped at a wonderful little museum called the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum. There were exhibits and videos about various things, including the process of building of a old fashioned sailing ship, work conditions for sailors at sea, the Titanic, etc. There were large, beautifully detailed models of the ships too. In the gift shop, Andy bought a ship in a bottle kit to make, and the friendly lady there told him, “Now that you have something new, you must find something of yours at home to give away.” We agreed that adults would do well to live by that rule as well.
We walked further on to the Visitors Center and then strolled further through the historic district of Savannah. Savannah was all planned and constructed around numerous small parks and squares, most with a statue in the center, and all named after someone of historic significance. We stopped at one, Chippewa Square Park, and the kids enjoyed chasing pigeons. Christopher got a bit carried away and threw a small branch at a pigeon in a tree and when the branch fell it didn’t come too far from hitting an innocent bystander.
We ate at Chili’s restaurant that evening and then came back and relaxed at the hotel. Monica and I went out to a local grocery store to buy food for breakfasts and lunches.
Monday, 8/12
We spent most of the day on Tybee Island, southeast of Savannah. Driving out along the tree-lined streets we commented on all of the Spanish moss that was hanging down. It really seemed “southern”. Sections of the wide-open areas on the way to Tybee reminded Ruth and I of Cambodia, Chak Klanh to be exact. It is the “Low Country”.
At Tybee Island there was a wonderful beach with good waves for bodysurfing. We all enjoyed that. We also went through a Marine Science Center with some exhibits of marine life. The exhibits included a hands-on display that went over well with the children. After the sun got too high in the sky for our skin, we had a picnic lunch under a large shelter at the near end of the long pier. After lunch we proceeded on to the Tybee Island Lighthouse. Everyone except Monica (who had to watch a sleeping Nicholas) climbed to the top and looked out over the ocean. Andy counted 187 steps to the top. This lighthouse doesn’t work now, but we learned about the life of the lighthouse keeper and the transition that occurred from using kerosene to electric light.
A nearby fort from Civil War days was also a point of interest. The Confederate army built this fort early on, but it wasn’t long until it was captured by the Union. Union boats to try to put pressure on the South blockaded the area around Savannah and Tybee. The South then began the active and risky business of blockade running, using small and easily maneuverable boats.
Later that afternoon I took off by myself to visit the birthplace of Flannery O’Connor. She is a writer whose work I admire. She was born in Savannah in 1925, spent the first 13 years of her life here until moving to Mississippi, where she died at age 39 of lupus. The house wasn’t open (hours Fri – Sun from 1-4 PM) but a plaque out front informed me that the church she attended was just east across the small square and her grammar school was just north of the same square. All three buildings touched this square, and I realized that perhaps this is how she had such a strong and deeply rooted sense of place in her fiction. Limited by geography early in her life, and limited by her increasingly debilitating disease later. These factors would surely have influenced her writing considerably. I went to a bookshop, E. Shaver Booksellers, and looked for a biography of O’Connor, but they didn’t have one. I bought on impulse a large and impressive book that reviewed, mostly pictorially, the last 100 years of National Geographic magazine.
Carla’s birthday is today, she is 13 years old! We ate at a restaurant called Longhorns, and the waitresses enthusiastically sang and clapped her a birthday song, and she got a free sundae that she didn’t finish because she was too full. Hana, holding Alex’s hand, proudly told the person who was seating us “We’re cousins!” Later that evening most of the kids swam in the hotel’s pool for a while.
Tuesday 8/13
I woke early and went for a run for a while along the streets of Savannah. It began to rain later on, a light rain, and we all rented a horse drawn carriage for a guided tour through the streets. It was pleasant, and the gentle rain didn’t cause too much difficulty, in fact it made the ride more special. One of the points of interest, the Owens-Thomas house, was mentioned by the driver/guide as a house that “doesn’t have any corners.” We went through it later, and the docent laughed when Perry mentioned that and asked “Are they telling you that on the trolley rides?” He then said that “we try to tell those guides about this house but they haven’t learned.” One of the rooms is designed to appear that it doesn’t have corners, but that is all.
We said good-bye to Perry and Nicholas and Alex (Monica had to leave early that morning to go back to work). We took Route 17 north through this low country. Along the way for a stretch there were many, many booths selling baskets. It must have been a local craft. We didn’t buy any. We would have liked to stop in Charleston to see where our Baltimore friends Rick and Amy Thompson lived for a number of years. But we didn’t have time. We hit a lot of congestion around Myrtle Beach area, and couldn’t get out of there soon enough.
Further north we arrived at Frances Marion National Forest, a large and natural area in South Carolina. We had some idea where our campsite would be but didn’t know exactly where. Ruth had called for reservations, but the lady told her, in her friendly southern accent, “Oh don’t worry, you will probably be the only ones there.” We drove through many miles of road, some very isolated back roads, through this forest, and finally saw signs for Lake Guillard Recreation Area. We took that road and after traveling over several miles of finely powdered dirt road, we got to Lake Guillard. As we had been told, we were the only ones there in a loop of perhaps 10 campsites. There were no bathrooms, no running water, only a place to pitch our tent and a picnic table, and lots and lots of nature. Christopher got inspired to do a comic about going to the bathroom in such a place. The fireplace was just a big pile of ashes that Andy and Hana kept wanting to play in. We pitched out tent and gathered wood and started a fire. We cooked and ate hot dogs, and had S’mores. After that we read in the tent for a while. During the late evening two more vehicles came and camped for the night. It was truly primitive camping.
Wednesday 8/14
The next morning we ate breakfast and packed up. The kids, except for Carla, seemed to do fine. Ruth and I tried to make the best of things. One of the other campers came around and said that the lake is polluted, and anyway has alligators and poisonous snakes. Christopher was in his glory, checking out all the wildlife. There were some critters that I had never seen before, including a huge spider sitting in the middle of a large web, a orange and black ant like creature (except it was much bigger than an ant). Chris saw many amphibians and reptiles, including skinks, anules, and he is convinced that he heard the splash of an alligator. We were just thankful no one got bitten by a snake or something.
Carla clearly wasn’t enjoying herself, looking suspiciously to the right and to the left frequently, as if something was laying in wait to get her. Christopher said to her “Just think, you could have been camping out like this all your life.”
When we left, Hana said, somewhat wistfully, “I had a pretty naturous day today.” (She felt the need to make up a word for the occasion.) Christopher’s comment was something like “This is the kind of place that I have dreams about, it has so many neat animals.”
On the way out, Hana decided to make her own comic, inspired by Christopher’s effort. Her’s was called “Camping Girl’s” and she was hard at work when Ruth spied a tick sitting on it. She held the “Camping Girl’s” comic page out the window to get rid of the tick, but the whole paper flew out. Of course Hana didn’t appreciate this, so we did a U turn on Route 17 and returned to rescue it. She subsequently forgot about the paper, so I have included it in this journal.
On the way out, we spotted a camping site called Honey Hill campground. Ruth thought perhaps that this was the one we had been looking for, but it didn’t look nearly as interesting as the one at Lake Guillard.
We drove through some rainsqualls which cleaned some of that powdery white dust off of our car. We stopped and bought coffee and boiled raw peanuts to munch on. Those peanuts are delicious. We stopped at a Piggly Wiggly grocery store to get some provisions, then had a picnic lunch at a wonderfully clean and well-kept rest stop just inside of North Carolina.
Soon thereafter we took a short cut that seemed to make sense on the map. However it went through a corner of Camp Lejeune, NC, a training camp for the Marines. There were a couple of checkpoints manned by some young and very serious looking Marines. They checked identification, etc. and then directed us in where to go. A number of signs along the road said “Tank X-ing” and sure enough, at one point some soldiers were stopping cars so that a huge tank could cross the road. The sandy paths through the woods on either side of the road were the training paths, and to us the scene seemed surreal, a bit sinister. It was very hot. We wondered if the talk in Washington DC about war with Iraq has made these military bases more security conscious and more forbidding and more edgy. We were relieved to get out of Camp Lejeune.
We arrived at Salter Path Family Campground in Salter Path, NC, after a bit of difficulty in finding it. This campground was complete with amenities, bathrooms, showers, running water, a beach close by. Of course, this is in sharp contrast with our previous camping experience. Carla agreed that this campground was luxurious by comparison. In the late afternoon we went to the beach. The waves were fairly rough, and kids loved them. Hana needed a fair amount of supervision in the rough surf. We bought firewood and again roasted hot dogs. The kids seem not to get tired of hot dogs.
In the evening we played Miniature Golf at “Professor Hackers” Miniature Golf course. This began with a ride on a small train to the beginning of the course, which was fun. The course wasn’t too complicated but we all had fun doing it.
Thursday August 15
I ran early in the morning, then Ruth took a walk. After breakfast I took the kids to the beach again while Ruth packed up. We wanted to get on the road fairly early because we had reservations on the ferry ride to Ocracoke at 2:30 PM that we didn’t want to miss. We noted quite a large number of churches along the way—Baptist, Assembly of God, Free Will Baptist, Methodist. It seems that even in small towns of only several hundred there are still 2-3 churches. We also noted a number of small, fenced graveyards, probably family plots, on private land. It must be a tradition around here, if a family has enough money, to bury family members on private plots on one’s own land.
We got to the ferry at Cedar Island in good time, and actually were allowed on to the 1:30 PM ferry because there was room. Its destination was Ocracoke on the southern end of the Outer Banks. Andy read Redwall on the ferry, Christopher fed the seagulls with some of our snacks and old bread. Hana had a good time wandering around the ferry visiting, etc. I read a book about the Outer Banks, wanting to know what things to see there, writing a list of possibilities on the ferry ticket. Next to us a man spent almost the entire trip sitting in his big boat that his SUV was towing, preparing his fishing tackle. His little dog looked on while his wife sat in the cab up front reading.
I had read that on Cape Hatteras, part of the Civil War ironclad The Monitor had been raised from the ocean, and wondered if that was on exhibit. We found out later that it wasn’t, and that a museum in Virginia would probably get this treasure (the turret of the boat) because it had been built in Virginia (or something like that).
There was a visitor’s center at the ferry landing at Ocracoke, and we learned of a National Park Ranger’s talk about pirates at 4:30. We checked into the Island Inn and returned for this talk, which was an interesting discussion about Blackbeard (aka Edward Teach, aka Edward Redmund), Anne Bonny, etc. Blackbeard was a notorious pirate, who was killed in a battle in the water next to Ocracoke. Those pirates weren’t very nice people, that is for sure. We did learn that, in those days, piracy was encouraged by the policies of countries at war. That is, privateers were hired by governments to raid enemy ships of their cargo. The government would take a cut of the loot as a “tax”. When the war ended, the privateers knew of no other way to make a living, (at least, no way that was this exciting) so they just continued on as pirates, illegally this time.
We drove by the British Cemetery where six British soldiers are buried. Some sailors and boats were sent by Churchill in 1941-42 as part of a force to help defend against the German U boats which were wreaking havoc on American boats up and down the east coast during WWII. U boats destroyed a British ship and these six sailors died. This cemetery has actually been deeded to the British government, and there is a ceremony there every year.
We ate at Captain Ben’s Restaurant for supper—good food but a bit pricey. We drove around Ocracoke. It was fairly full of tourists, many on rented bicycles or on foot. It is a rustic town, very small, without any chain restaurants of hotels. It’s location at the southern tip of the Outer Banks, a long-ish car ride from the north and a long-ish ferry ride from the south, means that it could have been a lot busier during August.
One of our stops was the pretty Ocracoke lighthouse—it actually still functions as a lighthouse at night. This lighthouse is depicted on the front of the Ocracoke brochure. Hana was intent on getting a photo of the Ocracoke water tower—don’t ask me why. We got that shot the next day to her satisfaction. She has a little black camera that she likes to use. She also likes to swing it around by the string, hitting it on things, much to our chagrin. We bought some souvenirs, including a T-shirt for Hana that glows in the dark.
That evening we watched some television together at the hotel. Some shows that we enjoyed laughing at together included Spongebob Squarepants, a cartoon on Nickelodeon, and especially an hour of “Kids Say the Darndest Things” with Bill Cosby.
Friday August 16
We all spent an enjoyable (but increasingly hot!!) morning at the Ocracoke Beach. Signs up in Ocracoke said that this beach was rated “#6” in the USA. It was nice, and not very crowded. The water was warm and the kids once again had a great time. We met a family from Gaithersburg, MD who were spending the week in Ocracoke. Their 7 y.o. daughter Sarah became fast friends with Hana during the morning. When the sun got too hot we went back to the hotel where we had lunch.
The kids stayed in the room during the hot part of the day and watched some television while Ruth and I went to the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum to learn about the island’s history (the Civil War fort that was built by the Confederacy but was quickly captured by the Union, the German U boat history during WWII, the very unique Ocracoke brogue that combines elements of a number of things, including Shakespearean English, a thick southern accent, British/Irish accent, etc.) The unique brogue developed as a result of the isolation of the town, and with the onslaught of tourism it is unfortunately being diluted out.
We visited Teach’s hole where we bought some pirate related souvenirs and visited an exhibit that dealt with Blackbeard. This confirmed that he wasn’t a nice man. After a stop for a snack at a refreshment stand, we drove to the site of a nature walk we had read about, located in the National Park section of the island. However, this walk had to be brought to an early and screeching halt because of very numerous and aggressive mosquitoes, plus the fact that Hana sat down on the grass and refused to move forward. In general the kids were un-enthusiastic about this walk, but Ruth and I sure were into it.
We went out to eat that evening and the kids read, etc. for a while afterwards. I finished the book I was reading, The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. It seemed appropriate for our travels. The children then creatively planned and performed some “commercials” for Ruth and I, one of which was to advertise mosquito repellent. After dark, Ruth and I took the (approx.) ½ mile walk to the lighthouse to see it working, and of course forgot to put on repellent so got eaten alive by the mosquitoes in spite of a good breeze. But it was a fun walk anyway.
Saturday August 17
We signed out of the hotel and headed up to the ferry across to Hatteras. As we traveled north, the area got increasingly congested and touristy. We talked with one of the ferry workers in the lounge on the 40 min ferry ride. He was very friendly and seemed to hit it off with Hana. She was coloring and he admired her work. Another friendly couple was also in the lounge. The ferry worker was a Hatteras native, and told us all about the recent raising of the turret of the Civil War vessel, the Ironclad. His son was in the service in Germany, and the other man in the lounge was also an army officer, so they had a lot in common.
We stopped briefly at the beautiful Cape Hatteras lighthouse and got some photos. The Outer Banks is truly a “Ribbon of Sand” and at places one can see the Sound on the left and the Atlantic Ocean on the right. The vegetation is all stunted, likely because of the wind and the salty soil. We would have learned about this stuff had we stuck with that Nature Walk!
We stopped at Kill Devil Hills and saw where the Wright Brothers (Orville and Wilbur) made their first successful flight. There was a metal rail along which the plane rolled until it lifted off. They made 4 flights that day (Dec. 17, 1903) and the longest was the fourth, 58 seconds. The main visitors center was closed for renovation so we couldn’t see the replica of this plane. But a temporary visitors center had a good display, and friendly people to ask questions of. It was noon when we stopped, and hot, so we didn’t stay as long as we otherwise might have. I bought a biography of the Wright Brothers as my souvenir, and the others got something too. We had a picnic lunch at a rest stop soon thereafter.
The next point of interest on our trip home was the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the “largest bridge-tunnel complex in the world.” The tunnel parts allow free passage of large ships and vessels. It was fascinating and I think the children found it so as well.
Our trip home continued on up the eastern peninsula of Virginia and into the Eastern shore of Maryland. This area has a quaint character all its own, being separated from the main parts of their respective states by the Chesapeake Bay. Many migrants (they appeared Mexican) could be seen walking along the road or working in various capacities in agriculture. At one place there were some converted buses, all the seats removed, stacked full of watermelons. A group of migrant workers was sorting the melons. We wondered what the status of the workers is, and how they obtain adequate health care, etc. Of course, we stopped and got some boiled peanuts to munch on along the way.
It was a hot last day to our trip, we were glad for the air conditioning in our recently bought van. At one point the temperature was 101. Our old Aerostar van wouldn’t have been as comfortable because the air conditioning wasn’t as functional. It almost makes the accident I had with the old van back in May a blessing.
We stopped at a Wendy’s for supper and then on home to arrive at 7:30 PM. We unpacked and the kids got re-acquainted with their home territory, including seeing who could be the first to check out the frog pond.