After the traffic fiasco on Friday, we decided to spend Saturday driving back south to Georgetown to tour another plantation, this time the Hopsewee Plantation about 20 minutes south of Georgetown.
This house was built in the 1730's and is in magnificent condition. In fact the current owners live in the house and allow tours to see most of it including the high attic and cellar where you can see details of the construction. Very cool. The house is the birthplace of signer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Lynch Jr. The guide for the house tour was very well informed about the house and the history of its former owners. She pointed out that the signatures on the Declaration of Independence are grouped by geographic area, the southern states' signatures are on the left. The signatures were not all done at the same time; the document travelled around to where the signatories were located so spacing was an issue. If you look at the left hand column of signatures, you will see a blank line just below Rutledge's signature. The is the line where Thomas Lynch Sr. would have signed, had he been able. Thomas Sr. was involved in the drafting of the document, as were all the members of the Second Continental Congress. Thomas Jefferson penned the document, but contrary to popular myth, he was not the sole author of its content. While in Philadelphia, Thomas Lynch Sr. suffered a stroke and his son asked to be freed from his regiment to go north to assist his father. As officers were in short supply, his request was denied. His response to this was to go to the South Carolina government and plead his case. As many of the government leaders were his own family and friends, not only did they release him from his military committment, but elected him an official representative of the Second Continental Congress. So Thomas Jr signed as a representative, not as a stand in for his father. The blank line is where Thomas Sr. would have signed had he been capable of writing. They left the space for him to sign in later, but he never was able to.
Another interesting tidbit the tour guide talked about was the Spanish Moss hanging from the trees around the plantation...
She asked if we had been to Georgetown (yes) and did we notice the Spanish Moss there? (no)... well that's because there isn't any. The Spanish Moss is a good indicator of the health of the environment (ie sort of like budgies in an underground mine) and since they put in the large, well actually huge, steel and paper mills, all the Spanish Moss disappeared. Hmmm... just what are the folks there breathing?
After the tour we drove back north to Georgetown to wander around downtown and along the harbour walk before having a very nice lunch on the deck of the Old Fish House aka "Big Tuna Raw Bar".
On the way back into Myrtle Beach the traffic got held up for quite a while. We managed to inch ahead far enough to take a side road back to the Piggly Wiggly for some groceries then head back to the KOA. We found out later that a motorcyclist had been hit. Frankly, not a surprise, there are moped rental outfits all over the place here and there are hundreds, if not more, people on them constantly whipping in and out of traffic.
Sunday we left Myrtle Beach. We had previously bought tickets to see the Washington Nationals host the New York Yankees next Sunday so we had one week to make it up the coast to Washington. Based on our travel style of only 3 or so hours driving we could easily make it with a couple of days to spare. We had planned to stop Sunday about an hour north of Wilmington North Carolina, but when we drove into town (we also always try to take business routes through towns rather than the bypass routes) the old historic district looked real cool so we decided to stop at the KOA on the north side of Wilmington. After getting set up we headed back into town. We stopped at the Bellamy Mansion where we did a self guided audio tour of the house and grounds. Exceptional!
One of the neatest features of the Bellamy Mansion were that all the windows in the main floor parlours came all the way down to the floor and were designed to slide up to make a doorway so that people could pass directly between the parlour and the porch...
After that we drove around the historic area for awhile before deciding on a place to have a late lunch. Many choices, but we settled on the Dock Street Oyster Bar where we had some delicious, but way too hot crab and spinach dip, followed by fish and shrimp tacos... yummm! Late lunch but it pretty well did us for the day.
It started to rain again so we decided to just spend the one night in Wilmington. Leaving Monday morning, we took a detour out closer to the coast where we stopped in Surf City for an early lunch this time. We chose Buddy's Crab House and Oyster Bar right on the beach. We had some excellent shrimp wraps, an ok pulled pork sandwich (on the beach it is best to order seafood) and tried some "sweet corn nuggets" which are little balls of cream corn rolled up and deep fried...EVIL!
After that it was a drive in the pouring rain north to New Bern where there was no sign of rain. Another very fine old historic area to drive and wander around in. New Bern is the home of Pepsi Cola. The pharmacy where it was invented is now a large souvenir store selling all things Pepsi. Mostly this was a laundry day with a nice grilled steak for dinner at the KOA.
We decided to keep moving so Tuesday drove north to a campground just outside of Elizabeth City NC. The idea was to maybe stay here a couple of days and take a driving tour out to the outer banks. The campground (North River Campground) we picked was "Top Rated" by Trailer Life but turned out to be a bit disappointing. Although we can't really fault them for all the mosquitoes and horse flies we were not impressed with their attitude towards the bears that were around. We asked to be placed near the restroom as we have no facilities in our trailer; we were placed way too far away such that a night time visit to the restroom turned out to be a drive (too far to walk with the high probability of bears around). The next morning we saw that the trash container had been, well, trashed by bears with the result being a great swath of ripped open garbage being spread around. These people are just asking for trouble. It's just a matter of time before someone gets hurt and/or a bear has to be put down. One reason we chose this campground was because of the high ratings it received from Trailer Life; the rating for the restrooms being a 10*. Well, sometimes the raters get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. How can a restroom with only one toilet and one sink with no counter space for the sink and no bench or shelves of any kind, in the two shower stalls, be given the highest possible rating? No place, except for the floor, to put a toiletry bag or even a bar of soap while in the shower. We left after one night deciding to get to the Washington DC area a day early. The outer banks will still be there for the next time we are in the area. You can't see everything in one visit!
Wednesday we drove into Virginia and took a bit of a tour around the city of Virginia Beach before continuing on for the day. We crossed over and under the great Chesapeake Bay (combination of bridges and tunnels). Sort of cool. We stopped at the Information Rest Area on the north side of the crossing where one of the folks there suggested a water front restaurant in Wachapreague so we continued on and stopped there for lunch. Sweet little town with a nice waterfront. The meal was ok but we tried the house special, soft shell crab, which, if this is the best they are, then we will likely pass on them in the future. The breading was lousy, the meat mushy and the skin very tough; the waitress said you just eat the whole thing, but we found it unchewable for the most part.
We continued on to the Castaway RV Resort just south of Ocean City on the Maryland shore. Another 10* restroom rating but this time much more accurate; numerous toilets, showers, sinks with lots of bench and counter space etc. Much better. This is a holiday destination place and is in a beautiful setting. A bit pricey; we chose a spot closer to the water (just under $100 per night). Nice albeit a tad on the windy size, although it was a warm wind. A feature not found in too many campgrounds, they have a Tiki Bar on the beach where it was very pleasant to sit and have a couple of glasses of wine and chat with other vacationers.
We ended up staying a second night to give us a chance to check out Ocean City and nearby historic town Berlin. Ocean City is much like Destin Florida, a long stretch of beautiful white sand lined with apartment buildings. They have built a 32 block long boardwalk which was sort of cool to wander along although not much to see other than white sand, the ocean and one apartment building after another...
They have a shuttle trolley that drives up and down the boardwalk but they charge $3 one way. Give us a break! No wonder the trolley was empty! Silly, it costs the same to run the thing empty as it does full. Charge people a quarter and the thing would likely be full! Obviously we opted to walk for awhile before going off to find some lunch. There is a plethora of "crab shack" like places along the main drag. We opted for On The Bay Seafood where we had the excellent crab cakes and scallops along with very good sides of potato salad, coleslaw and corn on the cob. Nice.
After lunch we drove over the bridge inland to Berlin and wandered the streets of the small town. We came across a model train store where we went in and chatted with the owner and bought a few cars for a possible future layout for ourselves. The owner invited us to walk down the street to his house where he has a fabulous garden model railroad in his backyard. Very cool...
We returned to the campsite for another visit to the Tiki Bar before settling into a nice grilled pork chop dinner at our own campsite.
To end the week we completed our march to Washington in preparation for Sunday's ball game between the Nationals and Yankees. We set up camp for a few days in the suburb of College Park. The Cherry Creek Campground is a short bus ride to the greater Washington metro and the line that comes out this way is the same one the ball park is on. How sweet is that?
We arrived early enough Friday so decided to take the late day Washington After Dark tour. This is a good tour as it provides good reference for when we will be walking around the capitol area. Some of the main highlights included stops at the White House, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and the Iwo Jima Memorial along with lots of excellent narratives provided by the bus driver. Humor was injected into the tour came while we were reboarding the bus at the Iwo Jima Memorial when a woman speaking quite loudly on her cell phone, exclaimed excitedly to her caller, that she was currently at the Hiroshima Memorial. Reminded us of the Rick Mercer show segment "Talking with Americans" (anybody for a climb up Peter Mansbridge?)...
Our best pic of the tour...
and Michelle Obama's garden (and apparently she does do some of the gardening)...
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