Wandering in South Carolina

After spending the winter catching up with chores at home and dreaming about wandering, we made our maiden voyage of 2014 just one state over from Georgia to South Carolina.

We started our short trip with 3 nights in Columbia watching our grandson play in a soccer tournament. It was so much fun to watch him play and cheer from the sidelines with his parents and sister.

On our way home we spent a rainy night at Hunting Island State Park. Our first visit there  was over 30 years ago in our tent camping days when our kids were little. We have been wanting to return there ever since we got the fifth wheel. Hunting Island is located about 42 miles from I-95 at the end of Hwy 21. The drive takes you through beautiful salt marshes, across rivers and sounds, and through several towns including Beaufort (if you are driving a big rig, take the truck route instead of going through downtown Beaufort).

The campground has about 200 sites, some of them right next to the beach. Our site was located in a loop with the sites surrounded by tall trees and palmettos. A short walk from the RV took us to the dog friendly beach in front of the campground.

The rain let up a little so we drove to the lighthouse to explore. The Hunting Island Lighthouse is the only lighthouse in South Carolina accessible to the public. A short path in front of the lighthouse leads to the beach.

Remembering our 2013 Travels

Happy New Year!! 2013 was a great year for wandering!

This year we checked off one of the biggest items on our bucket list: from May to September we made the trip of a lifetime to Alaska and back in our RV. In the fall we visited a beautiful COE park in West Point, Georgia. I’ve already posted about those trips in previous posts on this blog so here are a few photos from our January 2013 journey to south Georgia and North Florida.

We started 2013 with a short trip to three different parks. The first was Little Ocmulgee State Park in Helena, Georgia.

Our main destination was a week in the United States Forest Service campground in Salt Springs, Florida.

Our final stop was at one of our favorite parks, Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida.

So where do think we will be off to in 2014? Stay tuned for more.

Wandering Dawgs Wander Again

Not all of our wandering is to far away places like Alaska or the Yukon. Sometimes we wander close to home. On Monday, we hitched up the Titanium for a road trip to Auburn, Alabama to watch the south’s oldest football rivalry between Georgia and Auburn this coming Saturday. We decided to take a few extra days and explore a new to us Corps of Engineers park on West Point Lake in West Point, Georgia just off of I-85 near the Georgia/Alabama line. It’s great traveling during the week during the off season. We are almost the only ones here.

We spent three relaxing nights in site 113 in the campground with no other campers in our loop. The trees were wearing their fall colors and the sunsets were spectacular.

Our only neighbors were the geese.

R Schaefer Heard Campground on West Point Lake is one of three Corps of Engineers campgrounds on the lake. Our site is about 40 feet from the lake and like most COE parks we have a large site with plenty of room between our site and the ones on either side.  Our site is a paved, back in site with water and electric hookups, a tent pad, fire ring, picnic table and a beautiful lake view. For more information about the park or to make reservations you can go the Recreation.gov site for R Schaefer Heard

Stubbs the Cat, Mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska

Stubbs the mayor cat

We met Stubbs, the cat who is the mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, when we were browsing in one of the shops in Talkeetna in July, 2013. Stubbs was adapted by the manager of Nagley’s General Store in 1997 and has served as honorary Mayor for 16 years.

Stubbs lives at Nagley's Store in downtown Talkeetna, Alaska
Stubbs lives at Nagley’s Store in downtown Talkeetna, Alaska

Stubbs is now recovering from a dog attack that occurred on August 31. We found out about the attack by accident when Henry came across an article in the Wall Street Journal from October 15 about Stubbs.

After the attack Stubbs spent nine days in a veterinary hospital and is now recuperating in a room above the general store. People from all over the world have donated money to help pay for his hospital bills.

After reading the article in the Wall Street Journal, I did a search and found other articles about the attack in USA Today, Time and the Anchorage Daily News.

Meeting fellow Georgians on the road

And a Georgia G on the back window of the Titanium
Georgia G on the back window of the Titanium

One of the things we enjoy most about traveling by RV is meeting so many wonderful people along the way. On this trip we met people from all over the U.S. and Canada and from far away countries like Australia and Switzerland.

What really amazed us though was how many people from Georgia we met along the way and how many of them were Georgia Bulldog fans. We heard “Go Dawgs!” in some very unexpected places!

When we travel there is no doubt where we are from. With our Georgia license plates on both the truck and fifth wheel, our big red Georgia G on the front of the truck and another big G on the back window of the fifth wheel our Georgia allegiance is easy to recognize. And we both often wear Georgia hats and shirts when we are out exploring.

When you are several thousand miles from home, it’s always nice to connect with someone from your home state. Here are just a few of our favorite encounters with other travelers from Georgia:

  • Meeting  two sisters in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada on their way to Alaska who are from the same county where we live.
  • Hearing “Go Dawgs! as we sat by our campfire in Liard River Hot Springs, Yukon.
  • Having someone from near our hometown knock on our door just to say hi in Liard River Hot Springs, Yukon.
  • Meeting a recent graduate of the University of Georgia wearing a Georgia sweatshirt.in Skagway, Alaska, who was living in Alaska and working on a cruise ship.
  • Having  a woman in a Georgia t-shirt walk over to our campsite in Skagway to take a picture of our Georgia truck because she couldn’t believe there was someone who drove all the way from Georgia to Alaska.
  • Hearing “I’ve eaten there before” when Henry was wearing his Crab Shack t-shirt in Skagway. The young man was in the Coast Guard and had just finished being stationed in Valdez and was on his way to his next station close to his home in Georgia.
  • Meeting a young woman in Haines, Alaska who was a graduate of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. She  studied marine biology and was now  living in Haines working as a mate on a fishing boat and singing in a band.
  • Talking to the woman working at the Visitor’s Center in North Pole who had moved to North Pole from Georgia.
  • Wearing our Georgia hats, having one of the drivers on one of the floats in the July 4th Parade in North Pole yell “Go Dawgs!” as he went by.
  • Being helped by a woman from Georgia at the transportation center in Denali National Park.
  • Hearing “Go Dawgs!” while stopped for road construction in Denali National Park.
  • Meeting a grandfather and his two granddaughters from Georgia at Teklanika Campground in Denali National Park.
  • Halibut fishing in Ninilchik, Alaska with a young couple living in Anchorage who were originally from Atlanta and North Carolina.
  • Having a woman from Georgia stop by our campsite in Homer, Alaska because she saw the Georgia G on the back of the fifth wheel.

There were many others but these are the ones that stand out. However, the one that stands out the most was the Canadian border crossing guard in Beaver Creek, Yukon who asked us if we were heading home to Georgia before he even looked at our passports. He must have seen the Georgia G on the front of the truck! He was a huge American college football fan and discussed football with Henry for a few minutes before getting down to the business of checking our passports and asking the required questions before letting us enter Canada.