Vivian's RV Vignettes

Wow, I haven’t gotten around to blogging for 15 days. Sorry, y’all. I will plead the excuse that I’ve been consumed by writing a big federal grant for one of my clients (submitted Monday) which ate up all my writing energy. Beyond that, in the continuous time-juggling act between actually doing fun things, driving to do more fun things, getting my work done, handling routine chores, and blogging, something had to give, and it was the blogging.

If you follow me on Facebook, though, you know that I’ve visited two more National Parks. The first was Dry Tortugas, 70 miles west of Key West and only accessible by ferry. The Dry Tortugas are seven spits of land more or less out in the middle of nowhere in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but they were strategically important because they have the only natural deep-water safe harbor for ships for a long way around, and they’re right on the edge of the Gulf Stream that wafted ships from western Gulf ports to the East Coast and to Europe. For this reason, the U.S. government built one of its largest-ever forts, Fort Jefferson, on the biggest of the islands.

The military use of the fort was already obsolete before it was complete, and also it was so heavy it was causing the island to subside into the sea, so it was never really finished. But it did serve for a while as an off-shore prison. Now it serves primarily as a museum and tourist attraction. We were told all of this history by a very passionate tour guide who clearly loves what he does, along with signs scattered through the building’s remains.

I also got to go swimming in an incredible crystal-blue sea, although I wasn’t brave enough to go snorkeling out over the reef.

I got to spend some time in Key West, where I attended the Mallory Square Sunset gathering, had dinner at Margaritaville, stood by the southernmost point in the continental U.S., and admired the island’s population of free-roaming feral chickens.

Next I headed north to South Carolina, where I visited Congaree National Park. It is home to the largest old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in North America, so it’s pretty important ecologically. There was a lot of cypress, with alien-looking “knees” sticking up out of the deep black muck, as well as truly ancient loblolly pines.

Revolutionary War General Francis Marion, one of the first fathers of guerilla warfare, waged his campaigns from South Carolina swamps like that, and it’s easy to see why the British redcoats didn’t stand a chance in that environment. Francis Marion interests me because he may be a distant relation of ours, and he was one of the inspirations for Mel Gibson’s character in the movie The Patriot. (I went back and watched the movie after touring the park.)

After hiking Congaree’s 2-mile boardwalk with its interpretive self-guided tour, I wanted to go kayaking. Unfortunately, accessing the paddle trail in the park would have involved carrying my kayak 50-100 yards down a forest trail, which isn’t so easy for me. Also, the park was closing at 4pm for their annual Synchronized Firefly Viewing. (You had to get tickets from a lottery a month in advance, so I missed out on that.) I opted instead to go kayaking on the Congaree River just outside the park. Sadly, I forgot my waterproof case, so I didn’t get any pictures from in the water, but it was a pretty wooded stretch along both banks.

During my stay in South Carolina, I also paid visits to Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA, where I enjoyed the ambiance of the old historic districts and some good southern cooking. Paula Deen’s The Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah was my favorite.

Next I headed north to Lynchburg, Virginia. The Thousand Trails park there is lovely, with its own little lake.

I had to stay put while I was getting my grant submitted on Monday (a nerve-wracking event due to some technical issues that went almost right down to the deadline). My plan was to use Lynchburg as my launching point to go visit New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia (since there’s not a Thousand Trails campground closer to it). But I made a last-minute decision to go on a side-quest, visiting my sister Nancy Elizabeth in eastern Tennessee and attending my niece Charlotte’s middle school graduation. So for now, that’s where I am, and my RV is in storage in Lynchburg. We all plan to visit New River Gorge together on Saturday, and then I’ll go pick up my RV and head east toward the Virginia shore.

Here’s an update on my maps: