Transit

When in Rome, do like the Romans.

When in Washington, DC, take the transit. Trust me. You do not want to drive, or worse, park, in downtown Washington.

Transit in the city is widely available and fairly easy to navigate. It’s not nearly as complicated as all the transit maps make it seem. Even I could figure it out. And there is a reloadable payment card that you can use both on the subway and on the bus so you don’t need to carry cash.

From where we were camped, we would walk down this lovely wooded path to the road bordering the park and would catch a bus to the metro. It was only a 5 minute ride, and we were greeted by a very friendly fellow passing out free newspapers. What’s not to like?

A half hour ride on the subway got us right downtown to the National Mall where all the museums are. We took that particular route several times.

Our starting point on the metro system was in the north, in Maryland. There are actually 5 different metro routes that crisscross through DC .The longest transit trip we took was to the farthest western outskirts. It was to see the off-site portion of the Air & Space Museum located in Chantilly, Virginia. The jaunt south on our local line and the transfer to the end of the west line got us as far as Reston, Virginia. 

That part of the trip took one and a half hours. The bus that took us the rest of the way was almost an hour itself! It severely cut down on our museum time, because we knew that the return trip would be just as long. 

But we got to see some awesome flying machines in that place. It was huge! Big enough to hold the Discovery space shuttle, an Air France Concorde supersonic jet, the Enola Gay fighter, and hundreds of other fliers: helicopters, gliders, and everything in between.

Speaking of high fliers, some commuters in the capital city of the United States are a little more elitist than others. While walking through the cherry blossoms near the tidal basin downtown, multiple helicopters buzzed overhead, back and forth.

We were in the wrong area to see if any of them originated from the White House.

No matter how happy we are with taking transit, there are some places that it’s just not worth it. We drove to the National Arboretum because it only took 10 minutes compared to the hour long subway to bus transfer we would have had to incur. And parking there was free and plentiful. It may have been because not a lot of the flowers are in bloom yet, but that was okay by us. We still saw dogwood trees and lovely azaleas in full colour.

We would have gone there just for the bonsai trees. There was one that was greater than 400 years old.

The one I’ve shown is a youngster at only 150 years old. It is a Japanese Cypress tree and stands about a foot and a half tall.

Our last transit trip to Washington was to watch the Cherry Blossom Parade. It was a chilly 6C with a breeze that played havoc with the big floating balloons.

It wasn’t a particularly big parade, in number of participants, but it took 2 hours. They scheduled long breaks between each section of 3 displays; usually a band, a group of dancers, and a float or big balloon. Then another 3 or 4 minute break. It must have been hard on the kids watching. A lot of them dressed up in cherry blossom head bands for the event.

We just dressed in warm layers.

Our next commute will be to Ontario.

Look out Canada, we’re already in transit.

W

Dry Camping in DC

First, I will explain dry camping.

Dry camping means the only electricity you have in your RV is supplied by the battery, and the only water you have is stored on-board in a 50 gallon tank. There are no electrical plug-ins, and no water hoses.

And it is an adjustment.

Our typical setup routine involves plugging in and then notifying our family of where we are parked (‘cuz you guys are important) and lastly, turning on the radio while we pop open the beer and wine.

Except when we dry camp, we don’t have a radio. Or a single serve coffee maker, or TV, or toaster…. You get the idea. Anything that requires 120 voltage doesn’t work. Unfortunately, electric appliances are habit forming. And it usually takes a minute after you decide to take out the vaccuum cleaner that you realize, "oh, I can't use this right now....  Guess I can't clean after all. What a shame."
Obviously I find it more of a hardship to be without the radio.

Thank goodness cork screws are manual.

Essentials work – the lights, stove, fridge, and water pump all run on battery power. But we have to keep our eye on the voltage of the battery. If it gets low, we may need to boost it with a half hour or so of using our noisy generator.

By dry camping occasionally, we find that we get back to basics. We tend to have campfires more often, as it becomes our evening entertainment. Books are opened more often as well.

And hubby uses his old fashioned coffee percolator in the morning. It reminds us of what camping is supposed to be. And even if it is not our usual lifestyle, it’s still something we enjoy.

Dry camping in Washington, DC could mean parking overnight on a city street, and getting a huge ticket, or in our case, finding a campground near the city where you don't have to pay exorbitant camping fees.

We were pleased to find a National Park campground within the metro and transit boundaries of Washington, DC. It is not well known among RVers, probably because it is only dry or tent camping. But it put us up in a lovely forested area where we were greeted by deer and cardinals, and only a few other campers.

From our campsite, there is a path through the woods that directs us to the local Metro station. It’s a walking distance of 15 minutes in the woods and then a bus ride. 

Of course, put my hubby in the woods for even a few minutes, and he always brings something home. 

Anyone who knows him will ask, “is that for a hiking stick, or a campfire?”

It was for a campfire. Relaxing in the quiet crackle of campfire flames is the best way to end a day filled with noisy children running through museums and with pushing our way onto subway trains.

But noisy school children and groups of tourists are to be expected when we choose to visit DC in the spring. School break and the cherry blossoms happen at the same time, and that also tends to be when we are on our way north.

We find that it is worth putting up with the crowds to enjoy the beautiful blossoms reflected on the water of the tidal basin. 

And we can’t beat the free entrance to the museums of the Smithsonian in Washington.

It is the reason we stop by this way. And now that we have found affordable dry camping within the metro city area, we will probably stop again to see the difference it makes if we come in the fall.

W

Little Pee Dee

If we had to be sick, it was a good place to be.

In an unpretentious little state park, smack in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do, and nowhere close to go to.

It used to have a lake, before Hurricane Matthew took out the dam last October. Now it just has a series of mudflats for birds and very small fish. It wasn’t even worth taking the canoe off the truck for.

So we didn’t have to feel that we were missing the local sights by vegetating on the couch or having extras naps in bed. It was a sparsely occupied park, with about 90% vacancy rate, so we did not even have to exert ourselves to be social.

We had spent a few days previously with friends, parked in their yard and sharing meals with their family, healthy and happy. It was on the day of our scheduled departure that a respiratory bug hit us, causing coughing and tiredness.

It was a good thing that we hadn’t planned on going far. The original thought was to avoid the winter weather that was coming too far south for comfort, but it turned out for the best that we only had a few hours’ drive when we were struggling with heavy heads and eyes. This empty little state park still inside the South Carolina border was just what we needed. We could hide inside our cozy trailer waiting for the weather to warm up and the coughing to go away.

 On the days we felt mildly energetic, we walked the nature trails. The paths are flat, not too strenuous, and perfect for recuperating old fogies. The dogwoods were just coming into bloom, their white flowers playing peek-a-boo in between the pines.

We couldn’t have found a better place to be.

When it was time to move on again, we at least felt up to the drive, even if we weren’t 100% yet. 

And Virginia Beach, when we arrived mid-March, was pretty deserted. Not at all the bustling party town we had been led to believe.

But it was not quiet.

From 8 in the morning until almost 10 at night, assorted jet fighters (F18s, F-35s, and Harriers) would roar overhead at least once an hour. I would have thought I was in a war zone, if I hadn’t known that Virginia Beach is surrounded by Navy and Air bases.

Good thing we had done lots of sleeping in Little Pee Dee. Afternoon naps were out of the question here.

So we explored. We visited the Nauticus naval museum and the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk.

They also have a huge memorial to General Douglas MacArthur in that city, and we spent several hours there, too. 

We even spent some time at the Virginia Aquarium, which was close enough to the campground that we could walk there.

But who would go to Virginia Beach, and not go to the beaches?

Not us.

We rode the bike trail all along the beach front, from the 1^st Street Jetty to the end of the pavement at 40^th Street, sharing the path with all sorts of contraptions known as bicycles. 

They had singles, doubles, quadripedals, and even one for 6 people, a “family ride”.

The statue of Neptune has pride of place along the beach, but there are lots of little treasures tucked into unusual places: carvings of hermit crabs in the flowerbeds, or a huge concrete snail near the boardwalk.

I’m just glad we were feeling well enough to enjoy them. Virginia Beach is definitely not a place for recuperation.

W

A Tale of Two Cities

Savannah and Charleston.  

Both cities bring to mind images of graceful living and southern hospitality.

Old fashioned carriage rides are popular tourist attractions.

One can get fresh shrimp or southern barbequed pork, not to mention their addictive sweet iced tea, in either place. 

And both of these tourist-driven cities have adopted this wonderful idea of free shuttle buses around their historic areas.

Despite all their similarities, here are the differences:

1.     Streets and parks

Historic downtown Savannah, in Georgia, is the pinnacle of urban planning. It was built in identical sections of 8 blocks around a town square, consisting of four blocks for residential homes, and four smaller blocks for shops. I counted 22 of these 8 block sections still standing. Remarkable when you factor in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Most of the town squares have statues or monuments to people of importance. Some are just peaceful green spaces with flowers and benches.

Charleston, South Carolina, does not have arrow-straight streets nor parks all lined up in a row like Savannah. It is an older city and was built on a peninsula, so the roads bend at will and the parks are placed around the city along the waterfronts. It has far fewer parks, but what it has are much larger.

2.     

Waterfront

Savannah was built on the bluffs beside the Savannah River, and getting to the waterfront street usually means navigating a treacherous set of stairs carved out of rocks.

 But it is well worth the danger to get to stroll along the cobblestone road and enjoy the assortment of shops and restaurants.

Charleston has lost most of its cobblestone streets, except this one preserved near the tip of the peninsula. 

What it does have is a pedestrian walkway made of slate slabs. This walkway borders the waterfront street, but it is raised 4 feet above the street level, making it easy to see both the harbour and the beautiful houses on the other side of the road despite the heavy traffic.

3.     Architecture

Savannah streets were designed before the houses were built, so the footprints of their homes are almost all the same.  To build a bigger house, owners had to expand upwards, creating tall, narrow buildings.

Charleston has large elegant homes built by wealthy plantation owners and some of them take up to a full half of the length of a block. Most of these houses have their own expansive walled gardens as well.

4.     Markets

Savannah’s city market is mostly art galleries and pubs. It runs two blocks long and is just a street blocked off from traffic.

I preferred shopping at a specialty store in the shopping district instead. These are the kind of souvenirs I prefer to bring home.

We stopped in Charleston primarily for the city market. It starts at Market Hall and stretches for 4 blocks. 

Inside the long shelter is a wide assortment of booths selling local sweet grass baskets, jewelry, and clothing.

5.     Residents

Panhandling is banned in Savannah but buskers are not, and can be great fun. 

The locals are tolerant of tourists, but are quite aggressive in their driving, so stay out of their way!

Our first walk down Charleston streets had us stopped by an older man in a wheelchair asking for “coins for a cup of coffee”. When hubby started digging in his pocket, the request changed to “and maybe a Danish?”

 In all, I found these residents extremely polite, even the young ones, with their “yes, sir” and “no, ma’am” attitudes. I’d love to import that.

6.     History

Both cities have an amazing history and we enjoyed walking the older districts. In Savannah, there were so many placards and historical markers that it took a long time to walk a city block. They keep their historic district in a time capsule. It was perfect to begin with, so why change it. All new development is relegated to the outside edges of the city.

Charleston’s history is one of change. They are still finding parts of an old fort lost beneath the streets and buildings. They enjoy what they have, but aren’t afraid of progress.

The biggest difference between the two? Now that we’ve seen Savannah, we probably won’t go back, unless it’s to buy more honey. But Charleston with its changes, we may see again.

W

Cumberland Island

At the most south-eastern tip of Georgia is a small city. St. Mary’s is a lovely place. Its downtown has wide boulevards, waterfront parks, and slow traffic. In fact, traffic is almost non-existent downtown, except for twice a day. Rush hour in this lazy southern town is not when people go to and from work, but when people are going to and coming from Cumberland Island.

When we made our plans to go north, heading home, we planned to do it very, very slowly. So the first stop after leaving Florida just had to be immediately across the border in southern Georgia.

There is a nice state park there, Crooked River State Park, where we reserved a spot. We chose it for its paddling river as well as its southern location.

St. Mary’s was a bonus. We walked the town, griped about the fact that all the stores and most of the restaurants were closed on Mondays – every Monday, such as small towns do – and sauntered through the old cemetery from Civil War days.

We even paid the outrageous sum of $4 each to get a personal tour of an antebellum house.

But the best part was learning about Cumberland Island.

Downtown on the waterfront is a National Park Service building. It has information and maps and camping permits if you want to camp at the wilderness sites on the island. You could take your own boat over if you had one, but most people pay to take the ferry that’s right outside the Parks building. It goes to the island twice a day, and the most popular thing to do is catch the early 9am trip and come back on the last boat at 4:30pm.

What’s on Cumberland Island, you ask? Amazing fine sand beaches, mansion ruins, and wild horses. The island is 15 miles long and not very wide. There's one road that runs the length of the island, but it is not paved. Very few vehicles drive along this road, mostly just one tour van each day and the odd National Park Service truck. Bicycles can be rented at the island dock, but we brought our own.

Starting at the southern end, we went around the ruins of a Carnegie mansion that burned in the early 1900’s. What’s left of the house is still impressive.















A wide sloping lawn lies between the house and the waterfront, with a fountain and statuary.

That’s where we saw the horses first. Some were grazing in the marshes along the water, and one was enjoying that lush lawn grass.

We had two potential destinations from there. There is an intact mansion about 8 miles north of the ruins, and they do tours every hour. If we didn’t feel we could reach the house in time for a tour, the alternate stop was a closer beachside picnic. The deadline was to be back in time for the last ferry. They don’t wait for tardy visitors, and a missed boat means an unplanned overnight stay with no shelter or food.

But surely an 8 mile bicycle ride wouldn’t take that long, since we did have a road to follow. A nicely packed sand road... as long as you stay in the ruts and away from the deep sand in the middle and along the edges.

Which is harder than you think.

Needless to say, we ended up choosing the beach picnic. It did involve pushing our bikes over some sand dunes, but once we got there, the beach was gorgeous!

After our lunch, we decided to try cycling down the hard packed beach sand. It was amazingly easy, and for 3 miles we had the beach entirely to ourselves!

Or, almost to ourselves.

We almost missed seeing this horse nibbling at the sea grasses on the dunes as we biked by.

I swear this guy was wearing camouflage.

Finding it easier than riding on the road, we continued down the beach until we got back to the ferry crossing and caught the boat back to the mainland and the lovely city of St. Mary’s.

We love exploring hidden corners.

W

Aluminum Rally

Our next destination was just outside of Daytona, at a gathering of Airstreams.

 I am sure that it was just an accident that the organizers booked this rally less than 10 miles from the Daytona Speedway at the same time that the Daytona 500 was on. And certainly, it was also merely an oversight that they reserved a campground for us across from the Cabbage Patch Bar, which is a famous biker bar. It also happened to  be just down the street from a motorcycle racing course, during the “everything-with-a-loud-motor” racing week.

I mean, us Airstreamers aren’t normally known as heavy partiers. After 9pm, anyway.

Not knowing what we were getting into, hubby and I arrived at the aforementioned campground, to be parked closely with about 80 other trailers on a grassy field. 

If they had parked us in a circle, I would have thought that they were circling the wagons for protection.

We needed protection. The Fire Ants were deadly on that grassy field.

The best part of an Airstream rally is checking out the other rigs.

There was a fairly new Airstream motorhome across from us, the Airstream SkyDeck. The owners were generous enough to hold an open house to allow the other rally attendees to walk through. 

To be honest, we’ve been inside Airstream motorhomes before.  The attraction on this one was the upper deck – a roof level with seating and tables for party goers.

It was a great view. They said the ocupancy load was 15 people. 

We tested it. 

However, later that night I noticed that it was dark on the upper deck by 9pm.

Told you so.

Airstream parties may not go late, but don’t you be thinking that we don’t party. Happy hour was always the best attended event of the rally.

That's my kind of people.

So, maybe we weren’t into all the loud racing and crashing that was popular in that area on that week, but hubby and I did find something to do while we were there.

We checked out the Canaveral Seashore National Park. It gave us a place to paddle and hubby a place to fish. The manatees in this area are very curious and friendly. A cow and calf came up to our canoe, passing underneath us a couple of times and poking their noses up to check us out.

Along the interior shore, away from the brutal waves of the Atlantic Ocean, we found Turtle Mound. That hill beside the water is not a natural hill. It is 50 feet high and made of millions of oyster and clam shells left there by the occupation of natives a long time ago.

We walked the trail around the bottom of the mound, where the shells are washing out to the tidal lagoon. Even at the very top you could see the oyster shells inside the dirt.

Now, those natives really knew how to party. 

W