23 March 2020 Savannah GA to Charleston SC

Well, they had another reservation for the site we were in so we decided to move on to Charleston SC today. We stretched the drive out to 3 hours with a long stop for lunch and taking our time on the road. The traffic was still pretty heavy considering the Presidents request for everyone to stay home if they could. We are staying at the Oakland Plantation Campground ($52 per night with GSC) just outside Charleston. We have a nice long pull through site. But as we started to set up, we realized that the previous user had some kind of black tank accident and there was a mess on the ground. The front desk person sent a nice man over to shovel it up, sterilize the area with bleach and then he laid new gravel down. There are not many people in the RV park and very few nightly transients since this is off the main north/south route, so if we need to stay here longer, we should be able to. Fort Sumter and all the tourist sites here are closed, so there will not be much to do for a while. Were going to do our part and hang out around the Wanderer until we see when things might begin to open back up. 

21-22 March 2020 Hunkering Down

With everything of interest now closed, we decided to practice our social distancing and hunker down in the Wanderer. Leslie is starting to go shack wacky. David did a little work and we caught up on our chores. On Sunday, we went to the grocery store and found many shelves still empty (no toilet paper to be found). Georgia has not issued a stay home order yet, so we plan to head to Charleston tomorrow. There are a lot of RVs coming in for only one night, so a lot of people are on the move north. 

20 March 2020 Touring Savannah

They announced their first local case of COVID-19 today. The order to close all the bars, sit down restaurants, non-essential stores and public venues kicks in tomorrow morning, so we decided to see what we could of Savannah today. We drove out to Fort Pulaski NM so we could at least say we tried to see it. The fort was visible on the island across from the closed entrance. The fort was built between 1808 and 1826 as part of the first tier of defenses. It did not see action during the war of 1812. Modifications of the Fort continued through 1846. It was never manned. In January 1861, Confederate forces occupied the fort. Later that spring Union forces set up cannon on Tybee Island and began bombarding the fort. Some of the canons were of a new type with rifled barrels. The new rifled canon tore through the masonry walls of the fort forcing the Confederates inside to surrender. The Union occupied the fort and held it through the war using it to prevent the Confederate forces from using the port of Savannah. For a time, it held the infamous 500 Confederate officer prisoners of war used to prevent the confederates from attacking. The Confederates were doing the same thing with Union officer prisoners of war at other forts. It was later used to house Indian prisoners before being abandoned by the military in 1908. It was made a National Monument in 1924. 

On the way out, we noticed a sign for Old Fort Jackson. So on the way back into town, we stopped at Old Fort Jackson and found that it was open. The Old Fort Jackson is run by a non-profit organization. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. After paying the $20 entrance fee, we did a self tour of the fort. Fort Jackson was built between 1820 and 1848. It became the primary fortification to prevent Union Forces from attacking Savannah from the river. Between the Fort, multiple gun batteries, river barriers and the Iron Clad CSS Georgia, the Union forces never made a serious attempt to sail up the river. Savannah fell from the land during General Sherman’s March to the Sea campaign and Confederate forces abandoned the fort and retreated to South Carolina. We watched a movie on the history of the fort and inspected the rooms and armament. We made it a point not to touch anything.

Returning to Savannah, we drove through the old historic section of Savannah and down to the riverfront.  There’s a beautiful statue commemorating the Legend of the Waving Girl at a water front park. She stood stoically greeting the passing ships and river tugs. It is said that as a very young girl, the love of her life, a young sailor, went off to sea. Young Florence promised to be faithful and patient awaiting his return. With a white apron she waived at passing ships by day and a lantern at night. After 50 years, in 1931, her faithful watch ended.  She passed away 12 years later.  This statue was erected in 1971.  

A few of the stores, bars and restaurants were still open, particularly along the river, but we decided that discretion and social distancing was better than any chance of COVID-19. It a beautiful town with the old houses, Spanish moss covered massive oaks and quaint streets.

We called the RV Park in Charleston and they allowed us to extend our stay until 3 April. 

Entrance Sign

Entrance Gate

Fort Pulaski from the entrance gate

Old Fort Jackson

Parade ground in Old Fort Jackson

Gun deck of Old Fort Jackson

Old Fort Jackson from the river

The Waving Girl

18 March 2020 Perry to Savannah, GA

It’s a straight run down I-16 from Macon to Savannah. We are staying at Red Gate Farm Campground ($51 a night with GSC). When David check us in, he asked if their was future availability in case we fall under a travel ban. He was told that at the current time no, but who knows what the future brings. It’s a nice RV Park with lots of room for big rigs. We have a back in site but there was so much room to maneuver, it was an easy job backing in. All the utilities are good. Its close to Savannah and an easy drive to the major tourist sites. Most of the other things to see in Savannah are still open but we expect them to close soon. 

16 March 2020 Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park

Going to the Ocmulgee National Monument was the purpose of this detour from the coast to continue on our quest to see all the National Parks and National Monuments. Back when we planned this trip, it was a National Monument, but late last year, congress passed a bill changing it to a National Historical Park and adding 2000 acres (which has yet to be bought) to the park.

The park is about 840 acres and covers what was know as the “Old Ocmulgee grounds”. There are six mounds in the park that were built by the Mississippian Indians between 900 and 1600. But they have uncovered artifacts in the park dating back to the early Paleo-Indians around 15,000 years ago. They don’t know why the mounds were built or what they were used for. Buildings were built on top of the mounds as well. One mound was used for burials of high priests and chieftains. That mound was severally damaged by the building of a railroad to Macon back in 1840 and again in 1870s. The other mounds were damaged by the building of defense works during the civil war for the city of Macon and by farming and ranching activities from the 1600 till the early 1900’s. The mounds were built by hand with baskets of dirt carried and dumped to build up the layers. When they excavated they could actually see individual piles of dirt from each basket full. The mounds were capped with a layer of red clay to preserve the mounds (they did not have grass on them back then like they do today). The National Park was created in 1934 or 1936 (different displays had different years). During the 1930’s, a large excavation of site was accomplished with the help of the WPA and CCC. Over 2 million artifacts were cataloged. There was a major Ocmulgee Indian settlement at the base of the mounds. The site was abandoned in the 1600s. During the 1930 excavations, the floor of a Earth Lodge was discovered and carbon dated to be over 1000 years old. The raised dais where the chieftains sat with a clay eagles head was uncovered along with clay benches around the perimeter where the lesser officials sat cross legged. They even had depressions for their feet to rest in. The raised dais was aligned so that the sun would come in through the entrance and align with the place where the chief sat at the summer and winter solstice. They built a recreation of the Earth Lodge using similar wood and reed construction as the original. Another village was founded not far away in the park on the river called the Lamar village. Today it’s a swamp and not accessible by the public. 

The weather was cloudy, fogging, a light drizzle and a bit chilly. So we were not sure if we would walk to the mounds or not when we arrived. We explored the small store, the extensive visitor center exhibit with artifacts unearthed at the site, watched the park movie and collected our 75th passport stamp. We are going to count this as a National Monument since that is what it was when we planned this stop. By the time we got finished in the visitor center, the drizzle had mostly moved off so we hiked out to the Earth Lodge and duck walked down the tunnel into the large room. We then went to the cornfield mound and temple mounds (Great Temple and Lesser Temple). The drizzle moved back in and we headed back to the Behemoth. 

On the way back to the Wanderer, we stopped at the Walmart in Macon to pick up a few items. We were amazed how the shelves were empty from the panic buying. We were able to find the few things we needed. Its just amazing.

Entrance Sign

Earth Lodge Mound from the visitor center

Cornfield Mound

Entrance to the Earth Lodge

Entrance tunnel to the Earth Lodge

Raised Dais and fire pit in the Earth Lodge

Greater Temple Lodge

Lesser Temple Mound

15 March 2020 Brunswick to Perry, GA

We drove up highway US-341 to Perry, GA. We noticed as we went along that there were people setting up tents and displays along the highway as a several hundred mile long flea market. We found out later that it is call “Peaches to Beaches” and they do it once a year. Since we were dragging the wanderer behind us, we did not stop at any of the markets, but we were tempted. We are staying at the Crossroads Travel Park ($41 per night with GSC). We took this detour from the coast because we found out that there is a major St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Savannah each year. I would not have though there was that many Irish in Georgia, but Savannah has the second largest, behind NYC, St. Patrick’s day parade and celebration. So we wanted to delay our arrival in Savannah until after St. Patrick’s day. With the Corona Virus (COVID-19) panic spreading, they canceled the Savannah St. Patrick’s day parade and celebration. We were happy to see the small towns along US-341 that the church parking lots were fairly full, so the panic in the major cities has not spread to the countryside. 

13 March 2020 Jekyll Island, GA

We were told by several folks that we needed to go to Jekyll Island while here. So we headed out to the island in the early afternoon. The island was originally settled by the British, but were bought out by a French contingent. The island was eventually bought by a group of millionaires in the 1930s and turned into an exclusive club. Eventually it was turned over to the state and large parts of the island turned into a state park and the rest turned into a tourist trap. We drove around the island, stopping at several points of interest to read about the history of the settlers of the island. We also walked out to the beach to see the ocean. Probably the best way to see the island is to rent a bike and ride the bike trail around the island. But we were not impressed, particularly considering the $8 entrance fee. But the old oaks with Spanish moss hanging from them were beautiful.