Feb 11 - Four days since we last posted an entry. Sorry about that, faithful readers, but we haven't had internet for most of that time. We are now at one of our favorite places, Skidaway Island State Park, just south of Savannah, Georgia. We stayed here last  trip for a few days, and decided it would be a good place to set up again for a breather from the interstates. Trucks, trucks, trucks on all of the interstates, and while they are generally very courteous, one gets tired of the constant stream of big rigs. They're either right in front of you or right on your tail, so it means vigilence is necessary all the time, when you're driving an r.v.
At any rate, the trip so far has been just fine. We had wonderful weather on Wednesday in the south of Virginia, so weren't in a hurry to move on. We found a very nice County park at Rock Hill, NC, on Wednesday, on a lovely lake, so enjoyed the evening there. Getting there, we did a diversion up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 30 miles. It truly is a ridge, offering wonderful views of the valleys below on both sides. The valley to the west is the Great Valley, a broad area that extends from New England all the way to Georgia. It was formerly the old Indian trail that settlers heading this way traversed to get to their new homes.
We found some neat little roads along the ridge, especially "Off the Beaten Path" and "Dog Town Lane". We also saw a work gang of local convicts, guarded by a hefty looking gal totin' a mean lookin' rifle. Three lovely white tail deer further along the way offset that rather sad image.
But back to the interstate, Wednesday, and Thursday, enjoying cheap gas in North Carolina, at $1.85 per gallon. Contrast that with $2.65 in Pennsylvania. This time we enjoyed staying on route 81 all the way down to Roanoke, where we picked up 77 over to Columbus, then down to Columbia, where we remembered a recent trip going north on a secondary route, 301/321, so we took it all the way to the I95. Passed through towns named Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the latter the most prosperous of the 3. We stopped for a bit in front of a little war memorial further along, made up of a marker listing all of the veterans of WW 1 and WW2. Very nice. Beside it was an equally sizable marker listing all of the African Americans who had served in the very same wars. A little example of segregation in the south?
There are some nice trails here in the park, so after surviving a low temp of plus 2 Thursday night, we awoke to a pleasant day, and did about 6 miles of trails yesterday. Today, we rode our bikes hither and yon around the very upscale settlement that makes up the residential component of Skidaway. First day total: 24 kms. We had a nice lunch in the local pub, and being bears for punishment, then went on a 3 mile walk on the trails. Not many birds this year, although yesterday we did see a red-headed woodpecker and a piliated, so it was okay.\
We're here until Monday, and aren't really sure where we'll go next. Today was plus 25, and tomorrow the same, so happy to be here for the week-end. Monday..? Who knows. Stay tuned!