Memorial Day Weekend Sunday. Is there any other way?
Let’s see. 7:30 a.m., Turkish Grand Prix. Check. 1:00 p.m., Indy 500. Check. 5:00 p.m., the Something-or-other Nascar 600. Check. OK, so I didn’t watch every lap of Nascar. I mean, c’mon, 600 laps? Watch the start, check in now and then, and catch the last 30 laps. Done, done, and done!
Having been denied at NAS JAX, we went just to the north of Jacksonville for the night, at the Fort Clinch State Park in Fernandina Beach. We would have stayed through the Memorial Day weekend, but the place was booked solid starting Friday, so all we got was Thursday. But that wasn’t bad at all. Our site was right next to the dune that separated us from the beach. Not bad at all. Since it was still brutally hot, we headed for the beach. I swam while Loni waded. The water was bath warm, really great. I love Atlantic beaches. They
go out very gradually, unlike the big dropoff at our home beach in the Palisades. Plus, you can’t beat the Gulfstream for temps. This beach had a 1/4 mile fishing pier, so we walked out on it the next morning.
Our campsite is essentially that white blob to the right. Here’s the view facing south, towards the posh beachfront homes. All in all, a nice spot, even for just a
day. And it didn’t hurt that we had roast pork loin, red cabbage, fried red potatoes, and fresh asparagus for dinner. Oh, yeah.
We left Friday for the only place we could find that had space available for the Memorial Day weekend, a nice private campground in Darien, Georgia, about 90 miles south of Savannah, our next destination. We’re in the middle of, essentially, nowhere here, but the park is neat, clean, and even pretty with it’s big old oaks with lots of Spanish moss hanging all over. Plus, it’s within walking distance of one of the Waffle House franchises.
I’ve been drooling over waffles ever since we saw our first one of these. They’re ubiquitous in these parts. We tried it Saturday morning and found it a pretty good deal. Everything is cooked to order, including the bacon and eggs. They were cracking eggs into the pans to cook them up. For $5.99 you got a large waffle, two eggs, three bacons, grits (!), and toast. The grits actually were good, as long as they were hot and wet; when they cooled and dried, they were cement.
Well fortified, we offloaded the scoot and got ready to see whatever was in the area. Turned out there was
enough to fill up the rest of the day. Darien was established in 1736 as a military outpost by Scottish Highlanders under the command of General James Oglethorpe. This is the second-oldest planned town in Georgia. Nearby is the site of Fort King George,
which is described on the plaque above. This was the southernmost outpost of the British Empire in North America, and was placed here to thwart the land claims of the Spanish from the south and the French from the west. The garrison suffered mightily from disease, malnutrition, heat, biting insects (I sympathize), and threats from the Spanish and Indians. It was abandoned in 1727, but had served its purpose to establish British presence in what became Georgia. The whole place is a reconstruction, but they used original building techniques and materials, so it’s presumed accurate.
Since it was a holiday weekend, a bunch of volunteers dressed in period costume showed up to act as docents and to give musketry and cannon demonstrations.
They did fire the cannon, but quite reasonably warned that we better put our hands tightly over our ears, so no picture of the firing moment. They were right. Before firing, they asked for volunteer from the onlookers. This poor kid wasn’t quite sure if they were kidding or not.
Having soaked up old military lore ad nauseum from a docent who absolutely loved the sound of his own voice, we got back on the scoot and headed south about ten miles to the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation state historical site in Brunswick. This wasn’t a cotton plantation, but rather a rice plantation! The land was purchased in 1806 by a Charleston merchant of English descent. With a lot of slave labor working in horrible conditions, it became a rice plantation, continuing to produce until 1913, when it was converted to a dairy operation. The neat thing is that it was in the same family hands all the way to 1974, when the last descendant died . . . still living in the house. The furnishings are all original from the many generations of the family. It’s not fancy, but was interesting. In the picture below, the middle shelf on the left holds the family Bible dating back to 1800. The last family member, Ophelia Dent, died in the red chair at the rear.
The place didn’t get electricity until the late 1940’s, and indoor plumbing not much earlier. The old stuff is still there.
This bed was in continuous use from before 1800 all the way through Ophelia’s death. The near posts are carved with a rice stalk design.
El Gordo there was our genial, if somewhat disconcerting host. He had this strange way of ending sentences with an almost accusatory glare as he stared at one visitor or another. We also heard more about his own family than we needed to. He waxed heavily nostalgic for the good old days. Uh huh.
The grounds had several huge old oaks, draped with moss, that allegedly are 800 years old. Gordo doubted that figure, but said they were at least 400. Loni didn’t want to get any closer to the trunk because the biting flies were at their worst in the shade.
And therein lies the title of this post. The flies were so bad that they had put these large tar balls all over the place, covered with the goo, to trap and KILL as many of the nasty buggers as possible. Did, you buggers, DIE!
I’m going to send Capt. Maclay a blistering email. The principal reason for our swinging into northern Florida was to visit NAS JAX and try to locate the old base hospital. ???? you say? Well, because that’s where I was born. Back in the day, Mom was a Wave stationed there, and Dad, after a long tour in the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific as a Marine, ended his service there as well. They both stayed in long enough to enjoy the benefits of free health care for birthing me. So, I’m a Navy brat! They left Florida when I was 2 months old, and that’s the extent of my contact with the state and the South except for a month or two doing FTC work in Ocala back in the 70’s.
We pulled in at the main gate, told the guard we wanted to tour the base, and he directed us to the adjacent building whre all base passes were handed out. He said, and all the signs clearly confirmed, that all we needed was a driver’s license, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance. Done, done, and done. We occupied two parking slots on the bias, and went inside to . . . a line. OK, that’s the military I remember anyway. But, we had arrived just after noon. Everyone had bailed for lunch except for one window. We stood, and stood, and stood, then crawled, then stood, well, you get the picture. Nearly an hour later we were called to the window, pushed our docs under the glass, and were asked: “Do you have a base sponsor?” Uh, no, what’s that? It turns out JAX is a “closed base,” and no one gets on without an invitation. Why didn’t the guard say that an hour ago? Why didn’t ANY sign indicate that BEFORE we waited an hour? “Sorry, that’s the rule.” Well, %&#$@!!(^&!
Watch out, Maclay.
I guess he’s right where Walt Kelley left him all those decades ago. If I thought I was dating myself with those Maverick references, this will surely enshrine me in geezerdom. We never saw a possum, but Albert is alive and well!
We left Hattiesburg and traveled south through Biloxi and then over to the Florida panhandle. Nothing to see here, folks, move along. The panhandle roads, be they the interstate or back roads, mostly have one, monotonous view: trees.
This is not to say that things aren’t green, clean, and beautiful, they are. It’s just that you can only take so many trees. Give me one of those high desert vistas. We made it to the Stephen C. Foster State Park, a Georgia park located in the middle of the Okefenokee. This place is isolated! There were only six other rigs staying there the first night; by the third night, we had the place to ourselves; no other campers. Our site backed into the swamp, and had a nifty view out our back window (that’s the scoot mirror on the right edge).
When they hit the windows, they’d BANG and PLOMP. It was like being under attack. Actually, the big ones weren’t the problem. It was the biting flies, pretty good sized themselves, and sort of brownish instead of black. Smack one of those babies and bright, red blood splashed all over. We decided to wear long pants and sleeves to keep as covered as possible.
First order of business was the nature trail, a raised boardwalk thing through the swamp. Easy stroll, eh?
Actually, this was a fairly dry area of the swamp, and we didn’t see any gators on our walk. We did hear a big bull rumbling in the distance. This is the end of the Spring mating season. Oh joy. Anyway, it was a pleasant walk through the trees
and the water vegetation. That’s a special bush on the left that grows out of cypress stumps.
There was Spanish moss (which hangs from limbs) and bearded moss (which clings to trunks) everywhere
This really is a beautiful park, and a must-see if you’re anywhere in the area. This is the walk back from the ranger station to our campground.
The next day we set out in search of Albert. We had thought of first taking a tour boat, but one of the other campers said it wasn’t worth it, and to just rent a boat. So that’s what we did. After spending a quarter hour trying to keep the first one they gave us running, we switched to a Honda-powered skiff and were off to terrorize the denizens.
Into the dark . . .
It wasn’t long before we started spotting gators right and left. We counted well over forty before we gave up. Most were submerged, only showing a bit:
Some were lying in wait:
Others were out on the banks, getting some sun, and showing off their full size:
Yikes! The average size in the swamp is 5 to 9 feet, with the bigger males going well into the teens. We estimated this guy above to be about 12 feet. This guy was a bit smaller:
It wasn’t in the camping literature we had reviewed beforehand, but they actually had a form of cable TV at each site. They have an antenna on a tall tower that picks up the Jacksonville signals, then they route it (analog only) via cable to the sites. The pictures were so-so, and disappeared from time to time, but hey, in the Okefenokee? So we got to watch the season finales of NCIS and The Good Wife. Cool, seeing as how we weren’t going to take any nighttime strolls with the aerial and amphibious critters.
The next day we decided to break out the Sea Eagle inflatable kayak that we’ve been lugging around the entire trip. It weighs about 50 lbs in the bag, so we unhooked and drove the rig up to the launch area. We hadn’t used it but once before, and that was a year ago at Morro Bay, so of course we had forgotten how to set it up. Mild cursing, a lot of sweating, and we finally got it over to the ramp and into the murk. The swamp water is actually quite clean, but because of the decaying plant matter it is dark tea colored. Looks much worse than it is. We felt rather intrepid setting out in gator paradise with only canvas between them and our bottoms. We didn’t mind them on the banks or at the edges, but when they decided to cross our path out in the middle of the river, we had a few yikes moments. The ranger had assured us they were more afraid of us than vice-versa, unless of course you harass them. Hmmmm. Just what constitutes harassment to a gator? Anyway, off we went. We made no wake.
One of the nice things about kayaking is that you can sneak up on things that otherwise would have long flown the coop.
We think these are white ibis, rather than herons, although we saw both. Even more impressive were the much larger wood storks. Unfortunately, I never could get the camera on one. But it is really neat to be floating through this dark swamp and have these huge birds rise up and fly in front of and above you.
Did I say we hadn’t done this in a year? And that it was HOT? After about two and a half hours, we were exhausted and streaming with sweat. This was a most welcome sign.
The Okefenokee has been the high point of the trip thus far. It’s just so otherworldly. Despite the heat, very cool indeed.
From Jackson, we ventured into the deep South to Hattiesburg, home of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum at Camp Shelby. We got reservations at Paul B. Johnson State Park, which had an interesting below-water-level approach. This was more fun on the scoot.
It’s on a beautiful lake with inlets full of water lilies.
With carved bears standing sentry throughout the park.
The heat wave hadn’t let up, so we did our morning walks as early as possible.
Walks and ablutions over, we offloaded the scoot and set out for Camp Shelby, which was a huge training center during WWII, and now is mostly devoted to national guard training. But it looked like a ghost town to us. Not a soul stirring anywhere. And precious little signage to guide us to the museum. When they DID have signage close to the museum, it misdirected us to the back. I hope they give better training to the guard than they do directions to the public.
Although this was supposed to be a national museum, it still was pretty Mississippi-centric, with a lot of coverage of units and individuals from the state. We had the place to ourselves so we could linger over anything of interest,
and there was quite a bit. We had to take this in honor of Mom, who was a Wave back in WWII.
The thing that fascinated Loni the most was the display about how they launched and recovered seaplanes from early battleships. If the ocean was too rough for a landing, the ship would steam in a tight circle, creating a “pond” of calm water within the circle. The plane would land, get hoisted up, mission accomplished. I’d never heard of this before and am somewhat skeptical about how calm a spot you could create that way. I was most intrigued by the exhibit concerning German POW’s. Camp Shelby was one of the main detention centers. Frankly, those guys lived better in detention than our troops did overseas. They even had a soccer league. We spent several hours enjoying the exhibits and the fine air conditioning. Then it was back outside for the ten mile trip back to the park. We didn’t linger too much on the outside displays of tanks and helos. Hot hot hot!
Loni didn’t feel like cooking when we got back, so . . . enter the Purple Parrot. We had picked up a Mississippi tourist guide at the border, and one of the articles was on cuisine. They mentioned a chef in Hattiesburg who was doing pretty upscale stuff with traditional Southern dishes. We phoned for a reservation at his place, the Purple Parrot, duded ourselves up (I’m sure there were some puzzled looks from the local campers) and motored out on the scoot for the 15 mile trip back to town. For once, the guidebook puffery had substance. This was a very nice place, equal to anything in LA for decor, most patrons dressed up (ignore the buffoon in the T-shirt across the way), and the food was great. Found an excellent Spanish white (and at a reasonable price) on the twenty page wine list, which went well with our fish dinners and my appetizer of fried green tomatoes with lump crabmeat topping. Yes, it was delicious. We drank it all, ate everything put before us, including totally unnecessary desserts, and left very happy campers indeed, even though the pricing was LA quality as well. We even managed to keep the scoot upright all the way home.
Hard rain last night with threat of hail, so we took the runner carpet from the rig and I climbed on the roof to lay it over our solar panel for protection. It has a rubber bottom, so I faced that up to avoid soaking the carpet. Hah. Plenty of splash bounce from the roof managed to get most of it soaked.
Jackson is MS’s capital, so we first visited the Old Capitol Building, which now is a historical museum, the “new” capitol having replaced it in 1903. This building dates from the early 1800’s, and its restoration was an enormous task, but carried out beautifully, from the gorgeous dome
to the legislative chambers, complete with mannequins and recordings of famous debates taken from the legislative records. It was a nifty presentation.
From there we walked a few blocks through an absolutely dead downtown to the governor’s mansion, which is a hybrid. The 19th century portion is immaculately restored and furnished with period pieces and is used for public functions. Attached to the back is a modern townhouse which is where the gov and family live. Seeing as how this was a slow, hot day in the middle of the week, we were the only visitors and got a private tour which was really interesting. Docents really warm to the subject when you show more than a modicum of interest, and she did a great job, with stories about the rooms, former governors, etc. I particularly liked the one about the gov that walked off with the mansion’s furniture, and didn’t return it until he got re-elected years later. And then he sold it back! Unfortunately, no pictures allowed, but she did snap us on the front steps.
Our AAA guide listed a couple of “Gem” (must-see’s) sites in Jackson, one being “The National Agricultural Aviation Museum,” and the other the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. Fortunately, they’re located adjacent, as we were getting very hot and sweaty motoring around on the scoot with helmets. Did I say they were having record heat/humidity just in our honor? To be polite, I think AAA was stretching things a little with the Gem designations. We enjoyed both, but we certainly wouldn’t advise making a special trip to see them. What they DID have was a ridiculously cheap and delicious cafe, which clearly was attracting locals rather than museum visitors. Grilled Tilapia, corn bread, and sides.
The Ag museum was more Ag than aviation, but had some interesting displays.
I’m not quite sure what this had to do with either, but this incredibly detailed model train setup covered a lot of square feet:
The aviation portion consisted of a few crop dusters, a pilot mannequin that had fallen backwards eons ago and never righted, and not much else.
Outside, there was the usual collection of old-time small-town buildings, including a pharmacy, which had a display of old vials, one of which tickled Loni’s blood-banker funnybone. What the hell is . . .
The sports hall of fame was of interest principally to Mississippians, as it only featured displays relating to the state’s athletes and coaches, all the way down to the high school level. Well, almost only. Somehow, there is an entire floor upstairs devoted to Dizzy Dean, who wasn’t born here, never played here, and didn’t announce here. What he DID do was marry a Mississippi woman, and die here. So they got his memorabilia. For me, the best thing was the collection of Olympic Games posters:
Today truly covered the sublime to the ridiculous. It’s all good.
