Darlington & Myrtle Beach South Carolina

We spent a week with my sister Lisa in Darlington, just visiting and eating. Because everyone was working or in school during the day, we took the opportunity to take in a few sights.

Darlington Raceway- Darlington, SC.

1950 Plymouth- won 1st Souther 500

Some of you may know and some of you may not, Darlington is the home of the Southern 500.  The track had an unusual design when it opened.  It was an egg-shaped oval with one corner tighter, narrower, and more steeply banked because the guy who bought the land promised the farmer who sold him the land that the new  track would not disturb the farmer's minnow pond at the west side of the property.

The first race was held on Labor day in 1950 and a was won by a driver using a 1950 Plymouth, bought from the dealer without any modifications.  The configuration of the track has changed through the years.  The track allegedly earned the moniker The Lady in Black because the walls around the track are always painted white prior to a race, are always largely black by the end of it due to a profusion of tire contacts.  Darlington is also know as "The Track Too Tough to Tame," and racers hitting the wall are considered to have received their "Darlington Stripe."

The Hudson- this car was featured in the movie Cars.

As many times as I have been to Florence, SC in my life, I never knew there was a National Cemetery there.  Most of you know I have a thing for cemeteries.  At this cemetery there was a a unique tombstone of the remarkable Florena Budwin.  She successfully disguised herself as a Union soldier during the Civil War.  She was hoping to find her husband who had joined the Union troops.  She was found out when she became sick, and when she died, they buried here with full military honors.  She eventually found her husband, but both ended up in the notorious Andersonville Prison.  She is supposedly the first woman to be buried in a national cemetry.

We arrived in Myrtle Beach last Thursday and are spending time with our mom's.  Checking out their health and have been pleasantly surprised at how well they are doing.

Come on in!  The water is great! - Myrtle Beach and the Atlantic Ocean

We went over to Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet to meet our "boss", JW, the guy we will be reporting to when we do our volunteer gig there later this year. We are also connecting with some high school friends and other family members.

We plan to be here until June 13th.  We will then head to Charleston, SC for a few days before flying to England to visit Thomas and family.  We'll spend two weeks in England and then we are off to Venice for a few days and then to Carmine, a little village about 3 hours from Venice and not accessible by car, so I'm told.   My son has planned the trip and we are looking forward to the adventure. T & I will return to England to decompress for a few days before heading back to the US July 15th.  I'll have lots to write about when we get back.  Stay tuned.

Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina

May 2-7

Bassfield, MS

We woke early on Thursday and headed to Mississippi to visit friends. Where we planned to stay for a few days. We stopped at the Mississippi visiter's center as we entered the state and viewed the "mighty Mississippi".   

We arrived at Chuck and Anita’s mid afternoon.  Just in time to have a cocktail before dinner.  When we opened up the rig we found a one gallon jug of water that I thought was safely stashed where it couldn’t get hurt had cracked and leaked water all over the back of the rig.  We grabbed all the towels we had out to sop up the water.  Then got out the fans and set them up to blow the carpet dry.  We weren’t in Arizona where the humidity is so low you don’t worry about water on the carpet because with 10% humidity the carpet will dry in an hour or so.  Not so in the south.

Chuck and Anita left the next day for a planned event up in Jackson.  T & I stayed at their place and spent time cleaning up the camper after the days of dust from traveling.

On Sunday I drove down to Gulfport to visit some girlfriends, Cherri and Gay.  We met at the IP Casino, had lunch, visited and gambled for a few hours before I headed back to Bassfield.  I won $50, enough to pay for my  gas.  It was great seeing friends and catching up.

Chuck and Anita got home mid afternoon and T & Molly were there to greet them.  We spent the next couple of days visiting before hitting the road again.

                                                                                                                                                                                                           May 8

Calera, AL

Vizinni Winery

Tom Vizinni & Glo

We arrived around 2:30pm, after an uneventful trip from Bassfield.  When we setup the camper the first thing I did was hit the wrong button on the leveling system.  The leveler retracted the jacks - oops! The whole trailer sank to the ground and stopped.  Once we figured out what went wrong and I got my proper scolding for not reading the directions correctly, we leveled out the trailer and opened it up.

A miner catastrophe had occurred.  Our one gallon water dispenser had slid off the counter onto the floor and dumped water out onto the rug.  It was then necessary to hook up the generators so we could turn the fan on and dry out the rug.  Having all that in place, we headed up to the tasting room; met Tom, the owner, tasted wines and learned a bit about him and his family.  His grandfathers were from Sicily and both were wine makers.  He imports his grapes from Texas and Virginia because he lost his crop to the heat.  I was looking forward to tasting his Sangiovese, but unfortunately he had sold out of all he had bottled.  What he had was still in the barrels and not ready to be bottled.  We tasted a Viognier for the first time. Different?!  We tried about eight different wines and bought six bottles, some cheese and crackers, took a pictured with Tom.  We then retired to the rig for our afternoon cocktail hour.

May 9

Helena, AL

Cherokee RV Park (FH) **

We began our day by taking a walk, buying breakfast and bringing it back to the winery, having it on the patio sitting in the sun.  We then hooked up the rig and headed to Helena, a little town just outside of Birmingham.  I’d never visited Birmingham and wanted to see a little of the city.  

Martin Luther King, Jr & Glo

We were setup by noon and headed into the city.  We spent a few hours walking around the historical part of the city.  We walked through Kelly Ingram Park.  Called a “Place of Revolution and Reconciliation,” the park served as a staging area for demonstrations in the early 1960’s, including the ones in which police dogs and fire hoses were turned on marchers.  Park sculptures are interpreted by an audio tour.I was moved by story the “Freedom Walk” tells.  Memories of the news flashes on TV in the sixties came to mind.

We went to the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame where there is a collection of memorabilia from some of the greats in Jazz: Nat King Cole, Clarence “Pintop” Smith, and Ella Fitzgerald to name a few. 

From there we walked over to the Peanut Depot. It’s located on an old cobblestone street.  The Peanut Depot began in 1907 and uses antique roasters that were purchased used when they first opened, so the roasters are more than 103 years old.  They roast the peanuts without adding oils or preservatives. Harrison was proud to show us how the roasters work.

Glo & Harrison in front of antique roasters @ Peanut Depot

We had an early dinner at Niki’s West a restaurant recommended by RoadFood.com.  A Meat and three restaurant.  Basically it’s a restaurant where food is served cafeteria style.  You can have a traditional meal with meat and veggies or your can select veggies only.  You can guess what I chose.

May 10-12

 Hixson, TN 

Chester Frost Park (W/E) ****

Beautiful park!  We had a spot right on the water. Got in mid afternoon and relaxed a bit before meeting Lonnie & Cynthia J. for dinner at Back Inn Restaurant.  We’d eaten at this restaurant before.  Wonderful food and the view of the river made it extra special.

Current Medals of Honor
One each for  Navy, Army  & Air Force

First Medals of Honor given during the Civil War
One for Navy and One for Army

Saturday, we went to the National Medal of Honor Museum in Chattanooga.  It was amazing what some the men and one woman did to receive the medal.  I did say/write woman.  Yes!  There was one woman who received the medal, … The medal was first given during the Civil War.  prior to that only officers received medals.  The first medal of honor was given by the Navy.  Reading the stories of these heroes brought chills.  It was unbelievable what they did.  Later that afternoon we went to Rock City and did a some window shopping and had dinner at two restaurants.  We had sushi for an appetizer at a Japanese restaurant, the name of which I don’t remember.  Probably because the food wasn’t memorable.  We strolled across the Walnut Street Bridge, first built in 1891 and is now a pedestrian bridge. It was the first “non-military highway bridge across the Tennessee River. We then dined at 212 Market Restaurant where we sat upstairs on the balcony and watch pedestrians going to and fro while we dined.  And because we needed the exercise we walked back across the bridge to the car and headed back to camp and turned in early.  

Sunday, Mother’s Day, we met Lonnie at Savage Gulf for a hiking adventure.  Savage Gulf is one of Tennessee's most scenic wilderness areas.  We hiked 6 miles through some beautiful woods.  We probably shouldn’t have done the hike.  I had a bum foot from when I stubbed my toe

Savage Creek 

Savage Falls

a week before and Lonnie had a bad back.  Non the less we had a great time.

The drive to Savage Gulf was interesting.  Lonnie told us what exit to meet him and that he was driving a jeep.  We thought we got off at the right exit, but Lonnie was no where in sight.  We called , got more directions and were back on the road.  We had no idea what our final destination was to be.  We followed a car which we thought was Lonnie only to discover it wasn’t Lonnie.  Back on the freeway,got Lonnie on the phone and more directions.  We finally caught up with Lonnie in his jeep pickup.  T thought Lonnie was in a Jeep Cherokee.  The drive to Savage Gulf was beautiful, with awe inspiring views of the mountains and trees.  Of course after spending the afternoon hiking we needed sustenance, so to dinner we went.  After dinner we said our goodbyes and headed to camp.

May 13

Norcross, GA

Mary Lee & Kenny S.

We were able to connect with some old high school friends, Kenny & Mary Lee S. We hadn’t seen them in over 30 years.  We spent the afternoon and evening catching up and talking about old times.  Of course we needed sustenance so to dinner we went.  Kenny and Mary Lee live in a little town called Suwanee and after dinner they took us for drive through town to see what there was to see.  We said our goodbyes and were on our way back to camp.

May 14-16

Before leaving Norcross we were able to connect with some RV friends, Ed & Bernice H. we’d met last summer in Camden Maine.  We met them for breakfast before getting on the road .

Ninety Six, SC

View from our Campsite @ Lake Greenwood

Lake Greenwood SP is a beautiful park not to far from our friends Judy & Dan H.  We got in mid afternoon and called Judy to let her know were were here and would be over shortly.  While we were setting up Judy and Dan came over and took us out to dinner.

We spent Wednesday & Thursday hanging out with them, just relaxing and of course drinking wine and eating.  When I say relaxing I truly mean relaxing.  I took pictures of birds coming into our campsite.  Of course Molly was watching closely, too.

Blue Jay

Blue Jay watching me.

After looking at pictures of myself it is easy to see that I've been eating out A LOT. It's time to get back to walking everyday and managing my intake.

Arche' Winery and on to Mississippi

We drove a short distance on Monday to Vernon, TX.  Just a spot in the road, but a place to stay for the evening.

On Tuesday we drove on to Arche' Winery in Saint Jo, TX.  (Arche' is pronounced ar -kaye). The trip itself was uneventful, until we got to where we were going.  That's when the adventure began.  T turned off onto a dirt road that leads to the winery.  However, he continued left when the road split. Wrong way Rhonda was at it again.  He needed to go right.  I drove right and met Howard the owner of the winery.  He was on his tractor clearing the field for us to park our rig.  I couldn't get T on the phone so I drove out and down the road T took.  Unfortunately, the road was a narrow road that lead to a dead end.  T couldn't turn around and had to back the rig up hill.  He was amazingly calm and managed to do it without incident.  We found a place where he could pull through someone's driveway and get going back toward the winery.  When he came to the spot where he was to turn into the winery, there was a ditch and he couldn't make the turn.  So... he drove back out to the paved highway and down the road about 1 mile until he found a place where he could turn around and then came back to the winery.   Howard told us once we were setup to come up to the tasting room.  It didn't take us long to get setup and then up to the tasting room we went.  There Howard's wife, Amy, met us with a cheese and fruit plate and we sampled a flight of wines while we visited with Amy and Howard.  They were wonderful hosts and made our visit fun and enjoyable.  Howard has been making wine for thirty years, but didn't do it commercially until about ten or fifteen years ago.  They sold their home in Plano and moved to Saint Jo; started growing grapes and now have this unique little winery.  Click here to to visit their website: http://www.archewines.com

Howard & Amy 

Arche' Winery - Saint Jo, TX

Later in the afternoon, we drove into Saint Jo just to check it out.  It is a very small town and every place was closed that afternoon.  We'd plan to go to "Mel's diner" for lunch the next day.

We had planned to stay another night, but the weather turned bad.  Rain was expected on Wednesday and temperatures were expected to drop into the 30's.  We felt it best to move on before the ground became to wet for us to get the rig out.  Though we were disappointed that we couldn't spend another day with Howard and Amy, we all agreed it made sense to get on the road.

On Wednesday, we drove over to Shreveport, LA and stayed at Barksdale AFB, Fam Camp.  We had called ahead to check on availability and were told they had two sites available.  Finding our way to the base proved a challenge. We drove around in what seemed like circles until we found the main gate. We couldn't enter through the main gate and had to go around to the delivery gate.  Two hours later we got to the Fam Camp and there were no spaces available.  We ended up in "overflow".  The rains came and we called it an early evening.

On Thursday, we headed to Mississippi to visit friends. Where we plan to stay for a few days. We stopped at the Mississippi visiter's center as we entered the state and viewed the "mighty Mississippi".   We are hoping to get down to Gulfport to visit some friends and see a little of the Mississippi coast.

Mississippi River - between Louisiana & Mississippi