50 years ago today

Today is our last full day here. We did some more exploring on our bikes and I think we pretty much know our way around. The island is actually fairly small and with only 1/3d of it developed it's easy to stay oriented. These are some random pic's I took of our time here. The stained glass window was designed  by Louis Tiffany who was asked by some guy named Singer (sewing machines) and another good bud named Pulitzer to make a window for the Club's chapel. We leave tomorrow but will probably drag our feet. Just so we don't forget, we stayed in the Cherokee Cottage room 6102. 

50th wedding Anniversary

We are staying for 4 days at the Jekyll Island Club in Georgia. The club was established in the 1800s. At one time the members of this club owned 1/6th of the wealth of the entire country. It was pretty exclusive. After WW2 the state of Georgia bought the island and made it a state park. 2/3rds of the island has to remain undeveloped. Consequently, most of the island is covered in primordial old growth forest. The club property is magnificent. This would not be a place to vacation on a budget but it has been a great place to celebrate Jenny's birthday our 50th. The room we have is in one of the homes that was built by one of the club members. It's almost as big as our house. Anyway, we are here for one more full day and then it's back to the real world.

finally home day 5

I didn't post yesterday because we were at  a KOA in Yemassee SC. That town is only 30 miles from home. Why did we stop 30 miles from home, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. I wanted to give the holding tanks a good flush before we put the MP 3 in storage for 6 weeks before our next trip. That process takes a little time and you need to be hooked up to a sewage system. All commercial campgrounds have full hookups so we used the facilities at the KOA to flush the tanks. I have 2 vegetable gardens. One at the house and one at the community garden. I made sure I got everything in the ground before we left. I ordered some weird Radish seeds from the Burpee seed catalog and planted them the day before we left. The result is in the picture. The red radishes were supposedly jumbo. Looks like they were. As a side note, I ordered 12 Jerusalem artichokes from another catalog and by God all 12 have sprouted. That plant is not an Artichoke by any stretch of the imagination. Google it if you're interested. That's it for this trip. Davejennyjournal is going bye bye until next time.  

Drive home day 3

This park is on the Suwannee River at White Springs Fl.  Stephen Foster wrote over 200 songs, one of them was "Old Folks At Home" with the lyrics "way down on the Suwannee river". When he wrote the lyrics he was looking for a river with a 2 syllable name. He settled on the Pee Dee river but someone mentioned the Suwannee, a river he had never heard of, and that's what he used. There is no evidence that he ever saw the river. That is some worthless trivia. We've got one more stop before Beaufort. 

Drive home day 2

We finished up with Louisiana, drove through Mississippi and Alabama and are now in Florida by about 40 miles. We have camped here 3 times. It's just off of I 10 and we have stopped at every park along that route several times. We are still in Florida tomorrow. It's a long way across the Panhandle. 

Drive home day1

We are in a KOA that we have been to, way too many times. The camp is just outside of Lafayette in the town of Scott. During the slog on Interstate 10, WAZE told us to exit twice because of something or other that was up ahead on the Interstate. We did that so we got to see some of the countryside. There is a restaurant sort of place right at the entrance to the KOA that sells Boudin balls and Cracklin. These are Cajun dishes. I called my friend John Begnaud to ask his advice and he highly recommended I try some. We did. I probably won't know if I liked it until tomorrow. Aubrey had her prom and

sent us a few pics. The other pic was taken at the reunion. The ladies were horsing around. Florida Panhandle tomorrow. 

last day in SA

We hit the ground running tomorrow. Our plan is 4 one night stands. We should be in Lafayette tomorrow. It's a little over 400 miles, and that will be our longest day. The pic is Jerome's living room. Quite a bit different than Larson's. 

50th reunion day 2

I'm pretty sure this will be our last official, campus sponsored, reunion. Tonight is Aggie Muster. Everywhere, around the world, Aggies gather together on April 21st to pay tribute to our fellow Aggies who have fallen the previous year. Obviously, the Aggie Muster in College Station is by far the largest. Every year's graduating classes 50th Reunion is held on campus on April 21st. The Muster will also honor our class, the class of '74. We sit on the floor of the coliseum and somehow get recognition. I remember when I was a student here seeing former cadets who graduated 50 years ago was unreal. Those cadets are now us. We leave for the coliseum in a few minutes. Tomorrow we return to SA and after a couple of days there we will begin our drive home. 

50th reunion day 2

We did our class meeting this morning. There are over 300 of the class of 74 people here. The Maroon and White game was today so we attended a portion of that. After that was a visit to the George HW Bush presidential Library. We will start drinking soon so I decided to post this early. Tomorrow is Muster.

Texas A&M 50th reunion

We made it to College Station with only the expected I 35 slowdowns. There is a very good crowd with all the usual suspects. We have already done a couple of organized activities and we have a dinner in a few minutes. It will be a busy weekend. 

San Antonio

I didn't post anything yesterday because I just didn't get around to it. Our trip through Houston was surprisingly uneventful. When we arrived at Jerome's driveway we discovered that some tree branches were infringing on the space required to park in our regular spot. I got up on the roof of the MP and dispatched them with a saw. Jerome has done a remarkable job of making Larson's house into his house. There are still a few things to do, including hanging pictures, but the transformation is 95% complete. We are here all day tomorrow and leave for College Station early Friday because we have activities beginning Friday Morning. 

Big Thicket Nature Preserve

We had to drive about 20 miles to get to the Visitor Center. The preserve is spread out all over the place. There are different Units of varying sizes. We did 2 hikes in 2 different Units. The flood that rolled over this state park also flowed through parts of the Preserve. There was alot of evidence of a Biblical flood. The pic of the bridge is an example of some of the damage. The Pitcher Plant is carnivorous. Insects are attracted to the flower by a sweet smell, they slide down into the well of the flower, are held there by downward pointing needles and are subsequently digested. Pretty diabolical. There was a field that had hundreds of those plants. We move tomorrow to SA.

Village Creek SP Texas

This place is in far East Texas near Lumberton. The actual creek that flows through the park, Village Creek, is currently flooding. The only part of of the park that isn't under water is the campground. There won't be any extracurricular activities here. However, we're near Big Thicket National Preserve, and that place is apparently not flooded. We'll head over there tomorrow. Jenny and I did a bike ride through a neighborhood outside the park. There were a lot of small mud volcanoes everywhere. They are made by crayfish. I have no idea what crayfish were doing underground in people's yards but it probably has something to do with extremely wet conditions.

Lake Lincoln day 2

I really needed a decent workout today because I haven't done much in the last few days. I rode outbound on the roads we drove inbound on. The roads are so bad it was like off roading. It looks like they spread the asphalt with a rake and padded it down with a shovel. I did ride behind the dam and took those pics from on top. I rode back in a drainage ditch. We did a hike later to close Jenny's rings.

Lake Lincoln SP Mississippi

I didn't post yesterday. We were at a Harvest Host brewery/Meadery. I tried some Mead. It's just fermented honey and water. The more honey they use the sweeter the taste and the higher the percentage of alcohol. It was pretty good. Our drive today was fairly long. The last 15 miles were pretty gross. This is hillbilly Mississippi and we made a dozen turns onto narrower and narrower roads, a section that was dirt. We are here for 2 nights. 

Mistletoe day 2

We haven't seem any Mistletoe yet. This park has 14 miles of trails. I rode over to the trailhead for what was advertised as the most difficult in the park. I got about 1/2 mile into it and said nope. It rained some last night and the rocks and roots were wet and slippery. There were plenty of other trails that were more Bike friendly. After I got back Jenny and I did a hike. Jenny has an Apple watch and she tries to close all 3 rings every day. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it. It's an Apple thing that Android owners don't have to put up with. We ate lunch in Appling Ga. at a restaurant called Granddaddy's Kitchen. Mr. Granddaddy roamed around his restaurant talking it up with his patrons. It was down home cooking. We have a 300+ mile drive tomorrow and we'll be staying at a Harvest Host brewery in Dothan AL. That will be a one nighter.

Mistletoe State Park Ga.

Today is the first day of our trip to Texas to attend my 50th Aggie Reunion. We decided to take the MP3 and drag our feet on the way. The get together begins on  the 19th so we have a few days to kill. We will stop in SA and leave the MP in what is now Jerome's driveway and take the Forester to College Station. We are here for 2 nights. As you can see have a a waterfront site.

Some Trip Stats

January 5th to February 2nd, 8 state parks and 1 commercial park, 5 states, 1,529 miles on the MP 3, our milage ranged from 12.5 to 15 MPH. All in all is was a good trip. The weather didn't cooperate as much as it should have. I took a pic of this sign somewhere along the way. It should be taken literally and can also be a life lesson. 

Last day out

We did a long hike this morning around the perimeter of Laura Walker SP. After that we drove a few miles to visit Okefenokee Swamp Park. It's a civilian facility on public land. They have a boat tour and a Rail Road ride. We did neither. There was a Camellia garden with several different varieties. See pics. The weather today was, without a doubt, the best we have had the entire trip. Our last day. Should be home tomorrow. 

Laura S Walker SP Georgia

We are just outside of Waycross. We have been here before but it was probably in the original MP and neither one of us has a clear memory of our prior visit. This is our last stop before Beaufort. Our stay here will be for 2 nights. 

Ocklockonee day 4

Our plan today was visit a State Park not too far from here. All of our Nav systems gave us different directions. Turns out, that park is 16,000 acres and it does not have a headquarters building. There are several roads that enter the park property and none of them has a sign indicating that fact. Massive confusion. We eventually gave up. That deer is a famous resident of this park. It has given birth to 2 white fawns but neither one survived. We move tomorrow into Southern Georgia.

Wakulla Springs

We are still camped at Ocklockonee but we decided to drive 30 miles to this place, which is another state park, and take in the sights. The park covers over 6000 acres, most of it off limits to people. We did a boat tour on the upper portion of the spring. Tons of wildlife that was completely habituated to tour boats. Even the turtles didn't flinch. The spring is gargantuan, I think the guy said 400,000 GPM. The Lodge was built by the previous owner. His name was Edward Ball. Kinda weird. We are here one more full day. There is another place we can visit tomorrow.

Okeedokee river day 2

OK, let's talk about the Red Cockaded Woodpecker or RCW. This park has a large stand of old growth Longleaf Pines. The RCW is our only woodpecker that makes its home on old growth living trees. Only 1% of that habitat remains, you know, because we cut down all the friggin trees. The RCW is very rare. It was declared "endangered" in 1970. The trees that support RCW nests here in the park are marked with paint and are given special protection during the periodic prescribed burns. Other than being rare the RCW isn't particularly noteworthy. It's a little bigger than a bluebird. The red-cockade (on the male only) is a small red streak above the cheek. The nest in these live trees can sometimes take years to make. The male incubates the egg helped by "helper birds" from the previous nesting season. You will be tested later. We did a long hike around the park this morning and I took these pics.

Ochlockonee River State Park

This park is 4 miles south of the bustling community of Sopchoppy. We arrived here a few hours ahead of a tornado warning. As the storm approached we moved to the campground bathroom. That's twice we've made that move on this trip. The storm ended up being disappointing so we were only hunkered down for half an hour. I took that pic of the Ochlockonee river a few minutes before the storm blew through. 

St Andrew's last day

We had nothing on the agenda today. Our next state park looks like it's in the boonies so we did an inventory of our staples and went shopping to stock up on things we needed. The weather was good so we rode our bikes into town after lunch. This place is pretty bike friendly with wide sidewalks and low speed limits. We saw this building on that ride. There is a strip of land just outside the park where the tornado did the damage. It is a mess. Roof damage, windows blown out, fencing knocked down, an insurance companies nightmare. Not sure about cell coverage tomorrow. Satellite TV probably won't work because we will be under a bunch of trees.

St Andrew's day 4

We were in a fog bank all day long. At its worst the visibility was a few hundred yards. We did get out and do some exploring even though we couldn't see much. I took this pic from the top of a sand bluff that I'm pretty sure used to be a sand dune that has been eroded away by half. I'm pretty sure tomorrow is our last full day here. I'll have to check. Today we talked to a guy that we camped next to in Alabama. Weird. That unusual looking thing is a Sea Hare, a form of sea slug. We saw a bunch of dead ones on the beach yesterday. That one was alive and swimming near the shore. If you poked it with a walking stick it would expell purple ink. Great fun.

St. Andrew's day 3

Today was an epic hike. The city of Panama City Beach is on a peninsula that gets narrow at the end. The State Park occupies the tip. We hiked around the perimeter of the park walking along the beach on both the bay side and the Gulf side. 6 miles. That bird is a Little Blue Heron. It is obviously way more blue than a Great Blue Heron. A couple of those pics were taken yesterday. 

St. Andrew's day 2

This morning we caught a ferry to an undeveloped barrier island. It's surreal to walk on a spectacular beach and have it completely to our selves. We took too many pics to post in one day so I'll post a few more tomorrow. You might remember that we had to hide out in the campground bathroom during a severe storm a couple of weeks ago. That storm blew through here and a tornado destroyed a dry dock marina. Pics included

St. Andrew's State Park

This place is in Panama City Beach. Driving here was like driving through Myrtle Beach on steroids. Souvenir shops, putt putt golf, water parks and thrill rides lined both sides of the road. That was left behind when we entered the park. We think this park must have taken a hit from a hurricane in the not to distant past because there seems to be a lot of new construction and there aren't any trees in the campground. That fact Is good for satellite reception. We are here for several days but there is rain in the forecast, however it will be warmer. It's always something. There are gobs of deer roaming around and there is supposed to be a colony of pure white squirrels. Haven't seen any yet.