Savannah Trip - We're Here!

After loading up, hooking up, getting the girls and me settled in the back seat, and Hubby and Mama in the front seat, we were ready! A quick prayer asking for safety and a good trip, and we are on our way. It's 5:05 AM October 31st.

We had a great trip down, with no problems at all - if you don't count the fact I had planned on sleeping in the narrow back seat with two dogs sharing it with me. Trust me, sleep doesn't happen in the back seat of an F-150, especially not with 2 dogs in your face! We stopped at the rest area just north of Macon to walk the girls, take a potty break and get a cup of coffee for Hubby, who was doing all the driving.

Next we stopped at a Waffle House just south of Macon, near the Geico building for a late breakfast and gas, and we are back on the road! We got to Skidaway Island State Park just before noon, checked in and went in search of the perfect campsite. Luckily we got our favorite site (and yes, we've camped there a couple of times before), number 56 in loop 4. It's a long, and deep campsite with your own private pond that changes with the tides.

We got the camper in place, put up, the truck and everything unloaded and ready for a week's fun! After a short rest, we decided it was dinner time, and had dinner at Carey Hilliards at the intersection of Montgomery Cross Road and Waters Road. I couldn't find a website, but they have several locations, and the food, while good, isn't anything out of the ordinary. Mama and Hubby had flounder and shrimp while I had the special - a hamburger steak with grilled onions, two sides for $4.99!!!

Sunday we got up and ready and headed to Kellers Flea Market at Abercorn and Hwy 17 (Coastal Highway). It's a huge flea market, and we didn't see near all of it, but enjoyed our visit. The hardest part for me was visiting the pet section! There were several Dachshund puppies, but what stole my heart was a Papillon puppy - oh, be still my heart! But, alas, two pups are enough for us, and the $400 price tag was waaayyyy out of our budget! But I was impressed with the cleanliness and rules in the pet section.

While there, I decided I wanted some good Mexican food and ended up at La Nopalera near Oglethorpe Mall, and only a few miles from our campground. I have to say, the food was delicious! I had a combo plate with enchilada, chile relleno, rice and beans, and a tamale on the side. It was all good - the tamale wasn't great, but the chile relleno was wonderful!!! Then we headed back to the campsite to rest up for Monday. And yes, I did pull out the Maalox, but the food was worth the mild case of heartburn!!! :o)

Monday we headed north through Savannah up to Hilton Head - sorry, not one of my favorite places - and on to Beaufort, South Carolina, which IS one of my favorite places! Our main reason for visiting was to take Mama to see Hunting Island State Park, which is just a gorgeous place! We camped there a few years ago, and trust me when I say it is a very special place. If you like the movie Forrest Gump, some of the island will look familiar, as many of the Vietnam war scenes were filmed there.

We had a late lunch/early dinner at Barbara Jeans in Beaufort, and it's really good food! We got back to the campground late, and day two was ended.

That's it for now. Enjoy the few pictures in the slideshow below, and I'll share more with you later. Blessings friend! Becky

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Our Vacation - Day Three at A43

It's been another beautiful day. The weather is perfect, and the breeze off the lake cools us down wonderfully! We stayed here most of the day, but got out and rode around for a little while before stopping for dinner. That's what this post is about. Dinner!


We went to Smoke Rings BBQ in Hiawassee, Georgia. It was really good. Here's a picture of their menu . . .





We ate out on their deck, and here's the view - isn't it lovely!




That's Lake Chatuge beyond the next door building, and below are the mountains to the east of the lake . . .

I ordered the BBQ Chef Salad, and a baked potato on the side.

The potato above was totally unnecessary.

The description of the salad said mixed greens, hard boiled eggs, bacon, cheese, onions, croutons, tomatoes, cucumbers and samplings of our sliced smoked pork, beef brisket and turkey. Small samplings, hmmmmm. I was not expecting the three 4 ounce servings of meat on that monster of a salad!

It was delicious. The leftovers will be delicious for lunch tomorrow!

So that was our third day here at the lake. More of the same tomorrow. Blessings, friends! Becky

Day Two at A43

On our second day of vacation we . . .

ate breakfast . . .

paddled in the canoe . . .

played dominoes . . .

ate lunch . . .

played skip-bo . . .

ate snacks . . .

played dominoes again . . .

went out to dinner . . .

played Triple Yahtzee . . .

ate watermelon . . .

took showers . . .

crashed in the camper!!!

Oh, and we watched the wildlife, too! There were crazy people on jet skis, wave runners, boogie boards and skis out on the water, and on land there were birds, squirrels, geese and a pair of groundhogs. Fun!

(See that canoe? That's 'Red' our mid-life crisis little red convertible!)

Muskrat Love - scratch that, Ground Hog Love!!!

We're going out riding and exploring tomorrow - maybe I'll have more pictures next time! Blessings friends! Becky

A43 - The First 24 Hours

In a word - wonderful! That's the best way to describe the first twenty four hours here at A43, the temporary home base of Camellia Cottage, Too. Right now, as I write this around 6:40 pm on Monday evening, this is my view . . .



and I'm sitting here enjoying the low 80's temps with a nice breeze right outside this . . .


in a lawn chair, with my feet propped up on the bench (left hand side) of the picnic table, here . . .



Today we . . .

paddled in the canoe . . .

had a nice lunch . . .

read and relaxed here in the campground, played a crazy game of double 15 dominoes . . .

watched the lake some more . . .

had a brief thunder storm and light rain shower, then watched the skies clear and bring back the sunshine . . .

had DQ for dinner . . .

and now we're still sitting here, enjoying the nice breezes and cool temps and watching the lake. I'm so glad it's not going anywhere, and neither are we, at least not until Sunday! And tonight - ahhhhh this is perfect sleeping weather!

Have a blessed day, Becky

Heading Home

The residents of Camellia Cottage, Too are ready to pack it up and head for home.



It's been a week of rainy, cold days, and sunny, warm days, and I must say I prefer the latter!

We have seen lots of beautiful country . . .



Seen the signs of 'progress' . . .


Learned a lot about the Civil War history of this area . . .

And saw lots of beautiful signs of spring . . .

And now, I've got to get dressed and get this tin can packed up, the car and truck ready to go, and hit the road back toward home! And I'm ready!

See you back at Camellia Cottage! Becky

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jog!

We are back home from our camping trip to Lake Richard B. Russell State Park! It was a great week in many respects. The weather was gorgeous, and that's always a great start for any vacation. We also spent much time just doing nothing, which was so good! We both read a lot, played dominoes and skip-bo, and just sat beneath the trees and watched the birds and squirrels and the glints of sunlight reflecting off the waves on the lake down below.

The squirrel to the left, well, I nicknamed it Murch because a book I was reading had a character of that name. It and it's buddies were bold little rats! They would come right up to the picnic table and take food off of it - with us sitting there! One time I caught one on top of the cooler where we kept our 'outside' drinks. Don't know what he thought he was going to do, because there was no way it was going to get into that cooler alone!

When we got there on Saturday around lunch time, there were few campsites to choose from, so we took the one we thought was best of what was left, and ended up it was a great site. It wasn't waterfront, but it was surrounded by trees, and fairly private. We put up the canopy on the camper and had a nice big 'yard'.

Saturday afternoon was my time for 'nesting', or making things nice. Getting everything organized, hanging the welcome sign and the windsock, which was strategically placed on one of the tie lines for the canopy so we wouldn't hang ourselves on it! Also putting out the tablecloths, making the bed, just making things nice for our week.

Of course while I was doing that, hubby was in his favorite place, the reclining lawn chair! He spent a lot of time in that chair this week, and I'm GLAD! He works long hard hours, and has a long commute to and from work, and this trip was all about letting him recharge, refuel and relax!

Here's a nicer pic of our camper and our 'home away from home' for the week.

We (all 4 of us!) sleep on the end in the foreground, and I sleep right at the window, with my head in the lefthand corner. I have put a memory foam topper on the hard camper mattress, and we have an old down comforter and a fleece blanket, and carry our pillows from home, so we have a nice cozy bed. I love to lay there at night with the canvas window down and look out at the stars and watch the trees blowing in the breeze and listen to the silence until I fall asleep. What a life!

The "girls", Bailey, seen here, and Bessie, seen here, just love camping. My theory is that they love the fact the four of us are together almost 24/7 and they get a lot of attention. But, they could understand what a vacation is all about, I guess.

We went canoeing a time or two, but didn't really have much heart for it after we saw the lake. As you may know, we in northern Georgia are in the midst of a horrible drought, and it's in it's third year. We live not too far from Lake Lanier, and it's down like 17 to 18 feet below full pool. Our lovely lake looks so sad! But when we were at Lake Russell about 6 months ago, it wasn't down a bit, and we had a wonderful time canoeing up into the cove that went by the campground. There was a stream coming into the lake there, and beavers had built a dam so there was a nice place to paddle and look for wildlife. We could get right up to the dams and even had beavers come up to check us out right beside the canoe.

This trip was a different story. We couldn't get NEAR the beaver dams because they were in dry land! There was just the slightest trickle of a stream, and all the coves we loved to explore were dried up. In the picture below, you can see the trickling stream, and all that sand where water used to be. If you'll look on the horizon, on the lowest point of the treeline, well that's still not as far up as we used to paddle. We would go way up past that point, curving and turning following the stream up into a marshy area where we would pull up to sandy areas and look at raccoon, deer and wild pig prints in the sand. It was so depressing to find it in such a state this trip!

If you'll look in the water here ^^^, you can tell it's very shallow - only a few inches deep, and we got stuck a couple of times and had to push our way out into deeper water. Our canoe only draws a few inches of water, so will take shallow water easily, but not this shallow.

This is one of the coves we used to love to explore. See those trees way in the back that are beginning to turn color? Well, we could paddle right up to those trees just a few months ago!

Another former cove - way back to where the trees are, that was all water, and we paddled up in there and looked for whatever we could find. We often used our paddles to scoop up lost fishing line, hooks and floats so we could get them out of the water where they wouldn't entrap animals.

Another view of how badly the lake levels have dropped. Where that green grass grows now, not so long ago it was all under water.

Ditto - all the way to the tree line and beyond used to be part of the lake where we paddled our little red canoe.

This whole area used to be under water and full of birds and small animals, but was a watering ground for larger animals like deer and wild hogs.

Okay! Enough depressing pictures. Here are a few pics of the canoe - and us!

Hubby >>>Me >>>

So, in twenty five words or less, "what I did on my vacation": eat, sleep, read, play, paddle, walk, bike, trikke, rest, relax, chill . . . . hmmmmm, that's about it! Pretty cool, huh? Everybody have a great weekend! Blessings friends, Becky