Month: November 2009

Yesterday we arrived in historic St. Augustine. It’s very Spanish here. It was the first Spanish settlement in North America. Some of the old walls were made with a type of concrete which is just oyster shells mixed with sand or clay.

It’s a bit too touristy for me in parts, but the architecture is beautiful.

It reminds me a bit of the south of France. We camped at Anastasia State Park. It felt strange to be camping amid palm trees. Morgane peeked out the window in the morning and made a joke. “This is one nice Wal Mart parking lot,” she said.

Yesterday was a full day! We celebrated Holly Days in Savannah and Morgane got to see Santa, play in the snow, ice skate and other things that made us a bit homesick for Canadian winters. Not that homesick, mind you!

Morgane also blew her first bubble with bubble gum. She was very excited and jumped up and down after each one.

We went to the Artzeum, part of the Jepsen Museum of Art. We were the first ones there and Morgane got to experiment with architecture. We also read a great picture book about understanding symbols in art.

We saw the biggest spider ever while walking down the street. It was easily as big as my hand. After that, we felt a bit homesick again. But not that homesick! We played at the park and Morgane made a friend who wanted to play princess musketeers with her, so she was very happy.

As you can see, Ghis has finished his wonderful work on the blog. We’re not sure if we’ll add more colours, but I like it a lot now.

Morgane tried figure skates for the first time and managed to spin around again and again. After that we went to see A Christmas Story (old classic) at the Lucas Theatre. Then we were just in time for the fireworks and to see a few decorated boats go by.

After that we got in the van, put her to sleep in her car seat and drove all the way to Jacksonville, Florida. It feels significant that we are here. It’s the first time in months that we are not surrounded by fall foliage. It’s really different here. Even the Wal Mart where we slept last night had palm trees And these funny little birds.

It’s a beautiful crisp day, not exactly the weather one would associate with Savannah. I think it’s usually more sultry here. But it is perfect and I walked around a lot of the city this morning.

Last night we slept at a motel in Aiken and tonight we are in Savannah at the Hampton. That’s our favourite hotel. The beds are so comfy! It’s warm during the day but getting cold at night.

Morgane amuses herself very well while we drive. She has been cutting paper for three days now. Yes, the van is full of little bits, but she has been cutting out magnificent snowflakes and decorating letters of the alphabet and now she is making accordion faces that pop out from the page. This week she decided to start writing, too. Late one night she just said, “Now I can write.” Since then she has been writing us wonderful love songs.

Savannah is pretty different. Some vegetation hangs down off most of the trees. The older streets are cobblestone. Savannah has the largest historical district in the USA because they surrendered during the civil war rather than see their city torched.

Morgane and I went to a park with a large fountain. The city has so many squares that they are named alphabetically and go from A to V.

Tomorrow we will visit a cafe in a train and see the river. Ghost tours are popular here. I would like to hang out in the squares or parks or sit in a cafe.

Today is Thanksgiving here and the city is fairly deserted. We’ll see if it’s different tomorrow. Thanksgiving weekend is a big deal in the states. There’s lots of Christmas stuff around already.

We are thinking lots about Ghis’s sister who is going through a scary time. She has not been able to see very well lately and we are not sure what is going to happen. Our thoughts are with her and we wish we were with her at this time, too.

We left Asheville and drove through the mountains. It’s off-season, but it looked very touristy in parts. We stopped in Bryson City and found out that the road to Chattanooga in Tennessee was closed, so we decided to go south to Georgia instead.

We weren’t in Georgia for long before we crossed over into South Carolina. We are headed for Savannah which is almost on the border between the two.

Last night we stayed at our first State Park. It was excellent – clean and quiet and inexpensive – $16. I am having trouble using my Canadian credit card (with the chip that they don’t have down here) and my interact card (sometimes they want a zip code?). Better to have cash.

Morgane made a friend and the two girls played together constantly until we left. We told the GPS to take us on the small roads and around lunchtime, we passed a lively looking restaurant / shop in the middle of nowhere (on a road called Due West).

It was called Grits and Groceries and we had lunch there. Ghis had great fresh asparagus. I had shrimp and gravy and grits, but it was too salty to eat, so I had the quail and okra on grits instead which was much better. We didn’t have cash, but they said we could mail it once we got to Savannah, so we will.

Now we are still heading to the coast, but not in any rush. We are stopped in a very pleasant library where Morgane has made another fort.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so we need to grocery shop since everything is supposed to be closed.

One thing I forgot to mention is this is rocking chair country. Love it!

Before leaving Sunday morning, we had a lovely breakfast with Claudia in Chapel Hill. She is in my writing program at UBC (a distance program). It was fun to meet face-to-face and she did what promised – she introduced us to grits and hush puppies.
We ate at Mama Dips.

The hush puppies were yummy. They are corn fritters – kind of like pogo sticks without the hot dog, but corn flour instead. I liked the grits, too, although it’s strange to eat something so white. They taste good with butter and Claudia swears that with shrimp, they are to die for!

Thanks Claudia for the wonderful southern breakfast.

Then we drove to Asheville. After not driving much for two weeks, we drove the four hours in one stretch and were pretty grumpy when we arrived. But once we found the visitor centre, we were welcomed by Phyllis. She told us that she traveled in her RV for 8 years! She also invited us to a storytelling event at an elementary school the next morning.

Then we went and saw a ton of gingerbread houses that are part of a huge competition. They were at the Grove Park Inn, an amazing hotel. We walked around and admired the stonework and the many Christmas trees.

Then we spent the night at Wal Mart. It was pretty quiet.

This morning, we went to the storytelling. It was fun! There was a story about a frog who got turned into a prince and was very upset because he liked being a frog!
Then we went to the Arcade, which is a historical shopping centre downtown. We bought fudge – very tasty – and I bought felting supplies. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time! Morgane is very keen on it, too. We met another Westfalia owner and with her we visited the office for Asheville’s sister cities – they have 6 or 7! They had art on the walls from children in all the sister cities. Morgane was inspired and made them this picture for their wall.

Then we drove to Chimney Rock, which is just past Bat Cave in the mountains. It was a very windy road. We got close and then found out that our park pass wasn’t valid there. It was late enough that we decided not to pay. We just admired the stones in the little shops below.

Morgane convinced me to buy her a sphere-like rock that the saleslady said we could crack open with a hammer. We actually have a hammer in our van, so we got it out and put the rock in a sock and she hit it with the hammer. Then I hit it with the hammer and it cracked open. Inside were crystals of some sort. Morgane was really excited!

Then we went to see Where the Wild Things Are. I’ll give you my review and post pictures later since we have to go now… Still finding ticks on Carmanah and some day she seems strong, others not so good.

I’ve started packing since Eliza has passed on many of Tom’s old books to us. This meant I had to get rid of some other stuff. Tomorrow we are meeting Claudia for breakfast in Chapel Hill. She is in my writing program at UBC, but we’ve never met face to face.

She suggested we eat at Mama Dips. It looks properly southern, so we should be able to taste grits and hush puppies.
http://www.mamadips.com/

Yesterday Jim helped us a lot in mapping out the next part of our trip. We’ve decided to head to Florida sooner and try to get to Texas by Christmas (where we’ve had a generous offer to join the festivities).

Once we put sticky notes on all the maps, it became obvious that we want to spend a lot of time in New Mexico and Arizona.

So onto Asheville, then Savannah, Georgia, then Florida! Morgane is looking forward to meeting the princesses at DisneyWorld.

Today we walked down to Falls Lake. Very beautiful!

Also Morgane got to help groom the dogs.

Today I had to work on my writing for school so I stayed in. We started the day with a family hot tub. Then Ghis and Morgane went to explore the lake. Once Jim, Eliza and Tom got home, we all hung out and now they are helping us with our itinerary for the next part of our trip (Georgia, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona…)

As you can see, Ghis has been changing the blog’s format. Let me know what you think! Now you can click on pictures to see them in a larger format.

Morgane and I spent the entire day at the kid’s museum in Durham. It was great!

Outside they have a percussion area where you can beat a variety of drums (and non-drums). We also saw a black bear, some sleeping lemurs and two beautiful wolves who reminded us of Carmanah.

Inside we saw ants crawling through tubes and visited the free butterfly garden. We identified skeletons and played with a cloud. We used wind to blow sand and created patterns on a machine that played them as rhythms.

We also saw the alligators and snakes get their weekly meals.

Morgane especially liked places where she could manipulate sand and water or measure volume using small beads.

Ghis is cooking Pad Thai for dinner!

I’m putting up on old video from Vancouver this past July. Morgane took it herself on her little camera.

Skunks Playing