From Valdosta, GA, in a dump motel we checked into at 1:30, after tooling a nice-looking RV park for quite a while and never finding a 30 amp connector that we could plug our cable into. I voted for no power, which means no fan, but M felt it was still too hot to sleep comfortably. I gots no problem with motels, but I have difficulty, as does he, when it's this late and we can't find a place. Scratttttchy, y'know.
Dumps work for me. I have Crocs sandals that I can shower in, and I don't give a good ^%#!!# about much else. Sooner a dump motel than an RV park with no functioning bathroom - been there!
We left Charleston about four-thirty this afternoon, after picking up a repaired Dapple, who seems to be happy with her service (ought to be, she said darkly.) We'd spent the day wandering downtown Charleston again, seeing the synagogue and revisiting the rock shop I liked, as well as having lunch in a Low Country restaurant (pecan fried whiting with slaw, fried okra, pickled cucumbers, and so on.)
Drove on down to Savannah and tooled around the city by truck; we both wanted to park & walk a bit, look at the buildings, but it was much like San Francisco in that if you arrive by car, you can't GET RID of the car. Literally not ONE parking place. So we drove, instead. If we were to visit again we would definitely take public transport in to the old downtown area.
Savannah is also tree-lined and draped with Spanish moss, sultry, and lovely.
From there we hit the road and drove purposefully toward Valdosta and made it, late at night. I am ashamed to tell you where we had our dinner, but we were tired and not sure what if anything lay ahead on the road, so I will tell you that the sign had a little girl with red pigtails. Gah. So far we have mostly managed to avoid chains, fast food (not counting M's awful addiction to bear claws wherever he can get 'em) and big box stores - I did ask him to let me run into a Target the other day, but he talked me out of it.
We heard our first irritated horn at a stop light today, which made us both realize that although we are slow and cumbersome, no one down here has that California impatience. Hell, people at home honk at me in the Scion if I'm slow off the mark; in such a tearing hurry to get there fifteen seconds before anyone else does. You don't see or hear that here, even in the more trafficked areas, and then of course we have been driving the lesser highways and not the congested places. The owner of the shop that worked on the truck said yeah, more and more people were moving down from the North who don't have that old graciousness that we've found here. "And we don't lahk it," he said flatly.
So - up early and on the road, with the possibility of making New Orleans tomorrow night, if we don't find something fantastically distracting. We're both sort of yeah, we're gonna keep right on - look, a bird! sort of people, although we may see different birds (but HE has they car keys) - anyway, he knows that if I had my way we'd still be exploring Dayton, Nevada. If it's not a flea market it's a rail museum, or the oldest synagogue in Charleston, or public access to the beach, or a cemetery with graves from the 1600's. Always some thing or the other to wonder at.
I'm 54 today. My mother, if she were alive, would've been 95 yesterday. That's why I ate the okra, for her. I still don't like it, Ma. ;)
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