March 19, 2007

Wow! We be playing the memory tapes of the Atlanta Motor Speedway! We
beat the crowd by staying over until today. Got to see what a mess was
left. The unreserved camping area we were parked in (and the folks
there were truly unreserved) was not full of RVers as we know them.

Actually, the whole experience is hard to describe based on experiences
we have had before. Larry the Cable Guy visits Livingston, Montana with
a bunch of Harley wanna-bees … close, but not quite.

We estimate 150,000 people paid $100 minimum for a ticket to one race
on Sunday. The area surrounding the track (we hung out there on
Saturday and Sunday morning, too) is full of vendors selling Nascar
stuff. Those trucks we see on the highway, with 10 foot pictures of
racing drivers, they are full of concession stuff, not cars. Everyone
wears their Nascar duds, all of them, I swear, layered, and they buy
everything from decals to diecast cars, to jackets and jewelry
(earrings with little gold numbers dangling). But there is no food. We
found the food on Sunday, inside the gate. It wasn’t much and it wasn’t
cooked on site. A lukewarm Arby’s sandwich, chips and a coke for two
was $24 and we had to sit on the ground to eat it. Everyone brings
their own food and liquor. Coolers are searched, sort of, at the gate.
I don’t know what they are searching for. A guy ahead of us in the
stands broke out a tupperware ensemble of boiled shrimp and cocktail
sauce about lap No. 182. The guy next to me brought a six pack of Bud
Lite, drank it, polished off a Domino’s pizza and a Kit Kat bar then
someone brought him three more beers and he drank those too. I was
impressed with his bladder (and the mess he left on the floor). Atlanta
Motor Speedway has 1400 toilets.

The grounds are full of huge military displays and Sunday’s race was
preceded by a group of helicopter doing hover stuff. Kurt Russell was
there (no Goldie, darn it) looking uncomfortable on stage with a dozen
military guys in uniform. We couldn’t figure out why Kurt was there
since he didn’t sing and he didn’t start the engines. Sonny Perdue, the
Governor of Georgia, was there, chatting with Kurt. Isn’t that a great
name? Right out of a John Grisham novel.

We passed on the blow-up cushions that have a cup-holder in the crotch,
but we did rent headsets that have a scanner so you can hear the race
announcer and can also tune in to whatever driver you want to hear.

The race itself was very exciting in terms of speed and strategy, but
not wrecks (if that counts for excitement). My favorite driver, Jeff
Gordon, did well until he got caught speeding in pit row and got
penalized a lap. From that point he did what he could to keep my
brother’s guy from moving up on his teammate Jimmie Johnson, who won
the race. Jimmie beat out Tony Stewart, my least favorite guy, in a
really exciting last few laps. I loved the speed and the noise. We had
great seats at the finish line, about 20 rows up ($105 each). The race
was about 100 laps too long for Dave, but he made the best of it. It
was a real gift he gave me. Davey talks to everyone, so he gets the
information we need to understand the rules, etc. We both got a mild,
healthy looking sunburn and agreed it was a great weekend.

We picked up the car and drove back to Griffin, GA to catch Hwy. 16
West to I-85. The interstate took us to I-65 South and our get-off in
Montgomery, Alabama. It was about 150 miles. Not bad, plus we gained an
hour; we’re on central daylight time here.

Alabama seems much greener than Georgia. It’s been close to freezing
every night for the past week, and here we have the door open at 10:30
PM. My traveling buddy likes that! We will work this park and drive to
Birmingham to catch a plane to Palm Springs for the Southeast
Publications spring meeting the first of April.

We’ll give you an Alabama update in a week or two. We know we’re still
in the south from the license plates: American by birth, Southern by
the grace of God.

Love to all,

Sam

Well, we be so excited I had to sit right down and tell sumbody!! We
are at the Atlanta Motor Speedway; Davey got tickets for Sunday’s
NASCAR race for my birthday. This is Friday and we just got settled in
the unreserved RV lot. Not to be confused with an RV park, this is a
lot, very large, and all manner of “recreational vehicles” are pulling
in. Between spending the last week around a truck shop, and one hour
here, I have already seen more cammo hats, rebel dew rags and ugly butt
cracks than I ever wanted to see. Nevertheless, I am so excited to be
here I can hardly sit still. YEEEE-HAW!!

Almost two weeks ago we were leaving High Falls State Park and couldn’t
get up the hill to get out of the park. I had already gone ahead with
the little red car to Indian Springs State Park, our next job fairly
close by. Dave said he noticed transmission fluid on the ground so he
figured the guys in Macon hadn’t tightened something up when they
changed the transmission fluid. I’m thinking, right, $800 bucks and we
drive 60 miles and quit. poop. To make a long story short, we finally
found a guy from Georgia Truck & RV Repair to make a house call and he
determined that the guys in Macon hadn’t put in enough transmission
fluid, so he went out and came back with more and filled it up and took
us for a test drive. Dave sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the
back and the terror we both felt after five minutes was the most we’ve
ever felt together. WUH! This guy drove right on the edge of these
narrow little roads, drove FAST and took a couple of phone calls to
boot! It was really scary. At a relatively wide spot, he stopped the
rig, got out and looked, and announced that we were leaking diesel
fuel. What Dave had seen was diesel fuel that had leaked and dropped on
the transmission. Oh, Lord.

That was on a Thursday and he couldn’t get it in to the shop until
Monday, so we settled back and worked the Indian Springs park from High
Falls. Took the Bird in on Monday and just hoped this guy could get
down into the diesel puller engine and take out the leaky
whatever-it-was (Dave will probably fill in some blank spots here)
(fuel Pump – Dave) and put it back without having to open the front
radiator. With no house, we worked as much as we could, went to Atlanta
and saw three movies and the Cyclorama, an exhibit of the world’s
largest oil painting, depicting the battle of Atlanta. Staying in
motels for a week and eating out was pretty awful but we made the best
of it.

Every motel within 60 miles of Atlanta is full, or will be, due to this
big race. It is hard to describe how big it is. NASCAR was born in
Atlanta and the south and, is still a favored son of the south. We had
planned to drive up early this morning (left the car and the dolly at
the truck shop) to be sure to get one of the $60 spaces. Other,
reserved spaces are $150 and up. Some spaces are built up on a knoll
and have water and electric and cost $7,000 per year. We’re actually
out in a pasture type field and figure we’ll shower on Monday. Our
neighbors are five young guys in a camper, drinking beer from a cooler
with a carborator on the top, in a kid’s wagon decorated with a
memorial flag for Dale Earnhart plus the American Flag, and a skull
attached to the handle. They seem like nice fellows. On the other side
is a father and son rig, the kid is about eight, and from what I can
see, he is about as excited as I am. Only he verbalizes it by yelling.
The noise level seems to rise by the hour, what with all the generators
and planes coming in, very low, to land at the nearby Speedway
airfield. Tonight they have truck races and tomorrow is a 300 mile
race, then the big 500 mile race on Sunday. We have seats for the
Sunday race in the section across from pit row, about 15 rows up, in
the middle. When we got the tickets I went in to the gift shop and the
lady said, “Wull, gitcher ear plugs, yu’ll need ‘em. It’ll rattle yer
chest and yu’ll feel it fer a cupple days after.” I figure the closest
I’ve been to that experience is sitting in a tin toilet when an F-15
went over at the Abbotsford Air Show. You probably don’t want me to
describe it any further, but trust me, it’s memorable.

Thanks to all of you for the birthday greetings. Davey got hisself that
satellite device that lets him find the teeniest hole in the trees. And
I got the Atlanta Speedway!!! I still can’t believe I’m here!!

Love,
Sam

We be okay, feeling the need to let our friends know the tornadoes
missed us. We talked to Jason this morning and he says central Georgia
made the NPR news; we don’t want you all to worry.

It is quite an experience to be in a tornado area. The national weather
service, through our radio weather alarm, works very well. Last night
for a few hours the radio was on every five minutes or so, updating the
track of the storm. They also give very good instructions for what you
should do and not do. We had the heaviest rains I’ve ever seen
yesterday. This country says they need rain, but the water table is
high, and the ground won’t take it, so it just runs in sheets to the
lowest point. There are flood warnings on the radio now. We had
warnings all day yesterday that high winds and a dangerous storm was
coming. Dave used our Georgia map to follow the storm county by county.
We were never in any serious danger, although you never know. The
weather people kept commenting that this storm was taking unpredictable
turns.

Terrible news this morning in a charter bus of ball players from an
Ohio college which somehow turned off an overpass and fell onto I-75
about 5:30 EDT. Six young people killed and others in critical
condition. Awful. To make it worse, the highway is closed and only if
you have been in Atlanta traffic can you imagine how many cars this
impacts. As far as we can tell, the driver took a left exit by mistake
and ended up on the overpass in the dark – it has probably happened
before and a car would be able to brake and turn, but not a bus. Akin
to going under the Greenwood bridge and thinking you were on Franklin
Street.

We shiver to hear news of Oregon and Washington snow. We remember all
too well how long March can be in high desert country. This weekend is
the Forsythia Festival in Forsyth, Georgia. We are going to take in the
clogging and pancake feed. The Fire Ant Festival in Alma is a big draw,
but maybe too far away. Had to get the car fixed this week; found a
great import repair shop and gratefully gave them $550 to replace the
wires or plugs or whatever it was that kept one cylinder from firing.

Love to all, Go Lady Power!

Sam

We be a little bit “odd man out” right now, parked in High Falls State
Park, with families in tents, a rally of the “Coachmen Crackers” Club,
and maybe a few traveling retirees. The campground is so open that we
feel like we’re in a subdivision, a Grandma Moses primitive painting of
“camping in the park,” everyone is so close and visible to everyone
else.

I’m sure we’ve mentioned that there is very little public land in the
South, so people really use their state parks. And there are a lot of
state parks, most of them well designed and maintained for camping,
with level pads, fire pits/grills, tables and even a pole to hang your
lantern (or bird feeder). This park has 122 sites, divided into three
campground areas, with nice showers/toilets and even a washer and
dryer. Also has a screened group shelter, where the “Crackers” are pot
lucking tonight. It’s really fun to see all these folks out, especially
in February! It was 65 degrees today, might rain tonight. Doesn’t seem
to matter.

We were at General Coffee State Park, 100 miles south, for two weeks.
The Gopher Turtles were still in hibernation but the weather was nice.
The job was hard; a number of changes in the past year didn’t work to
our advantage. Sometimes that happens. The guy at Radio Shack declined
to renew his ad in the park map, blaming his business woes on the City
Council and the black Mayor. He is one of the very few people we talk
to who doesn’t instinctively lower his voice when he says “black.”
Blatant racism is rare; subtle racism is everywhere.

We were interested to read this Mayor’s State of the City address in
the local newspaper. He said the day he won the election his wife was
upset and he remembers sitting on the edge of the bed, hearing the news
on the TV and thinking, “What have I done?” He says “The black
community thinks it is the second coming and the white people think
it’s Armageddon.” The Mayor says he prayed a lot. Chapter and verse
were also quoted in the State of the City address. Separation of church
and state is just a concept in Georgia.

From what we could see, the Mayor has done alright. This town of
Douglas, population 10,000 or so, seems prosperous compared to a lot of
small Georgia towns. We did encounter some real rudeness from black
people in Douglas. Nothing you’d want to make a fuss over, just obvious
insolence and mean looks at the store and on the street. I can’t help
but relate it to similar behavior I’ve witnessed in American Indians.
Especially young people of both races seem to be responding to a
generational shame. I believe very strongly that we can inherit shame,
grow up feeling a sting from acts committed years before we were born.
I’ve known for a long time that the American Indian feels his ancestors
should have fought and died, rather than be reduced to living in
confusion and conflict, in a hostile environment, that exists to this
day. Seems reasonable to me that blacks might feel the same way. And
southern whites are probably still dealing with the shame of having
lost the war; they’re acting out in another way, namely passive
aggression.

We don’t run into any black people in the parks and calling on
business owners I have yet to call on a black person. Unless I start
going to church I’m probably not going to have an opportunity to talk
to any black people.

We€™re right in central Georgia now, just off I-75, 60 miles south of
Atlanta. We’ll be here at High Falls for a week, then move 20 miles to
Indian Springs State Park for two weeks. We work both parks at the same
time. We got the Bird serviced in Macon on our way to High Falls. They
changed the engine oil, transmission fluid and rear axle fluid, plus
put in the new torque beam to replace the one that got tweaked when we
had the blowout a year or so ago. It cost $800. Wuh. And that didn’t
include the cost of the torque beam which we picked up at the factory.
But we were glad to get it done. I might blanche at the cost, but Mr.
Maintenance takes good care of his rolling stock and I know it pays off
in the long run.

We toured the Andersonville P.O.W. Museum while the Bird was in the
shop. The museum has a section of photographs showing the infamous
civil was prison for Union soldiers, but also remembers prisoners of
war from all other wars. Very sobering. There are remnants of the
Andersonville stockade and it’s easy to see how the prison was laid
out. The cemetery is heart breaking. As a national cemetery it is still
being used. The Civil War section is so huge. It wouldn’t exist but for
the efforts of Clara Barton coming to the prison and working with a
stolen list of the dead. She was able to notify the families of most of
the victims.

We’re still reading Civil War stories. An ill-conceived war, we find
too many parallels to the war in Iraq. We haven’t learned a thing.

Jason came down and spent a couple of days with us last weekend. It was
great to see him. He and Dave took a good bike ride and we took him out
to eat at the Country Cabin. We’re all so anxious to get Jamie and the
kids moved (Jamie most of all, I’m sure!), hopefully soon.

There are more birds in this park than in the last park. I especially
enjoy the Tufted Titmouse. When I first saw this little bird last year
I was so startled. It has a very large black eye and is like a jay in
that it isn’t too frightened of people. The soft gray coloring and big
black eye give it a stuffed toy look. And it’s call is a funny little
“neener, neener, neener.” It feeds with the Carolina Chickadee and
occasionally the Carolina Wren. My friend Marilyn McGill has tried to
hook me up with bird counters on the internet but I can’t get it
together. One nice thing about getting old is that the mind and body
give definite signs when they are overloaded, and it’s time to take a
nap. I could probably get a lot done if I didn’t take naps … oh,
well.

Love to all,
Sam

P.S. I’m still dressing up for the Academy Awards. This year I wore an
orange and yellow caftan by Sam, very silky (but very sadly and
necessarily polyester). My mother gives me drippy earrings, so I’m well
jeweled. My hooker shoes are long gone; somehow Skecher wedgies are not
a replacement. But I just got a pedicure, so my toes look nice. No
champagne. Damn! Once again I either forgot it was Sunday or forgot I
was in Georgia on Sunday!!

S

I know I just wrote a “how we be” letter, but our current stop on
Jekyll Island these past five days is just so great, we want to share
it. If we were inclined to settle some place, this is the first place
that has appealed to us enough to consider.

Jekyll Island, called “Georgia’s Jewel,” was given to a guy named
Horton, by his Commander, James Oglethorpe, leader of the Georgia
colony. Oglethorpe named it after a friend back in England. The last
known slave ship stopped at Jekyll Island in the 1850s. Historic
remains are built of tabby, a combination of crushed oyster shells
(taken from middens, or piles of shells left by Indians), sand, lime
and water – early day cement.

Jekyll Island came into its own in the late 1800s when a group of 53
industrial giants bought it from Horton heirs for $125,000. They used
it as a club for hunting, stocking the island with deer and turkeys,
and building a huge clubhouse and eventually, individual 20-room
“cottages.” The clubhouse is still being used as a hotel, with 157
rooms (averaging $200/day) and 13 of the original 60 some cottages now
house museums, art guild, book store, etc. Familiar names mark cottage
locations: DuPont, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Furness, Gould,
Carnegie. One leg of the first transcontinental phone call was made
from Jekyll Island when the president of AT&T hurt himself and had to
do his part in Bell’s experiment from here. The tycoons took the train
to Brunswick (private cars, of coure), roughly 70 miles south of
Savannah, then took a ferry to Jekyll. Or they arrived on their yachts.
A secret meeting called by Nelson Aldrich in 1912 culminated in the
Federal Reserve Act and could well have determined the presidency of
Woodrow Wilson.

That transcontinental phone call in 1915 was an omen. As communication
increased, the world infringed on the privacy of the privileged class
cavorting on Georgia’s jewel. And, wouldn’t you know, their pampered
offspring found it boring, not enough action. So Jekyll Island slept
through the roaring 20s and 30s until a farsighted Georgia governor
bought the island from the consortium for $675,000 in 1947.

The Jekyll Island State Park Authority was created in 1950 to make it
self-sustaining and “to make island facilities available to people of
“average income.” Island beaches were the first in the south to open
up to Blacks. A causeway from the mainland was built in the 50s. Riding
around the island today we see brick ranch style houses, nice, but far
from fancy. The Methodists, Catholics and Episcopalians share a church
(the Baptists need their own).

The island is not part of the State Park system in Georgia, but
supported solely by private funding, donations and a $3.00 island
“parking fee.” It is a designated national historic site. So far it has
resisted the high priced condos, strip malls and Wal-Mart, hence it is
beautiful and unspoiled.

This country has a lot of water. For a person who has a slight bridge
phobia, travel creates a little anxiety. There is a bridge going into
Brunswick I’ll remember for a while; fortunately we didn’t have to take
the Bird to Brunswick.

We were not close to the devastating tornadoes that hit Florida a few
days ago. Well, I guess we were a little close, because our weather
alarm radio went off with a tornado watch (not a warning). The alarm is
startling, but we’re really glad we have it. This is not the first time
it has gone off.

Yesterday I walked down to the fishing pier and watched the dolphins
play around the pilings, and gawked at a HUGE cruise ship that steamed
through the intracoastal waterway. Everything is very green and the
dogwood is blooming. We leave soon for Douglas, GA to work the General
Coffee State Park. You may remember General Coffee Park as home to the
Indigo Snake and Gary Gopher Turtle, and a rural area where sales
rejection is covered by “Ah’ll have to puh-lahtly declahn, Miiss
Say-em, but thaink y’all ver-uh much.” (Now that I think about it,
there probably isn’t a place in Georgia that is pretty enough to get us
to live here, but it is mah-ty pleazin’ tuh vizit.)

Warm wishes to you all,

Sam

We are starting to wrap up this job at Skidaway Island State Park. It
has been a fairly good job and we’ve managed to see almost everything
we’ve wanted to see in Savannah. We took the historic trolley tour and
raced home to watch “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” and
toured the Wormsloe Plantation built in the mid 1700s, and Dave did the
roundhouse train museum and I walked through old town to the SCAD art
store … whew! We’ve been busy.

Savannah’s downtown district is a very vital part of the city’s
economy. The 200 year old homes have been restored and many of them are
residences, albeit for more than one family. Some of the homes were
originally as large as one square block, so, even in this apparently
affluent society, that’s a little much. There are eight or nine
“squares,” similar to the spanish plazas, and traffic seems to move
very well around them. We find Savannah to be a little grim, sad and
stained, although it might be the time of year. The weather has been a
little overcast. The downtown area is cramped, as of course that’s how
they built things 200 years ago. The trolley driver tells wonderful
stories about how the citizens of Savannah got together and cleverly
bribed Sherman, to keep the yankees from destroying the city.

The riverfront district, which runs about six blocks, is full of
wonderful places to eat. We got off the trolley and I was immediately
taken with an antique cart full of plants, sitting on the cobbled walk
in front of The Conch. I was horrified to realize the flowers were
fake! Okay, they are silk instead of New Mexico paper or plastic, but
good Lord, this is a city where cyclamen grows wild! My coconut shrimp
dinner almost made up for it, but not quite. The riverfront faces about
four blocks of electrical power facilities, mostly inoperative now. Too
bad, as the Savannah River is right there and they could have a
beautiful waterfront.

The social life in Savannah appears to be very rich, not so much in
dollars but in art and interesting people. The great line in “Midnight
in the Garden “ was that Savannah is like “Gone with the Wind on
mescaline.”

Skidaway Island is just south of Tybee Island, which is just south of
Hilton Head, South Carolina. The island is composed of many gated
communities, very wealthy, some of them VERY exclusive. It’s easy to
feel like someone’s poor relations, staying in the park, although there
are some fancy rigs here and the Vintage Blue Bird club had a rally
here in November.

Early in our stay here we were startled one night at 11:30 by someone
banging on the door. Our caller was Austin, a 7 year old boy who
announced he needed help, his parents were fighting, “My Mom is trying
to push my Dad into the fire!” Rattling on Austin kind of breathlessly
pleaded with us to “call somebody,” and made statements about axes,
chopped off toes, Mom’s drunk, “I begged them to stop, but they won’t.”
Dave called the park emergency number, discovered that the number for
the ranger on call was posted at the office, a mile away. He finally
got connected to the police and told them the story; they said they
would come out.

Austin sat with us for 30-40 minutes, waiting for the police. We could
hear his parents yelling when we opened the door. Austin was very
verbal, concerned that we had called the “big police.” He said he had a
17 year old brother who was in jail because “He tuk a gu-un to the
jew-ohee stoh-ah. Austin is not only very southern; he can’t say his
Rs. I asked Austin if he wanted to be a policeman when he grew up. He
hesitated, then rather shyly said, “Ah awready ayem. Ah lak to ow-west
pee-poh.” Hmmmm….

We finally opened the door and heard Austin’s folks hollering for him
and he leaped out of the bus and sprinted through the dark to his
parents and their pop-up trailer in the handicapped space. (Turns out
Dad cut his own toes off with the ax some time ago.) I talked to the
ranger the next day, who allowed as how it was a very, very sad
situation with Austin.

We are in an area called “Colonial Coastal.” Having forgotten that
Georgia was one of the original 13 colonies, we were surprised to find
so much historic reference to colonial life and the revolutionary war.
People in the south have a visible reverence for their history. It’s
beautiful to see. The Savannah College of Art and Design is housed in
an old cotton warehouse, as well as several other old brick buildings.
SCAD has quite a history of buying old buildings, restoring them and
selling them for a tidy profit. The aforementioned trolley driver
maintains the city won’t let SCAD buy any more buildings.

There is a group here devoted to locating confederate graves and
marking them with headstones. That’s so totally southern. The dead are
very important in the south.

Tortillas here are called “wraps.” Little Willie’s down on the corner
sells gizzard snacks (Jim Crowell take note!) No wraps (or torts) at
Little Willie’s. Because of the proximity of The Landing community, we
have access to a wonderful market, so have been able to get good food.

Jason has started work in North Carolina. They have sold the house and
have no less than three people bidding on their business. Jason is
staying in a long-stay motel until he goes back and gets the family. He
is enjoying the southern hospitality, i.e., “Lemme hep y’all, baby,”
and “Ah’ll be rat theah, sweetie.”

This park has a small museum with a replica of a giant sloth, must be
20 feet high! It is one of only two found in north America; this one
was discovered here on Skidaway Island in 1976. HUGE! (They gave the
original to the Smithsonian.) Skidaway Island is also home to the
Painted Bunting; I’m disappointed to find they are only here from April
to June.

We are leaving Savannah in a couple of days. We plan to go south to
Jekyl Island and Brunswick, then turn east and head to Douglas, GA
where our next job is located. After Douglas we will go north to do two
state parks just an hour south of Atlanta. That takes us up to about
the second week of March when we will wander up the coast through South
Carolina and North Carolina to see the kids.

Well, that’s the news, folks. We are both feeling good, asthma gone, no
more drugs. I’m trying to do the rice diet; I’m doing an integrated
form of it, low sodium and low fat. Just can’t do the No form. Dave’s
doing the modified rice diet, no rice. He’s eating more fruit and
vegetables than he ever thought he’d get, though. And more chicken than
he probably wants.

Love to all,

Sam

P.S. I have really taken to bird watching, although now that I know a
little bit, I realize that I’m usually wrong about exactly what kind of
bird that is. I might have been happier when I thought I knew. Anyway,
I have been disappointed that there are few birds in this park. The
area is much drier than usual this year, maybe that has something to do
with it. Okeefenokee Swamp is so low they aren’t giving boat tours! The
only birds I have seen are 14 Turkey Vultures in the Bank of America
parking lot next to the trendy market.

Musing from Dave:

For you folks living in the gated communities, I’ve got an update for
you. As Sam mentioned, There are several on the Island, including “The
Landings,” which is so big it’s like a small city; it has about four
gates, with guards, don’t you know. Anyway, the residence have bar
codes on their driver’s side windows and scanners at the gate. No
rolling down windows to push buttons or make phone calls – just drive
by the scanner and the gates part like magic. Wouldn’t want to let any
of that outside ‘atmosphere’ into the controlled environment of your
Mercedes or Beemer.

The Village shopping area just south of the park has, in addition to a
grocery store like you would find in Sun Valley, more banks and
brokerage houses than I have ever seen in one place outside Wall
Street. Some are huge! Merrill Lynch is the size of a plantation house.
Having come from rural New Mexico, it’s quite a change.

D.

What a great rest stop in Fort Valley, Georgia. We love this little
Bird’s Nest park; Dave swears Cygnus pulled at the reins and turned
into the gate on its own, happy to get back to the place of its birth.
The weather was in the mid seventies for a few days, Dave got in a bike
ride, we got to the book store and I was able to drop a hundred bucks
in the Warner Robins fabric store. Oh happy day! I have been out of
projects … it’s not a good thing to see lady pacing in a bus!

It was an interesting drive yesterday from Fort Valley to Savannah. We
passed through acre after acre of peach trees. They are all very short,
squatty trees, with new shoots coming on fast. The local orchardists
are concerned about too much early growth happening in this recent warm
weather; they feel sure a freeze is coming. We were surprised to find
zero pecans on the ground at the Bird’s Nest. Apparently there just
weren’t any nuts on the park trees last year, and a very poor harvest
in the whole valley, due to low rainfall. They say the peaches were
made sweeter because of the lack of rain. (There’s that ill wind again
…)

Fort Valley is where I learned that not all beauty salons do white hair
and when they talk about white hair they aren’t talking about hair, but
skin. I should have realized from my shocked reaction that we/I just
don’t understand the south. Well, that was last year, and this year I
have a much better understanding that we/I don’t understand the south.
The South is different from everything I know. This year, however, I am
really trying to accept that difference and not get bogged down in
judgment. Granted, it’s hard to do when I read a sophisticated article
about the refinement of southern women and it includes a recipe for
fried bologna, but I’m going to try. I guess that means I won’t totally
abstain from comments on differences I find amazing or humorous, but I
want my friends to know there is no judgment implied.

Stocked up on books about the Civil War at Books-a-Million. Thanks,
Dick Tuffli, for offering to send me your books. I couldn’t wait. I did
value your recommendations, though, and am already immersed in Gods and
Generals. When I say the South is different, it immediately brings to
mind what I am reading and I can see that some of the stiffening we
feel when identified as “northerners” or God forbid, “yankees,”
probably comes from an ingrained resentment at northerners trying to
tell southerners how they should live when the northerners didn’t have
any idea of life in the South at all. There was a condescension
inherent in the observations northerners made; I am trying to avoid
that. Although (and here she goes again, folks) laughing about the
billboard that shouts HUNT R US isn’t really condescending, is it?

Jason is getting ready to drive to Havelock, North Carolina today. He
has taken a job with D P Associates, (DPAtraining.com), a company with
military contracts. He will be working on a computer project that
instructs pilots. He and Jamie are sad to leave the Cache Valley but
excited about this new venture and the economic stability it offers.
Their non-medical home health business has done well, considering the
area they are in, but just doesn’t provide the income they need for a
family of six. Jason says today that they have a potential buyer for
the business and the prospects for selling the house are good; Jamie
and the kids will stay in Logan for a month or so until those “details”
get resolved. Jamie is detail oriented and indomitable when it comes to
following a plan, so Jason can start his new job as worry-free as
possible. We’ll be glad when the transition is complete, knowing what a
hassle it is to get all this stuff done and move. Wuh. We are about 350
miles south of Havelock and our next three jobs are in Georgia, so
we’re hoping to see the kids before we head west in the spring.

Pictures follow of the The Bird’s Nest at the Bluebird Factory, and of
this little park we’re in, called Skidaway Island State Park. We got
lucky and they let us in to the camp host site, which has a sewer. I’m
amazed at the surrounding flora, it’s so dense with saw palms and moss
and strange mounds, I’m half expecting something I don’t recognize to
crawl out. We will be here a couple of weeks and are looking forward to
seeing the museums and maybe a play and trying some more southern food.

We have missed all of the nasty weather we see on the weather channel.
We may get some cold rain tonight, but otherwise we seem to travel in a
happy, warm bubble … life is good!

Love,

Sam

January 10, 2007

Well, we may have seen it all, now. The lady in the Monaco next door to
us here in Magnolia RV Park, Vicksburg, MS, seems to have a black maid.
We allow as how there could be some other explanation, but a lesbian
relationship is pretty low on the list of possibilities in this
country….

We remember Jackson, MS as the worst road in all our travels when we
came through. Going west, last year, our satellite system broke, dishes
broke, it was awful. Not so bad this time, less traffic and maybe not
so many potholes going east.

Miississippi looks like a lot of Oregon-Washington valleys. Itâ™s a
little dirty, though, and obviously poor. The roads are substandard and
every now and then we see a slum area that is almost shocking. Still a
lot of truck traffic. Diesel is about $2.29/gallon. We’re back in
-hatchee country; my favorite river/creek so far is the Sugarnoochee.

We pulled in to a truck stop, some guy pulled in front of us, so we
went to lunch at a nearby diner. What else to do?! The big experience
was chicken on a stick. They kabob chicken, onions and dill pickle
slices, bread the whole thing and drop it in the deep fryer. It was
very tasty. Dave had a shrimp po’boy. Lots of Tyson trucks in the
parking lot. I really want to know what the average Tyson hourly wage
is now. Bumper stickers in the same lot say “Horn broke. Watch for
finger.” Might not be the place to ask….

As we near Alabama, we start to see Magnolia trees planted along the
highway. At the Alabama border we leave I-20 for Hwy 80 which will take
us straight across the state to Columbus, GA.

We stop early today, after 185 miles. It’s too far to make Montgomery
and there are very few RV parks in between. We tried to stay in Selma
last year and ended up tired and cranky, looking for the Screaming Pig
Ferry Park, which was nice when we found it, but …. So we’re stopping
early in Demopolis, at Foscue Creek Park on Demopolis Lake, a Corp of
Engineers park. We luck out and get the one pull thru. These COE parks
are usually very nice; this one has 37 sites and is really pretty.

January 11, 2007

Woke up this morning to look out and see egrets sailing over the lake.
Nice. I’d like to stay a week. But we push on. Hwy 80 from Demopolis
east is four lane, a good road through rolling green hills. Very
sparsely populated. There are some farms and they have a rebel flag
flying and the lane to the house is marked by the must-have gate posts
and a clump of pampas grass. Houses in the south seem to require those
gate posts; the gate and fence don’t matter so much.

We are in catfish country, so serious they are farming them. I’ve tried
catfish and thought it was awful, but it could have been that it was
frozen, old, etc. I tell Dave I’m going to buy some fresh catfish and
cook it myself. His response: “Get a hamburger pattie while you’re at
it, will you?”

MeMe’s Diner is Selma, specializes in waffles. We’re running on an
empty pantry so stop for brunch. A young man with Down’s Syndrome works
in the kitchen, greets everyone – a symbol of small-town America we
find very endearing.

Montgomery is a big city, hard to get through. We try to stay on 80
East, and we do, but soon it turns to a country lane … very rough and
narrow. We’re seeing daffodils now, here and there, and our old friend
kudzu, although the prolific vine is still dormant, gray and stringy.

The country lane got too narrow, too lurchy. We hopped on US 85 and
went to Opelike, Alabama, then jogged south to Phenix City and crossed
into Georgia at Columbus and now we’re back on 80 again. An hour east
of Columbus and we’ll have this big Blue Bird bus back at its
birthplace. We are pooped after five days of travel, well, I’m pooped.
My lower back and legs are so sore I’m sure I’m going to wake up
paralyzed. Dave says I’ve done the Hwy 80 “clench” for too long.

January 12, 2007

Dave swears he felt Cygnus speed up and turn into the Blue Bird factory
on its own last night. The 24-hour guard just lifts the gate and waves
us through. The Bird’s Nest RV Park isn’t advertised anywhere, I don’t
think, so probably other makes of RVs don’t come in here, but if they
did, they couldn’t stay. As a Blue Bird owner, we stay free and the
facilities are free. There isn’t much in the way of facilities, except
the laundry and it’s nice to be able to use it. Also, the clubhouse has
a huge table/counter, which I use to cut our fabric. We plan on staying
over 2 to 3 days and will travel to our job at Skidaway Island State
Park in Savannah on Monday. It’s really great being in this area on
Martin Luther King Day; the south looks at it as a day of service,
rather than a day off, so there are all sorts of things going on.

Our love to all of you.

Sam

The day I thought would never come will be here in less than a week. I still remember the first time I entered this valley between the mountains. As I crossed the summit of Sardine Canyon and rounded the bend toward Wellsville, the valley just opened up for as far as I could see to the north and the south. Not much along the eastern, nearer, side but a patchwork quilt of farms. The urban part of the area was slung along the foot of the Bear River Range on the west. It was twilight and I could see lights as well as shapes and the top of the mountains sparkled from the alpenglow of the setting sun.

That was 1992 and for some reason this place felt more like home to me than Bend did when I left. After 14 years of work and fun, struggle and ease, loss and increase our family is moving to North Carolina for the forseeable future. Cache Valley, Logan, has been the only home that we have really known, so it is hard to go. Still, the memory of the place will stay with us, and to be honest, the memory of the place will provide more joy in the future than the place itself.

As I am writing this, I can see a blanket of new snow, almost 5″ deep, that has fallen since the early hours of the day. Before long I’ll be out shovelling the stuff from my driveway, but strangely enough I think I’ll miss the snow. It turns out that they see snow once in a while in Havelock, but it is rare and exciting. I’ve always preferred the snow in the mountains, but in North Carolina the mountains are five or six hours away. So, goodbye to snowmen and snowball fights. Roxy won’t be bounding through the snow with her nose to the ground, leaving furrows punctuated with puppy paw prints every two or three feet. I recall the winter, two years ago, when we had 24″ of snow in 24 hours. Dad had shoveled a trail to the Bluebird and our friend, Marc Coles-Ritchie, actually skied to church. The kids had a six foot snow drift and loved to slide down on nylon covered tummies and the tobagan of my youth was put to good use. We will miss the mountains on both sides, white from snow and creased by canyons and chutes, but we won’t miss the accidents and the snow dams on the roof.

January 8, 2007

On the road again. We fuel at a Flying J close to this po-dunk park. It’s my job to get out and direct Dave close to the pump in the truck bay, then I go in to the counter and order 65 gallons. Most pumps won’t let you self pay for more than $75; we usually get $175 per stop. Today I found a new Stewart Wood book for Dave plus a real find, an audio tape of Ronnie’s letters to Nancy Reagan for $3.00. Rachel, the executive secretary at the Electric Coop in Jackson, Georgia says she “lives to walk where Nancy Reagan walked,” so she will probably like this tape. Don’t ask me how I remember stuff like this from a year ago … how could you forget!?!

One hundred miles down the road and we’re in Texas “hill country.” “Hill” is a relative term. The road does undulate a little and we’re seeing scrub oak. The wind is behind us for a change. We’re down to 1,000 feet elevation. This area looks a little like northern California except there is no aerial perspective, no mountains in the distance.

It starts to green up after we get through Ft. Worth and Dallas. We’ve seen two Christmas tree farms, lots of pine trees. I’ve counted 8 Wal-Marts in 275 miles. Lots of Baptist churches, all you can eat catfish. I think this is east Texas.

January 9, 2007

Tyler, Texas looks a lot like the Willamette Valley. Nice town of 83,500. Close to Kilgore, Texas, home of the cowboy rockettes. Weather is spring-like this morning. We’re only 60 miles from Shreveport, LA and starting to see standing water in the ditches.

We’re disappointed not to be doing the Shreveport-Bossier KOA. When I called them from Carlsbad to let them know we were on our way, they said they had given the job to our competitors and it was done! Obviously, something fell through some cracks in the communication between the park and the Southeast Pub office … maybe we can get it back next year.

We take a nice alternative by-pass around Shreveport. It’s beautiful, but BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG, it’s concrete. The slabs are set just wrong for our wheel base, so the Bird literally bucks down the road, slamming stuff around in the cupboards. We hate it!

We’re in pine country here. I-20 cuts a wide swath through stands of pine. Lots of little lakes, a couple of big ones. Louisiana is only a couple of hundred miles across, so we are aiming for Vicksburg, Miississippi.

Mom’s Diner reeled us in for lunch at exit 52. We find it hard to pass up a “Moms” anywhere. This one validated our faith in the cafe of “good eats.” Mom’s was really jumpin’ today, filled with working guys. The cooking people are all black, and our waitress made little Annie Fannie look like a stick. What a cute girl! She knew a lot of her customers and sassed most of them. There’s no sass like black girl sass. It’s happy talk. The diner clatter was punctuated by the fries hitting hot grease every 5 to 7 minutes. It covered conversation. We laughed at Dave’s burger – bigger than the bun, it was irregular, a sure sign of the hand-made pattie! My BLT was pretty pedestrian by comparison, but the waitress was worth the price of the meal. Plus it was next door to Stuckey’s and we got a pecan roll for later.

East of Monroe, LA we lose the pine trees. The road is now lined with some other kind of tree, no leaves, standing in bayous. The egrets are very white against the dark water in this late afternoon sun. Only three Wal-Marts today. I played 40 games of solitaire on the dash and won three.

The highway death toll in Louisiana is 40% higher than the national average. Today’s Shreveport paper says they are considering some road maintenance. Coming from New Mexico, where the death toll is even higher, and the drunk driving problem seems to be the reason, I wonder …. The paper also recounts one local recall petition and an incident of gunshots through the windows of the new mayor’s home. Holy cow!

We’re at the Magnolia RV Park in Vicksburg, MS. At 5 PM it’s 52 degrees; we might fire up the grill. After three and a half days on the road, I’m tired, but Davey stays strong. We’ll be in Georgia by Thursday and will probably aim for the Bluebird factory at Fort Valley, to see if they can do some repair work for us. Our next job is Skidaway Island State Park at Savannah. They are expecting us but we are not on a deadline, so we may get the repair work done on the way. Fort Valley is about one day away from Savannah.

Traveling this way is not a lot of fun, but it is interesting. If we found some place we really wanted to explore, we would stay a day or two. We are both looking forward to exploring more civil war sites while we are in the south this year. I plan to re-read Andersonville and Killer Angels. If anyone has suggestions of a good civil war read, let us know.

Love to all,

Sam