Sunset Beach, part 2

We decided to walk the other half of the island today.  We walked all the way to the end both days, so we've covered the whole thing.

We saw this eagle just sitting on the beach!

He took off as we got close.

And then landed in front of us again!

And took off again.

Here we are, at the eastern end of the island.  That's Ocean Isle over there.

We went to where they have preserved the old bridge, which is almost right under the new bridge.  This is the center portion that would swing out of the way to let boat traffic by every hour.

The little building is where the bridge keeper would stay.  Someone had to man the bridge 24 hours a day, to be sure both boats and cars could get where they needed to go.

These are the controls that were used to open and close the bridge.

We were told a man bought the island in 1955 for about $55,000.  He built the first bridge himself.  The old bridge (which had been rebuilt a couple of times, but always in the same style) was in operation until just 5 years ago.  It was just a one lane bridge, and swung open every hour to let boats through.  The lady at the bridge museum said traffic could get really backed up in the summertime when all the rentals houses were filled with thousands of people.

I found another sand dollar today!  This one is really tiny, barely bigger than a quarter.

Sunset Beach

We went to check out the beach at the town of Sunset Beach.  Sunset Beach is a pretty small town, about 3500 people, and has only been around since about 1955.  It is partly on the mainland, and partly on a barrier island, and until 2010, the only way to get to the island part was to cross a one-lane wooden pontoon bridge.  Every hour, for 10 minutes, the car traffic would be stopped so the bridge could swing open for boat traffic.  There are very few businesses in town... A few restaurants, a couple of souvenir shops, a grocery store or two, a couple of gas stations, several golf courses, but the majority of the town is vacation rental homes, with only about 100 full-time residents.

The beach there is beautiful... And look, day 1 find!

There were actually very few sea treasures on the beach, just lots and lots of incredibly soft, fine sand, the kind that, where dry, squeaks when you walk over it.  

This was our first view, on the walkway over the dunes from the public parking lot.

There were quite a few people here, but nothing like the beaches we went to in South Carolina and Georgia.  And the people thinned out as soon as we moved down the beach, away from the parking area.

The jellyfish we saw along the beach are a different variety than what we saw at Galveston.

We had a purpose to our walk today... I wanted to find the Kindred Spirits mailbox.  I happened upon a story about it while looking up what to do here.  Basically, a woman named Claudia put up the mailbox just at the edge of the dunes and the beach because she just kept seeing a vision of that.  It's been in this location since 1983, and it is kept stocked with stenographer-type notebooks and pens, and people stop and write in them, many people coming back year after year to write in it.

Very cool!  I had to leave my own message.

To get to the mailbox, you have to walk about a mile and a half down the beach, so we got a good walk in!

Back at the parking lot, I had to check out these beautiful, delicate flowers on the cactus.

Rain was forecast for this afternoon, and it came in right on time, so we're taking the opportunity to just relax.

Wishing Well RV Park, Sunset Beach, NC

A new state today!

We pulled in about 1:45 today.  This is a small park.  The office is at the back of what I assume is the owners' house.  I knocked on the door that was labeled "office" when we arrived, and no one answered, so I called the phone number and, getting an answering machine, left a message.  We waited around for a little bit, and then some people who are already staying here happened by, and we asked them if anyone was around.  They told us we should probably just go ahead and pick an empty spot and get hooked up, and then go back to pay when someone was there.

That sounds kind of strange, but that kind of thing has happened more than once in our travels... It's what happens when you stay at some of these out-of-the-way places.

There were only 3 open sites that we could find, and only one that looked like our fifth wheel could fit in, so we took it.  It was a tight squeeze, with trees/bushes on both sides of the site, and a sharp drop-off down to a creek across the skinny little road.  

I was running from front to back to help guide Brad in and make sure no trees were hit, and no ditches were dropped into... and then a guy came over to help... He said he was wondering if we would be able to fit in when he saw the length of our RV... I asked him if he pondered whether to be nice and come over and help, or if it'd be more fun to sit back and watch.  Thank goodness he decided to be nice!  So we're all parked and hooked up, with the air conditioner going and watching the tv. I called the office and left another message, telling them to let us know when they want money.

 Just chilling out for tonight, and we'll explore the area tomorrow.

Work/rest day

Not a lot going on here today.  We planned today as a rest/catch up day, before hitting the road again tomorrow. We're moving on up the east coast, getting just into North Carolina, so we'll be able to scratch off another state!

We had some clean-up things to do today... Sweeping, mopping, wiping down surfaces, vacuuming, rug-beating, hair-cutting for Brad.  When we hit the road after staying at Dick and Marilyn's in The Villages, the RV had sat in a field for a month, and we figured we should clean out any pollen and stuff that had collected while it was sitting all lonely.  Brad changed out the air conditioner filter, too.  We've done a lot of just relaxing today too, while watching golf and following baseball.  We've got a little bit longer drive tomorrow than we usually like to do, so a day of rest is just what we need before closing up and unhooking early in the morning and hitting the road.

This has been a nice quiet park, in a really interesting area, so we'll have to keep this on our list of places to possibly return to

Savannah, Take 2

Well, we had success today finding an open parking garage, the first one we tried, right where we wanted to be.  We were also able to do and see everything we wanted to, and it was a beautiful day.

First stop was the Jepson Center for the Arts, where I had read that the statue "Bird Girl" from the cover of the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" was now located.  It was moved from Bonaventure Cemetery out of a fear of it being damaged or stolen once it became famous from the book cover.  We looked for it the last time we were here, not knowing that it had been moved.

Anyway, you are able to glimpse it from the corner outside the Jepson Center.

There she is, Mom!

The book cover:

Next I wanted to go to the park where Forrest Gump sat and told his story.  The bench was at Chippewa Square, but it was just put there for the movie, and then removed again.

This is where the bench was, though.

Scene from the movie:

The statue in the background is of James Oglethorpe, founder of both Savannah and the state of Georgia.

I was taking pictures of the beautiful Presbyterian church by the square, and then realized the spire of the church is where the feather started falling at the beginning of the movie, finally landing on Forrest's shoe.

And then we walked by the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts.

This is the first and only city hall building of Savannah.

We wandered on down to the riverfront after that.  Such a cool area!

Riverboat

Giant container ship!

Will it fit under the bridge??

Looks like it will fit under, but is there room for it on the other side??

No problem, apparently.

Fire boat

Look at the palm trees on top of the building!

The weekend we got married, we took pictures on this cool stairway that leads down to the riverfront area.

So we had to go find it again.  We had to take our own pictures this time, though.  Looks like they have sandblasted the smiley face off since then.

Tomorrow will be a day of resting and cleaning and doing some catch-up things we need to do before moving on up the coast on Monday.

Savannah... Sort of...

Today we went into Savannah to get a couple of important things checked off our list.  First was getting to the Men's Wearhouse to get Brad measured for his tux for Seth's wedding.  That part went well.

How's the length on these pants?

The gal that was helping us was a hoot, and looked up on the computer for us exactly what tux and tie and stuff Brad would be wearing, and pointed it all out for us.

She promised the slacks would be longer.

We got him all set up, then found a nearby UPS store to get a couple of packages mailed.

Next we headed downtown.  The weekend we got married, we had so much fun wandering around downtown Savannah, riding the trolley along the river, and popping in and out of places for drinks and food.  We wanted to do that again.  Today, however, things were just a mess down there.  Wall-to-wall traffic, construction, people everywhere!  I don't remember it being that crowded the last time we were here, and all the parking garages were full today.  We finally found a spot with a parking meter, and you had to have some "golden dollar" coin to use it.  After trying one more garage (full again!) we decided to head home.  Seriously, we had to have been driving around for 45 minutes trying to park!

We may try again on the weekend, when the parking spots won't be so full of working people, hopefully.  We really just want to wander around again, and I've got a couple of things I want to see and photograph... But we've got to be able to park somewhere!