By Shelby
Monday, we worked from the condo and then went grocery shopping. Tuesday, we made dinner after work. We made pasta with marinara sauce and steamed broccoli. Spencer also had a salad. While I made dinner, Spencer finished up getting the car ready to go. He even had time to lay out all the pamphlets we got from national parks, so we could see how many we got so far. There were quite a few.
Wednesday, I spent the day cleaning the condo while Spencer worked, along with bringing our things out to the car. After work, we had leftover pasta, broccoli, and salad for dinner. When we finished dinner, we got back out on the road. We had an hour and a half drive to the Planet Fitness in Florence, South Carolina. This was about the halfway point between Myrtle Beach and Congaree National Park, our next destination. It was supposed to be very cold that night (down to the 30s), so we ran the car while we slept. We both slept very well. The parking lot was nice and quiet.
Thursday morning, we drove another hour and a half to Congaree National Park. The park was very unique and swampy. We did a 5 mile hike through the floodplain. A lot of it was on a boardwalk, which was nice.
While on the hike, we saw interesting cypress trees that had “knees” coming up from the ground. Their exact purpose is unknown, but it’s believed that they either help stabilize the tree during high winds and floods or allow roots to take in oxygen since most of them are underwater. They were kind of creepy looking.
While on the way out of the park, we managed to get a picture of the odd speed limit sign – 27 mph! From Congaree National Park, we drove around 2 hours to north Charleston. We noticed the air in north Charleston was very smelly. After doing some research, it’s likely due to the paper mill in the area.
Friday morning, we went to a local park south of Charleston and did a quick walk on a boardwalk through a marshy wet area. It was very pretty. The weather was also pretty nice. The breeze was still chilly, but the sun was great.
Our next stop was the Angel Oak. This was a 400 year old oak tree. It was very unique looking. Massive branches hung so low they touched the ground. Wood support beams were used to help prop them up. It was crazy that this tree was older than the U.S. itself.
I was very excited for our next stop, the Charleston Tea Plantation. This is the only tea garden in the U.S. I love tea. We did a short factory tour through the tea production area. We saw how the tea was harvested. They use a custom tractor to snip off the new growth on the top of the tea plants. The tea leaves are then withered and then oxidized. To make green tea, the leaves are not oxidized at all. Black tea requires the longest oxidation period.
At the gift shop, we were able to try all their types of tea for free. My favorite was the Charleston Breakfast Tea. Spencer doesn’t normally drink tea but he was happy to try them all. He liked the iced raspberry tea the most.
We also had the opportunity to walk around the grounds of the plantation and see all the tea plants. They even had a pond that supposedly a small alligator lives in.
After we finished with the tea plantation, we drove on to Fort Pulaski National Monument, near Savannah, Georgia. Fort Pulaski was taken by the Union Army during the Civil War. The Union Army was able to take control of it within 30 hours due to its use of rifled artillery, which was more accurate and could shoot further than the smooth bore weaponry that was more commonly used at the time.
The fort was very cool. It had a drawbridge, a moat, tunnels, and cannons. There were spots in the wall where we could see battle damage where cannons hit. Spencer brought up that it was interesting that there were palm trees around the fort. It seemed unusual.
When we finished walking around the fort, we drove on to Tybee Island to watch the sunset over the water from a pier. After the sunset, we ate leftover pasta for dinner.
As we were leaving Tybee Island to head to Planet Fitness in Savannah, we noticed a lot of police cars with their lights on and people setting up chairs along the side of the road. We looked it up and it turned out there was a Christmas parade about to start. We decided to stay and watch it. It was weird seeing Christmas-related things with palm trees and warm weather. That night we were able to sleep with the car off, since it wasn’t going to get cold. The weather is definitely starting to get warmer as we go further south.
Saturday, we got brunch at Two Cracked Eggs Cafe near the Savannah River. We got scrambled eggs, sausage, grits, and a huge biscuit. Spencer wasn’t a big fan of the grits, but the biscuits were great. We also walked along the Savannah River and saw a couple huge cargo ships slowly pass by. We could see several large container cranes further upriver and learned that the Savannah Port is one of the largest and busiest in the U.S.
After brunch, we spent a few hours exploring the historic district of Savannah. It was very beautiful. The houses and buildings were gorgeous. There were small parks every few blocks and tropical plants everywhere. We even saw lemon and orange trees. Flowers were in bloom and it was almost 80 degrees out. Savannah is probably one of my favorite cities in the U.S. so far.
While walking, we made a stop in a park where a scene from Forrest Gump was filmed. This is where he sat on a bench and told his story. As the day went on, the area got very busy. We stopped at the visitors center to rest for a few minutes. We were doing a lot of walking.
When we got back to the waterfront along the river, there was a Christmas market going on. We walked through it and checked out all the stands. We even saw Santa. He must have been hot in his thick coat.
When we started to get a little hungry again, we headed toward The Lady & Sons, Paula Deen’s restaurant. They served southern food family style. We both got to share 2 main dishes and 4 side dishes. We chose seafood gumbo, southern fried chicken, mac and cheese, collard greens, candied yams, and creamed corn. For our included dessert, we got banana pudding and vanilla cake. It was all pretty good and had tons of butter, which Paula Deen is known for.
After dinner, we drove out of Savannah and headed south to Kingsland, Georgia to sleep at Planet Fitness. We made a quick stop at the “smallest church in the US”. Unfortunately, it was dark and we couldn’t see much. Sunday, we drove on to Jacksonville, Florida, where we plan on working from next week. We had a great week.
Fun Facts from Week 32:
- Congaree National Park is one of the tallest temperate hardwood forests in the world.
- After the Union Army took Fort Pulaski in the Civil War, the fort was occupied by the 48th New York infantry.
- The historic U.S. highway 80 has endpoints in Tybee Island, Georgia and San Diego, California.
- The S.S. Savannah was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. It was chased for a whole day off the coast of Ireland when it was mistaken for being on fire.
- Despite Georgia being known for being the Peach State, it only ranks third in the U.S. for peach production. California actually ranks the highest.
3 responses to “Week 32”
Love reading about your trip across the country. Savannah looks absolutely gorgeous and the pics of food make me hungry. Thanks for sharing!!
I loved Savannah! It had a different feel from most cities we’ve been to so far. So beautiful! Thanks for following our journey and commenting! 🙂
Finally got to read this. I’ve always wanted to go to Savannah. Food looks good too