A Little Retroscective about our Trip South

The photos are taken along the ICW as we passed through South Carolina. We are anchored in Turner Creek just south of Savannah on this Saturday afternoon. We arrived in time to listen to Ohio State play and beat--albeit barely--Iowa. Go Bucks!!!

We are in dolphin country here. We have been seeing dolphin since nearing Beaufort NC but here they are plentiful and playful. As we approached Beaufort SC the other day, two dolphin surrounded our boat and frolicked along beside us.

We are also in the presence of billions of stars. We can all see stars on clear nights but parts of the intra-coastal waterway are so far from towns, cars, homes, and any form of artificial light that the sky of stars that we see at night is unlike any sky that anyone can see from land unless they are somewhere in Montana.

And we are in the South. We have fallen in love with southern dishes all over again. Ever since, Jim and Vicki from Biloxi, MS, who rein as the king and queen of southern hospitality and who are our friends, fed us real southern grits (with cheese) we have yearned for more southern dishes. In Charleston, we chanced upon a restaurant that served grits and shrimp covered with a layer of cheese and topped with a sweet hot sauce. We've been trying to reproduce the dish ever since with marginal success.

And we are now in the presence of more southern hospitality. We were treated well in Deltaville VA but we must comment that a southern gentleman who was cleaning his boat near where we anchored took time from his day to row over to our boat and knock on the hull. When we popped our heads through the companionway he greeted us with, "Welcome to Savannah." We exchanged a pleasant conversation. He even offered to run errands for us if we needed groceries or whatever.

We will continue to run south for the next few days because we are expecting mail to be forwarded to Brunswick GA and wish to arrive there as soon as possible. We are also being stalked by a cold north wind that makes even a day like today--sunny with a high in the mid 70s--a cold day out on the waterway. We can't seem to shake the Yankee curse of cold weather.

I have been remiss in mentioning the enthusiasm here about military culture. Charleston hosted a huge Veterans Day parade with high school marching bands, high school ROTC marchers, dozens of jeeps with soldiers in full regalia, and a long line of bikers--veterans of Korea and Viet Nam wars. One old fellow who watched the parade with Mandy and me remarked that these parades used to feature pretty drum majorettes but now days we have old fat bikers instead.

Near Halloween, Mandy attended a children's parade of costumes in Elizabeth City. Having been the first year of the past ten that she was not trick-or-treating with the grandchildren, the scene brought tears to her.