Two Bike Trails

 

We decided to make a spring trip in the coach that would combine bicycling, bluegrass, and seafood. First we headed south to Eufaula, Alabama to ride a rails-to-trails path called “Yohomo Micco” Creek Indian trail. We parked in downtown Eufaula and went north on the trail which formerly was the Central of Georgia RR. Soon we were riding along Eufaula Lake and crossed a trestle. The trail then left the rail bed and wound through some neighborhoods and past two schools before ending in a park.

      

      

      

      

      

Upon returning to downtown Eufaula we rode around town on the bikes looking at historic mansions and ate dinner at an excellent place called “River City Grill.” We stayed at Lakepoint Resort, an Alabama state park.

             

      

      

     

The next morning we headed east towards Douglas Georgia which is east of I-75 at Tifton, GA. Leaving Eufaula we crossed Lake Eufaula (Chattahoochee River). The route was very hilly. We continually crossed geological “ribs.” We stopped at a roadside market, a rare sight these days. We bought some local mayhaw jelly, blackberry jelly, and tupelo honey. As planned out using Google Earth, we parked at the board of education in Douglas and got on the Douglas Trail which is also a rails-to-trails project. On our return to the coach we hopped off the trail in town and rode one block to a good pizza restaurant and strapped our dinner prize to the back of George’s bike.

      

      

      

      

      

      

We spent the night at nearby General Coffee State Park which was a pleasant stay except for the bad weather news we received.

      

The remainder of our trip involved heading to Brunswick where we would bike at Jekyll one day and have a seafood lunch in Darien, GA the next. Then we would head a short ways east from Brunswick to Hoboken, GA for one day of a bluegrass festival. The weather forecast called for 100 percent heavy rain with 20 mph winds gusting to 35 mph. No way we could handle that, so the next morning we headed home. All in all a great trip with two good bike trails.

Camak Railroad Day

George was looking at the schedule for one of our favorite bluegrass groups, Little Roy and Lizzie. He saw they would be playing at the “Camak Railroad Day” on April 6, which we had never heard of, but since it combines trains and bluegrass, it sounded like something we should attend.                                                                                                                                                                                   The Little Roy and Lizzie Show at Camak                                                  

Camak is about 35 miles west of Augusta and a little south of I-20. Some very nice ladies were in charge and when we called ahead they allowed us to park at a church near the festival that is now owned by the city. We loved camping there next to the magnolia trees, and it was so quiet right next to the cemetery.  There’s something to be said for quiet neighbors.      

                                                                                                                                                       Our Overnight Stop in Camak

Camak is a tiny town with municipal facilities not much bigger than Carrabelle FL. Previously it was home to three railroads, but all have been acquired by the CSX system. We took a motor coach tour of a rock quarry operation in the town. A locomotive ride was available within the limits of the quarry but we did not do that. George gave in to temptation and had a funnel cake despite the fact that he is a member of Funnel Cakes Anonymous.     

                                                                             Downtown Camak            

One of the original railroads was the Georgia Railroad that connected Atlanta with Augusta. George used to see the trains go by when he was teaching in Decatur, GA, in the seventies. At that time the freight train had one passenger coach attached to the rear. On our return to the Atlanta area we basically followed the Georgia Railroad. We headed back west and decided to visit Madison where we biked downtown and saw many historic downtown buildings and homes.  We also saw the Georgia Railroad station and the sign that alluded to General Sherman’s destruction there.    

        Historic Railroad Station in Madison, GA   

  Downtown Madison, GA

After having lunch in the Walmart parking lot in Madison, we headed on down the line to George’s old college, Emory at Oxford, where we rode on the Oxford trail. The only comment and featured photo were submitted by us at Trail Link. 

                    Biking the Oxford Trail                  

After riding the Oxford trail, we cruised through the Oxford campus. George recognized only one building and thought it was a replica of the original because the brick had been cleaned.

        Seney Hall, Emory at Oxford                

After cruising the campus, we returned to the coach which was parked at the Oxford City Hall where we had previously been given permission to park.                                                                                                                                  Oxford City Hall
Upon departing Oxford we parked in a Kroger Grocery in Decatur, GA, detached the truck, and visited Irene’s sister nearby. We then reattached the truck and drove to the Sandy Springs Walmart until George’s doctor’s appointment in the area  on Monday. We did a lot in three days – railroads, bluegrass, biking, reminiscing, visiting family, patronizing Walmart, and going from tiny town to big metro.

The Palm Beaches

After the Caribbean cruise we spent a few days back at the Outdoor Resort in Port Saint Lucie since we enjoyed it so much in January. We then went to the West Palm Beach area to John Prince County Park that we have visited for several years now. It is a marvelous bicycling spot with a seven mile loop trail. We also like being on the lake and enjoy seeing the water birds and ducks. It is near West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, and Lake Worth. The more we come to this area, the more we value it. We have explored points to the south including Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Each has some positive points, but we have concluded that the West Palm Beach area is the best of south Florida. There is much to do here, but we really enjoyed our visit to Worth Avenue  in Palm Beach, a very high end shopping district with stores like Tiffany, Gucci, and Channel to name a few.                                   What makes this shopping district unique are the side alleyways known as “vias.” We enjoyed the architecture and landscaping as well as lunch at Pizza Al Fresco at Via Mizner.                                                                West Palm Beach has a nice downtown area centered around City Place, a Mediterranean style shopping and dining venue, and Clematis Street, the traditional shopping and dining area. A free trolley connects the two. The city has also built a waterfront area where a green market is held every Saturday that has a generous number of vendors with food, flowers, produce and assorted items for sale.                     Then there is Palm Beach across the waterway with multi-million dollar homes and the famous Breakers Hotel.  Donald Trump has a spa there known as Mar-a-Lago that he claims is the greatest mansion ever build. Worth a look.  The winter weather is unmatched by cities on the west coast of Florida due to its location adjacent to the warm gulf stream current. West Palm Beach claims to be the cultural center of south Florida due to its museums, performing arts center and art shows. We went to a jewelry, art and antique show at the convention center that had items that you might expect to see in a museum, but here they were for sale. For instance, paintings averaged about $300,000. The jewelry looked like something Liz Taylor might have owned.  We also enjoyed a photography exhibit of Annie Leibovitz’s portraits at Norton Museum and the docent’s tour of the exhibit.  Green Cay Nature Center is a good example of nature showcased in Palm Beach County, and we attended a Nature Talk there, seeing a number of birds and a few turtles and alligators.                     We hope to be back next year.

Two Weeks in the Caribbean

 

This year we decided to take a cruise during our winter RV trip to Florida. We found a great place to store the coach in Tampa and to board Tina. We also switched back to Holland America where we have taken all of our previous cruises with the exception of last summer’s Alaska cruise on Princess. We clearly prefer Holland America because of the larger shower and because of the fresh orange juice for breakfast and better coffee.

We sailed out of Tampa on Holland America’s Ryndam about 5:00 p.m .on January 27, 2013, beginning our two week Caribbean cruise.

        

 

Our first stop was at Holland America’s “Half Moon Cay,” a small island in the Bahamas.   

        

Then it was on to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We enjoyed San Juan’s old town area and old forts. The visit was particularly meaningful to George because two of his doctors are from there.

                                     

           

        

                                 

We enjoyed returning to St. John, Antigua where the high view of Nelson’s Dock Yard is always impressive.

        

        

While we have enjoyed St. Thomas, Virgin Islands in the past, we are sad to say that the shopping district has deteriorated into a cheap carnival atmosphere where store hawkers pester shoppers at every turn.

Castries, St. Lucia was new to us. We took a tour of the island that took us atop a mountain where we got a good view of our ship in the harbor.

        

        

Our ship then sailed a couple of hours to the other end of the island to pick up passengers who had taken a tour across the island.  They returned to the ship by tender.  There at Soufriere we saw the Pitons, Gros Piton and Petit Piton.

        

We enjoyed our return to Willemstad, Curacao. We like the Dutch architecture and enjoyed the public market where vendors come in their boats from Venezuela which is only 58 miles away.

        

We found Aruba and Grand Cayman unremarkable, but enjoyed the balmy weather and the days at sea.  We both enjoyed the kitchen tour on the Ryndam and seeing how the food service is organized, and Irene enjoyed the florist’s flower arranging demonstrations.  The entertainment on the ship was excellent.  We especially enjoyed the 4 shows performed by the singing/dancing group and also the Adagios, a violinist and pianist from the Ukraine.. 

         

“Summertime” and the Living is Easy!

 

After the festival we headed south and spent the first night at Daytona Beach. Here we began to experience the warm Florida weather that draws us south each year. The next day we reached our destination of the Outdoor Resort at Port Saint Lucie, FL.

     

Our friends Jack and Mary Lou and Jack and Gerry were already encamped, and we settled in to a routine of dining out and having happy hour at each other’s coach as well as a pasta dinner at the clubhouse. 

      

After Jack and Mary Lou departed, we moved to a more mature part of the park to an owner’s lot that is landscaped and tiled. We are enjoying the lush tropical landscaping. One of our favorite activities is having lunch on the brick patio behind our coach overlooking the golf course and lake with fountain. Tina really enjoys these lunch outings as well.

     

We are also working on identifying the different varieties of palm trees based on training we got last year in Key West from a retired botanist who was staying at Boyd’s campground where we were. We are here for about two and a half weeks just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful warm weather. Of course, one of the first things we did was to head up to Nelson Family Farms to get some Indian River oranges and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Jack and Gerry took us on a “tour” of Stuart, a charming picturesque town just south of Port St. Lucie.  We ate lunch at the Pelican Café overlooking the water – a great place for fish tacos – and then walked along the waterfront and along the shopping street. 

     

Annual Migration South

 

We are happy to be making our annual RV trip to Florida, though we miss the bicycles. George’s doc says no bicycling until his back heals. We left home a day early albeit late in the afternoon. We drove only as far as the Acworth, GA Wal-mart where we spent our first night on the road in quite cold weather. We did have an unfortuitous event to occur wherein we accidentally pumped all our fresh water into the holding tank, so we spent a truly dry night giving new meaning to the term “dry camping.” The next day we headed on down to Fayetteville for a service stop at Richard and Jaye’s and enjoyed a nice visit and lunch and were feted with a bag of wonderful edible goodies. That evening we made it to the Baxley, GA Wal-mart where we bought fuel and spent the night.

              

The drive from Baxley to Brunswick is always George’s favorite as he loves the long, straight sections of highway with the tall, straight south GA pine trees. We spent the night at Brunswick at the Coastal Georgia RV Park which is new to us and a really nice park. We did this in order to be able to get over to the bluegrass festival on Jekyll early so as to get a good parking/camping spot. The new convention center is quite impressive, and we enjoyed the bluegrass festival. 

                    

The Little Roy and Lizzie Show was our favorite group this year.  The guitarist is the mayor of Ellijay, and his sister plays bass.  We enjoyed walking on the paved trail along the beach, and  Irene enjoyed browsing in the shops in the historic district.  The weather was moderate with some rain early.