We’re in Florida!

 

We had a short drive from Jekyll Island to our next stop at Fort Clinch State Park in Fernandina Beach, FL.  We love the oak trees there, especially the tree canopy on the main road through the park.  We bicycled from our camp site in the Atlantic Beach Campground down the canopied road out of the park and to Fernandina Beach.  We enjoyed riding along the beach and down streets of homes. 

         

Returning to our campground, Irene detoured to the Fishing Pier to see the view from there.  A couple who were walking on the pier told her there was a Harlequin duck, native to the arctic, swimming near the end of the pier. The man had a camera with a long telephoto lens. Curious to see the duck and enjoying the walk along the pier, Irene continued as the fog rolled in.

Despite the quick dives of the duck, she got a few photos.

         

She also saw a shrimp boat some distance away.

                  

The next morning, there was a beautiful sunrise that we could see from the coach.

The arctic vortex that affected most of the US moved into Florida that day, first with rain, then high winds, and a hard freeze overnight, the first of the winter.  The low was 25 degrees, very unusual for the area.  The low in Rome was around 7. 

As we drove south toward Port St. Lucie, it was sunny and the temperature reached the 50’s. Our Chihuahua Tina enjoyed lying in the sun on the dash of the motorhome.

Jamming at Jekyll

 

At the end of December, it’s time to head south!  Our first stop was in Fayetteville to visit Jaye and Richard and their family.  We enjoyed seeing them and catching up on what’s going on with each of them.  Rob told us about his job (sort of new) and we saw photos of Susan and Joe’s new home – very nice!  After going out to eat with everybody, we spent the night in our motorhome at their home and hit the road Sunday morning heading for Brunswick. 

It was raining and chilly in north Georgia, but when we reached Brunswick, the temperature was 70 and sunny.  We enjoyed having lunch at Skipper’s Fish Camp in Darien.

                  George’s Crab Cake and Onion Rings

and met up with Mary Lou and Jack who arrived at the same RV park en route to Florida.  We all went to lunch at Indigo Coastal Shanty in Brunswick the next day and then bicycled the north end loop of Jekyll Island and returned on the bay side, cutting through the Historic District to return to Great Dunes Park on the Atlantic where we were parked.

Seeing RV’s already parking in the convention center parking lot, we decided to return with the motor home that afternoon to get a good parking spot. 

      

Wed. morning we bicycled  south of the convention center through a dense inland forest/marsh, to the Historic District, and back to the motor home. 

Just as we returned, it began to rain and then turned cold and very windy, so that was our last bike ride on Jekyll.

Christmas decorations were still lighted along the beach trail adjacent to the convention center and Great Dunes Park parking areas. We especially enjoyed the biking Santa!

The 38th Annual New Year’s Bluegrass Festival ran Thursday through Saturday and featured some outstanding groups.  Irene especially enjoyed the Little Roy and Lizzie Show and Rhonda Vincent and the Rage. We’ve seen both groups at previous festivals and continue to enjoy them.  It was fun seeing different groups perform together for part of the show.

             Rhonda Vincent and the Rage

    Rhonda Vincent and Little Roy – well disguised!

    Rhonda Vincent and Lizzie Long Sing a Duet

     Rhonda Vincent and Her 2 Sons-in-Law Who Are in her Band

      Rhonda Vincent and Gene Watson

On to Evansville

We pulled the plug in Milwaukee and headed for Evansville IN. Our route would take us through Chicago, and George was fascinated with the idea of taking the interstate route through downtown. He wanted to see the skyscrapers and lake front we had just visited on our June trip. However, there were some construction sites, and we were concerned about traffic. So, we took one of the perimeter routes that went near O’Hare airport. We went as far as the Gary, Indiana, area and turned south on old Highway 41. There were interstate options, but they were pretty indirect. Hwy 41 goes straight to Evansville. In addition, George wanted to follow the route of the old Chicago and Eastern Illinois (C&EI) railroad. The area around northern Indiana was pretty congested, but soon we were in wide open rural areas with a four lane road. We camped in a county park a few hours north of Evansville.
Evansville too has made the best of its Ohio riverfront with a nice trail system which we rode before having lunch downtown with George’s cousin Debbie and her husband Bob. On our bike ride George wanted to leave the trail and see some of the old places of his youth when his family would visit his maternal grandmother while his dad bought furniture in Chicago.
The Evansville riverfront trail:

 

The Hadi Shrine Temple where George’s namesake uncle was a member:

George’s grandmother Tillie’s former home on Chandler Street:

The McCurdy Hotel is where George’s mother and father spent their honeymoon after marrying in Evansville. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and closed in 1969. It is now a senior living facility:

Lunch with Debbie and Bob:

We said our goodbyes to Debbie and Bob and headed towards home. We spent the night in a KOA south of Nashville and arrived home the next day. A great trip, and we did meet one of the main goals of an August trip: the weather was cool and dry.

Milwaukee

 

Yes, Schlitz was the beer that made Milwaukee famous, but Miller is king today. So is Harley-Davidson, and boy they made a camping reservation difficult. We would show up on their 110th anniversary! The city was covered up by loud motorcycles. They were en masse downtown, but we rode our bikes in the midst of them. They seem to accept bicyclists. I guess it is about two wheels.

Below Irene attempts to pass some Harley dudes in the right lane downtown.

Bike lane in downtown Milwaukee on the way from the north end of town to central city..

Enough trains and submarines already. First on our agenda in town was visiting Mitchell Park Conservatory (“The Domes”), a botanical conservatory with different geodesic domes for each biome: Floral Show Dome, Tropical, and Arid Domes.

 

                               

                              

From the conservatory we walked to a bicycle trail with a new bridge and looked down upon a large Canadian Pacific rail yard. How many readers knew that the Canadian Pacific Rail Road owned so much track in the U.S.?

One day we went to a downtown park in Milwaukee and rode North along Lake Michigan. We then circled back towards downtown and rode through one of Milwaukee’s grand old neighborhoods. Here we found out Milwaukee has a water tower similar to Chicago’s.

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We took a boat trip on the Milwaukee River that give us a good look at downtown. Then we went out into Lake Michigan for a view back to the city.

                                              Milwaukee Ale House:

Here we biked downtown to an art show and the famous Milwaukee Public Market. Then we headed for the downtown waterfront and biked past the soaring Milwaukee Museum of Art where we found the parking lot packed with Harley’s looking for a place to park at the waterfront.

From Trains to Submarines

Upon leaving Door County we headed south along Lake Michigan to Point Beach State Forest campground. The campground is directly behind the beach sand dune. We got in a ride on one of the bike trails.

      

We visited the light house in the lake fog.

      

The next day we drove a short distance south to Manitowoc, home of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. There we saw the USS Cobia, a restored WWII diesel submarine and took a tour through it. Again, Irene, your forbearance is greatly appreciated. This visit had special meaning to us because of our RV friend who served on a nuclear attack sub in the U.S. Navy.