After a well rested stop at my brother's house, we set off for Savannah, Georgia. All along the trip thus far, we had been forewarned of the massive crowds that would be clogging the roads leading up to the fourth and including this day, the day after the fourth, but never saw any of that. Instead the roads seemed very sparsely populated with traffic. Perhaps all the dire warnings scared people off?
We made it to Savannah in good time and were soon enjoying the parks with all the live oaks garnished with Spanish moss that they are known for. We spent all day there and then headed out to the suburbs in the evening for a more reasonably priced motel room.
The following day we set forth north with big plans to see Charleston, South Carolina and indeed we made it there and walked down their famed Market Street for awhile. However as we set forth to go see other areas of town, I inadvertently parked too close to a curb that had been lined with large pointy rocks that poked a hole in the sidewall of my front tire. For the second road trip in a row, I was driving across town on a run flat tire that was flat (our vehicle has no spare), to the nearest Toyota dealership who is the only place that stocks these things and throwing myself at their mercy since I had no appointment. The Charleston Toyota dealership was quite busy but were able to get a new tire put on (after 28 cars ahead of me got serviced) and even gave us a ride to a local seafood place to cool our heals and eat a shrimp boil while waiting. Four hours later we were back on the road but due to Elsa on our heals, we no longer had the time to spend in Charleston and headed north. We did stop and see the Angel tree, names after the former owners of the land, which was evidently quite well known judging from the crowd there. Personally, I would have fenced everyone clear away from the tree instead of allowing people to roam all around it and posting a park ranger who had to shout at people every 15 seconds to not touch or lean against the tree as lots of signs had warned not to do.
We put in a long evening driving after leaving Charleston because the following day, we had a ferry appointment to catch a ride out to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This had been the part of our trip that had been iffy with Tropical Storm Elsa but it had slowed down and was only just making landfall in Florida as we enjoyed a beautiful 2 1/2 hour ferry ride out.
I had pictured the Outer Banks as a place with lots of ocean views while driving and indeed one could see the ocean if you pulled off the road and walked over the dunes but from the vehicle, we mostly could just see brush and sand dunes. So we juggled stopping and making distance during the heat of the day for a few ocean views. We also got some very fresh oysters for a late lunch.
Just thought I would include this GPS screenshot which is something I never see on it back in Iowa. The second ferry we took was supposed to be an half hour long but took almost an hour and a half. As you can see above, we were quite a ways outside the marked ferry route. I suspect that a previous hurricane probably rearranged the shallows quite a bit which lengthened the journey.
Towards evening and near the end of our Outer Banks journey, we did stop at beach for awhile for a swim in the ocean. That evening, we ended up in Chesapeake, Virginia where some distant cousins of my wife lived and had invited us to stay for a couple nights. They took us smelt fishing in the evening and had planned on taking us crabbing the next night but by then, Tropical Storm Elsa caught us and the day was rained out. Instead they drove us around showing us the sights from their vehicle.
At one point, in-between bands of rain from Elsa, we did stop at another beach where we watched crabs from a distance and the girls swam. The next morning, we finally turned our vehicle back towards the west and headed towards home. Like we sometimes do, we got to the point where sleeping in our own beds became more attractive than sleeping in another strange bed, despite the late hour. So with an hour and a half stuck in a traffic jamb east of Indianapolis, we still made it home a few minutes before midnight and spent the night in our own beds, a day sooner than we had planned. It was worth it.
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