Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA

I have always wanted to see these two cities on the Southeastern Coast.  We spent four nights in Charleston at a KOA campground and then another 5 nights in Savannah at Creekfire campground.  

Charleston is a historic military city with history that dates back to the Civil War yet most of that was not as interesting to us as was the old antebellum architecture.  We enjoyed our time touring the historic downtown waterfront at Rainbow Row, a street lined with row houses that were built in the 1800's by merchant families. We met my cousin's son Wendell and his wife Samantha there so they could be our tour guides in their military hometown. Wendell is in the Navy and we hadn't seen them in at least 5 years so it was great to connect for the day and share in their excitement for their two month old baby girl, Ryan. The city was trendy with bars and boutique hotels and cool restuarants like Taco Boy that our tour guides took is to.  We also strolled through the old city market which was aesthetically beautiful having been restored in the style of an old military brick armory building.

After walking the beach in the late morning, we spent a full day thrift store shopping for clothes for all of us for our upcoming cruise.  Boyd was excited to find a $1.99 suit jacket and $1.99 pair of black pants while Blythe scored a new dress for $2.  They decided to play in them a couple nights later. In their play Blythe worked for Boyd at his company, Boyd.com where they designed and sold video games.  It was comical to watch them make their sales name tags and business cards from plain white paper amd scotch tape and then loop Erica and I into the gimmick by offering us job contracts.

Gas is getting cheap and I am excited about that to help with our cash flow.  I haven't seen gas at $1.99 in years so here's to hoping it stays low for a little while longer.

Erica continues to make new concoctions in her instant pot and has mastered an all-vegetable pasta salad (the noodles are chickpeas) that I love and continue to take down. She has made it at least a dozen times and I can't get enough. She spent a day cooking in Charleston and caring for the kids so that I could get out for the afternoon to shop for a suit for our formal pictures on the cruise.  We are going with a throwback look that is reminiscent of the roaring twenties flapper wardrobe.  We all can't wait to get decked out as a family and enjoy an evening in style. Blythe is telling everyone about her dress and is so excited to see all the pageantry on display with the entire family.  Boyd insists on wearing a gold bowtie.

Savannah started out great when we rolled into Creekfire, by far the most new and resort like rv park we have visited.

Things became a bit rough for us on day two.  Erica was in Savannah shopping for her formal wear for the cruise when she was hit by another car.  She wasn't physically hurt, thank goodness, but it caused enough damage to the car that we had to have it towed to a body shop where it still sits waiting for estimates of repair.  It could have been a lot worse than it was and has been a test of our resolve to keep going.  We have made it through the most stressful part and we stay confident that all will be restored soon.  

We chose to add a day to our stay at Creekfire so that we could be around if needed for anything from the insurance company.  We unfortunately missed a lot of opportunity to sight see in Savannah.  Other than to go into downtown one day to empty out the CRV of all our contents (we needed to do this should it get totalled out by the insurance company therefor we won't have to fly back to get it), we could only drive the rv around the narrow tree-lined streets to peer through our windows at the historic parts of the city.  Our only stops were Chipotle, Krispy Kreme, Target and Wholefoods before we had enough of the stress of potentially hitting a parked car or a low-lying live oak tree limb that we headed back to camp to relax for the evening.  

Savannah was not quite what we had envisioned it would be and feels like the inner city has fallen on hard economic times.  This image could be tainted though since the winter has arrived and the brown and gray that comes with it. It also doesn't help having the car accident shading our experience here.  It's gonna be tough without a car for a few weeks so we might need to pick up a rental in Florida in the coming weeks. In my effort to cut expenses, we don't have rental coverage in our auto policy. This is how it goes when you pick and choose where to self-insure.  I'm glad that I didn't cut the policy down to liability coverage only since we have to repair the damage due to it being undrivable with a flat tire and bent axle.  Our $500 deductible is all we should have to cover outside of our rental costs should we need one.  All in all this couldn't have happened at a better time in our journey and it makes for a challenge to prove our family can overcome this together.

While at Creekfire, the kids and I spent days playing outside in 30 and 40 degree weather all day and into the night ( Erica ended up with a cold/sinus infection/cough that has knocked her out for four days).  They fished in the lake that was on property and swam in the hot tub.  They even jumped into the frigid pool every day and swam...crazy! We met a kind family from Jacksonville, Fl, Josh and Karima and their kids Maddox and Melania.  The kids spent the entire two days of the weekend together and were practically inseparable, making the wet weekend so much better for all of us.  We also met Jimmy and Monica who were from the small town we visited called Cook, Minnesota where they know Erica's Uncle and his family very well.  I realize more and more that it really is a small world after all.

Peace and Love