Alligators! Oh, my!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Hello!

We’re not sure why we’re sleeping so late – it was almost 7:00 this morning before we got up!  Granted that equates to 4 a.m. Tucson time, but still…very unusual for us!  Maybe it’s because sunrise here is at about 7:00.  After breakfast we headed out for the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge – which is actually in South Carolina!

Very interesting drive north over the bridge from Savannah, and out into the countryside (which is actually fairly close everywhere around here!)  The Visitor Center didn’t open until 9:00, so we decided to do the 4-mile wilderness drive first, over dirt roads.  Well…we did get some new birds – the heron-formerly-known-as-Louisiana, now known as the Tri-Colored Heron, was stunningly beautiful.  A smaller bird than the Great Blue Heron, but a slate blue color with a white breast; magnificent!  We also got the black-bellied whistling duck.

Whistling Duck

Egret

 

The drive wound through very interesting territory.  The entire area had originally been planted in the 1700’s as rice plantations.  Much of the land was cleared, and then canals were dug.  Then a fairly complicated irrigation system with sluices and gates was installed to control the water levels and degree of salinity.  I had no idea that rice had ever been grown in this area!

At this point, Robert found his first alligator, swimming along one of the channels…and then I found a second!  Fortunately, the car doors were locked, so I wasn’t particularly worried that one would get in.  However, I was also very careful NOT to get out of the car!

Once we completed the 4 mile loop, we drove to the Visitor Center.  They have a great short film of the area, with some wonderful photos of some of the local and migratory birds that pass through this area.  Neat place to visit!  (And pick up some great T-shirts!)

From there, we headed back to Richmond Hill, stopping at a grocery store for some much-needed Shout for the laundry! (how could we EVER travel without it?)  There is a washer and dryer here in the hotel, but as I needed to do two loads, we went to a local coin laundry.  Washed and dried in an hour, so now we’re back to all clean clothes!  Wheet whew!!

At this point, we headed to Fort McAllister, a Civil War fort located just a couple of miles from Linda and John’s.  It’s truly a lovely place!  As the afternoon was so lovely – great breezes, low humidity – we walked around the park but didn’t go into the actual fort.  Instead we found a porch swing facing the water, and swung and enjoyed a very nice interlude.  We also found a pier that had been built into the water, complete with fisherpeople spending their afternoon in a most leisurely way, fishing for both fish (with regular poles and line) and crabs – cages (which we didn’t see) attached to long strings!  Who knew?

Returned to the hotel at this point for afternoon naps…what a wonderful habit to form!

Back to the Kennedy’s about 5:00 p.m.  Linda marinated both steak and chicken, which then went on the smoker for fajitas.  Really a lovely meal – fajitas, a corn, black bean and tomato salad and (store bought) apple pie for dessert!  (This was our contribution, and while the pie was really very good, I wish it could have been homemade; hard to find a bakery short of Savannah!)  We ate dinner on the back patio, and it actually got coolish, which has been something hard for us to find on this adventure!  Bid adieu to our friends about 9:00, as we want to get on the road fairly early tomorrow, although we don’t have too far to go.  It was wonderful finally seeing their lovely Richmond Hill home, and seeing John and the boys again; (Oh!  I got to meet Sheila, Jeff’s bearded lizard!).  Hope to get Linda and John out to visit us in Tucson soon!

That’s it for now!

m

xxx