Leesburg meets Bisbee

Golf Course View with history

Sharon and I had a sweet visit with my Aunt Juanita and her husband Tom but soon it was time to hit the road northwest to Leesburg two hours away where we will spend a couple days with Sharon's brother Greg. Leesburg, about 50 miles northeast of Washington DC, is steeped with early Americana history and Greg is a trove of information regarding the early happenings of his area. The gated country club community is built at the confluence of the Potomac River and Cripple Creek.

After a bike ride in the rain

When we visit relatives we like spending family time and not using their houses as a hotel so for the two days we walked, biked, and bowled (yes bowl) with Greg and his son Hayden. It was great to feel at home for bit but the last night we went to dinner at Clydes, a legendary restauranteur that disassembled two large barns and reassembled them to be used as the dining experience along with a collection of horse drawn carriages hung from the ceiling.

Thailand, Greece, and now Leesburg are locations we've run into Bisbeeites. Ken Wallace just happened to be in Leesburg so we invited him to dinner with us at Clydes. The dinners were good but the deserts were the bomb and it was fun to see Ken outside of the Brothel. We said our goodbyes to Ken later that evening knowing we needed to get some sleep for our trip to Pittsburgh the next day.

Off on a walk to the Potomac River

Dinner at the club overlooking the Potomac

Is that Ken Wallace in Leesburg...yup!

Camping at the Cape

A morning walk to the Atlantic Ocean

The next morning we decided to break camp early and drive to a trail head to walk out to the beach. Walking on a planked ramp for a couple hundred yards we reached a beautiful pristine beach to ourselves. The clouded sky painted a slight bit of color as the day broke. We walked for an hour or so and then returned to Cheeky. As part of the camp late check in exercise, 9AM I was to pay the ranger for our stay. Shortly after nine we arrived at a locked office with no payment envelopes. That signaled me to look about and drive off. Sorry Frisco beach but I personally justified not paying because of the no hot shower issue.

Sand feels good on the feet but the beach tar isn't so nice

As we left the camp grounds my stomach called out for a coffee and cinnamon roll. My prayer was answered within a half hour. I spied a small bake shoppe off to the left with a full parking lot. Not only did they had cinnamon rolls but Meyer's Rum cinnamon rolls. YUMMMM!

With cinnamon residual dancing around in my mouth I pasted the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Park. I looked over to Sharon and suggested we turn around to check out the lighthouse so we swung Cheeky around and pulled into the empty parking lot of this historical site. This lighthouse was not only the tallest lighthouse in North America but it was moved a few years ago. Because of the eroding beach, the state moved the lighthouse and the keepers quarters 1800 feet onto higher ground. The moving of this structure is an incredible feat and was well documented by the park service in a video shown in the museum. But first we climbed the 200 ft high tower and enjoyed the view of the shorelines from above. This lighthouse alerted sailors along the Outer Bank for over 14 miles. If you ever get a chance to be in this area, this is a definitely check this out.

Day break at the deserted Frisco Beach

A very little colorful friend

Hatteras historic lighthouse

View from the top

More stairs than Bisbee

Cool graphics

Another American roadside attraction

 

Motoring up the peninsula with our next stop at my Aunt Nita's just outside of Richmond VA. I hadn't seen my aunt in quite sometime so Sharon and I decided to stop by for a visit and dinner. We couldn't stay because Sharon's brother Greg in Leesburg VA was expecting us latter that evening.

Mad Hatteras

Road to Cedar Island

Our ferry pulling into Cedar Island

Carolina Beach set the pace for the segment for our Outer Banks experience. We only had a few hours to catch the early afternoon ferry...the first of two boats required to reach Cape Hatteras. This roadway out into the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean is another world or at least one that is very foreign us desert dwellers. Many bridges links these small island communities together and if that isn't enough, you must drive onto a couple boats to complete this crescent shaped tour.

Sharon enjoying the ride

Cheeky taking her first boat ride

Our first destination is Cedar Island. There we drove onto a car ferry for a two hour twenty three mile voyage. Then we disembarked at the port of Ocrecoke, had a less than palatable lunch and drove approximately 20 miles to the port on the other side, drove onto another car ferry for a one hour, ten mile voyage to Cape Hatteras.

Ocrecoke Island coastline

Hatteras is a sleepy unique remote sea village. I stopped for some petrol and asked a local on the other side of the pump where a good camp ground would be located. After a long discussion on every option within a hundred miles, he suggested Frisco Beach where the road to it was right across the road where we stood. Winding our way through the sand dunes, past the airport, we arrived at the entrance where once again we arrived to late for personal service so we had to go through the exercise of late registration. Not every park is the same when using the late check in and this park had a real clumsy system, one that required us to pick up our tent and move it to another site about 50 yards away after I discovered our first one was reserved but it was just as nice. This camping area was different than any we've ever camped. Every site was nestled into the sand dunes with scrub brush vegetation serving as privacy and wind break. Setting up camp was quick and dinner came soon after. The only real draw back to this site was the showers only had cold water which meant we didn't shower that evening. Once again the temperature was perfect and soon we drifted of into dreamland.

The ambiance was great but the food sucked

Camping With Susan Sarandon

The market's supply boats

We were ready to leave the heavy tourist scene of Savannah to camp on the Atlantic shore but little did we know that the camp ground, Carolina Beach State Park, Susan Sarandon was making a film next to our camp site.

Before we reached the camp our wondering along the coast lead us to the Independent Seafood Market where we purchased some fresh caught halibut for the evenings dinner. This little fish market was the quintessential small shop planted next the fishing boats moored for the next day's run.

We pulled up to the camp ground, staked out our claim to one of the last sites available and began to set up our gear. The new Coleman stove fired up with 2000 BTU's of heat to cook our meal. Sharon grilled the fresh veggies and then grilled the fish for a lovely dinner. All during our stay film production trucks and vans pasted by our campsite. Unfortunately Susan never came by for dinner.

Independent Seafood Market

The temperature that evening stayed cool but not cold, just perfect for sleeping under the stars with tall pines like sentinels creating a canopy above us. 

The next morning we stopped by the ranger office to check out the picturesque marina and then headed towards the Outer Bank ferry with Cape Hatteras our next stop.

It was a hard decision for dinner

No one was eating better than us.

Touching the Atlantic..Almost

As our rough planning for this journey began, Sharon lobbied to visit Savannah Georgia, a southern colonial city not touched or torched by the warring faction of the Civil War. So I compromised, I steered Cheeky to Savannah. What was the compromise? Happily married men understand matrimonial negotiating.

Our room is the top floor corner left

Earlier in the morning the decision was to find a room in Savannah earlier than our normal late late afternoon arrivals so that we could scout out the town before dark. The highway dropped us into the historical district where a tourist office sign brought us into a parking lot full of tour buses. The streets were buzzing with curious outsiders hands full of odd sizes of pamphlets, maps and brochures. I thought about giving the tourist office a try in helping with our quest for lodging but the tourist office assistant has about as much style and personality as a strip mall in Sierra Vista. I'm not snobbish about where to stay but being directed to chose between 6 corporate named hotels with 500 rooms is not my brand of hospitality.

Walking across parking lot with the tourist office to our backsides we get inside Cheeky and review some of the pamphlets but then we decided to give Minnie (feminine for Garmin) our GPS a try along with information we acquired and finally we came upon the "East Bay Inn", a charming inn located in the hub of historical district and close to the river front. I made a slight location error thinking the water feature out our window was part of the Atlantic but it was part of the river system very near the ocean.

Very comfortable yet elegantly tasteful

The woman at the front desk welcomed us and assured us we would really love our third floor corner room. The lobby had a warm upscale feel and when we entered our room it carried through the same feeling. The 20' high ceilings and 10' high windows created a lovely drama not found in most hotel rooms.

Walking the narrow streets of Savannah is really what its all about. Every four blocks there is a park named after a long past hero and the umbrella of the moss draped magnolia trees provide a canopy from the warm sun. The historical district not being all that large, within two days we pretty much touched on every street enjoying the unique pristine colonial architecture including strolling by Johnny Mercer's former home it was time to turn north out to sea.

Always amazed from the design born from faith

The parks provide a respite from overload of tourism

Beauty attracts beauty

The old southern charm

Sweet Home Alabama

Great way to start the day

Our stop following breakfast at Bob"s Fine Food.

I listen what people say about places they seem to know about but until I sees it myself, I've learned not to believe it. Originally I had planned to spend a bit more time in the deep south but the amount of away time I had available began to dwindle as the launch date kept moving forward. So...I deleted the deep south in favor of skirting the tops of Alabama and Mississippi. We left Memphis with Savannah Georgia as our destination but we left Memphis a bit late ( a lot more leaves to rake than I planned) so we had to choose a mid point to spend the night preferably camping under the stars. Checking the road map while rolling along the lush green rural countryside, Sharon noticed a mark on the map had a tee pee (a campsite designation) printed just south of the little Alabama town of Alexander in Tallapoosa County. The campsite was in the Windy Creek State Park and as always we pulled up to the office much later than most outdoors type folks arrive. With a little help from a friendly park ranger we did the late entry form, listened to a quick description of what sites are available, and began our hunt for the evenings campsite. Naturally we immediately became lost ending up in the day use only picnic area but the night ranger drove up and suggested we follow him to a nice on the water's but not before he began a long explanation as to how to exit the park. I quickly realized that people from Alabama love to talk and talk and talk. I pride myself on cutting to the chase when delivering basic information but these folks seemed to get paid by how many times they can repeat themselves though when the Ranger was finished and I began to follow him, Sharon asked if I understood what he said...I replied, "I can't remember or understand any thing he said". We laughed uncontrollably as we followed our pilot car while noticing the park was mostly empty but our ranger pointed out a site right next to an RV explaining this was the best site...yea but it's next to a generator running a TV. He left and we moved away from the RV camp to a sweet little bit of shoreline on Lake Martin. With the tent set up and my beautiful funny camper buddy and navigator extraordinaire, Sharon continued on doing the prep work for a late night dinner, I pulled out the old..very old Coleman propane stove which has worked fine up to...now. The old fire box suddenly developed more leaks than Watergate and just as volatile. So Sharon adjusted the meal to veggies alfresco. After our meal we quickly retired to our comfy Agnus (our tent's name) for a really wonderful sleep.

Since the stove was kaput our coffee needs went unanswered the next morning. The hot showers and beautiful mirror finish lake water was a weak substitute for a cup a Joe but soon our focus was to reach Savannah ASAP but along the way we had to replace the Coleman.

Let The Sun Shine

Eureka Tennessee was recommended by some Bisbee friends and it proved to be a nice charming haven. The cabin architecture was nothing notable but the amenities of a full kitchen where Sharon prepared a wonderful dinner and a covered porch to perch high above the sloping ground thickly covered with vibrant green was the perfect retreat.

My characterization of Sun Studios

In the morning we cruised the town, checked out one very nice gallery and headed to the land of Blues and Barbeque...Memphis Tennessee and to visit Sharon's Aunt Geri. Cutting through the rolling hills via the winding twisting roads slowed our pace putting us into Memphis in the late afternoon. We were tired and in need of some family time...raise the spirits of our hostess and check out ground zero of the birth of Rock and Roll...Sun Records and the Memphis Recording Service. But first I was told I must see the original world famous duck procession at the Peabody Hotel. This beautiful example of early twentieth century hotel architecture and craftsmanship proudly promotes a fowl display of ducks parading from the elevator to the center fountain all the while tourists and duck enthusiasts play paparazzi. It's unusual. whacky and sells a lot of booze. That afternoon we sampled...well we stuffed ourselves on some down home Memphis Que. I had the three meat plate doused with tangy sauce that was killer and Sharon had way too many ribs.

First came Memphis then came Sun

Elvis's Mic that became mine briefly

The next day our stop was Sun Records. This pie shaped two story recording studio has played host to every rock and roll legend at one time or another and was the spring board to the greats such as Muddy Waters, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Howling Wolf, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. My friend Ryan Bond insisted I visit this mecca of music history and I thank him for it was humbling to be in the essence of such world changing creativity.  The microphone that Elvis used to record his first hit, "All Shook Up" was within reach of me, the inspiration was overwhelming and I grabbed it and began channeling "The King" before being removed by security. Weakened, I left the studio with a sense of spirituality never felt before.

The Million Dollar Session

I was processed

After raking the magnolia tree leaves in the large front yard of Aunt Geri's, Sharon and I packed up Cheeky and pointed Southeast towards Savannah Georgia but stopping for a night under the stars before reaching the Atlantic.