Southern Camping Trip 2024 / Day 12

 St. Mary's KOA Campground

St. Mary's, Georgia

February 11, 2024

Look who welcomed me to Georgia.

A new friend in Georgia.

Marc- Today was a major travel day from the northern end of South Carolina to the Southern end of Georgia.  We followed the 2 hour driving shifts and neither of us were tired out upon arrival.  The KOA campground is ok.  St. Mary's is a beautiful small town with classic Southern architecture from Sea Captain homes, plantation owners homes and colonial styled shops.  The village waterfront Parks are impressive with working fountains, bandstand, gazebos and playgrounds. 

We checked into the National Park Visitor's Center to verify our crossing and tour of Cumberland Island for tomorrow.  The Ranger suggested that we see the National Park Museum in town as a preview to the Island.  The Museum did not disappoint with displays of native peoples, the various colonial peoples and finally the Carnegie Family and the present inhabitants.  Our last visit of the day involved the nearby Crooked River State Park.  It became immediately clear that this State Park (on the Crooked River) was a much better deal than the KOA (adjacent to Route 95).  There are excellent campsites among the pines as well as hiking trails, cabins, a launching ramp and even a miniature golf.

Who better to welcome us to St. Mary's than St. Mary.

Beautiful waterfront Park on the St. Mary's River.

Even a tide clock.

Colonial home with orange trees.

Newly completed public marina.

We will be visiting this shop for sure.

And then there was the Superbowl.

Proof that we are in Georgia.

Southern Camping Trip 2024 / Day 11

Huntington Beach State Park,

Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina

Wednesday February 10, 2024    

Bronze River Otters and Fish.

Marc-  This is our last day here in South Carolina.  We started the day with a fantastic breakfast with Craig and Donna Lewis at "Eggs Up Grill" where you can have steak and eggs your way or just about any other egg combination.  

We returned to Brookgreen Gardens to search for local wildlife.  In the zoo area of Brookgreen we found river otters in bronze and in a small tributary of the Waccamaw River.   In the duck area we saw wood ducks and a strange light blue billed duck.  The highlight was seeing a new exhibit, in a large forest setting, for red wolves (three wolves were observed).

River Otter

Male Australian stiff-tailed duck (bright blue bill during the breeding season).

Red Wolf

Back at the campground we got the bikes out and headed to the beach at low tide.  The beach did not disappoint with packed sand going on for miles.  

Back at the beach.

Cool Kite

Nice beach eh.

Southern Camping Trip 2024 / Day 10

Huntington Beach State Park,

Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina

Wednesday February 9, 2024   

Black Crowned Night Heron (Note the white plumage on back indicating that it is mating season).

Marc-  Back to BrookGreen Gardens today.  We focused on the gardens and some of the birds. The most notable were the herons, the owls, bald eagles and especially the red tailed hawks.  BrookGreen keeps injured birds in very large enclosed cages and people are allowed to walk through one of them.  In the Red Tailed Hawk's cage it was most impressive that six wild red tailed hawks were gathered in the surrounding trees seeming to communicate with their brethren inside the cage.

Red Tailed Hawks (inside and out of the cage).

Flower gardens are abundant at BrookGreen even in winter.  Sue and I made an effort to capture some of the colors.  Feels like Spring to us.

Magnolia 

Camelias

Hydrangea

Daffodils

Vegetable gardens are also found at BrookGreen since this was once four self sustaining plantations.  We found many early season plants ready to harvest.

Swiss Chard

Brussel Sprouts

Turnips

Lettuce

Green peas (with impressive climbing rack).

Sue-  We saw our first Vermont license plate since leaving Vermont 10 days ago.

We went to 2 quilt shops today.  Both had plenty of personality, were good sized stores with a lot of hanging quilts, a lot of gorgeous fabric, classes, friendly staff and happy customers.  Both get A+ ratings!  The first was Accent Sewing in Murrell's Inlet and the second was Quilting at the Beach in Myrtle Beach.

A quilter's stash is a pretty special thing.  It is the quilter's extra fabric, and the quilter loves her fabric.  When you see fabric in a store that you love, it calls out to you.  You feel you must buy it.  Manufacturers don't often make the same fabric again, so you'd better buy it while you can.  Then there is leftover fabric from projects, and it just starts collecting pretty quickly.  If you're lucky and find a sale by a craft group of extra fabrics, something my craft group did last Fall, you can really hit the jack pot for not much money.   

Southern Camping Trip 2024 / Day 9

Huntington Beach State Park,

Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina

Wednesday February 8, 2024  

Marc- We started off doing laundry this morning here at the campground.  Later we walked around looking for birds and found several by the causeway.  We saw our first wood stork, a pair of swans, three female hooded mergansers and a great blue heron.  Many unidentified birds were also out there. The beach was really quiet and extensive since it was low tide.  

Wood Stork and some small birds.

Swan couple.

In the afternoon we headed over to nearby "Brookgreen Gardens" for a special Art Deco Art Exhibit.  A mint 1931 Model A Ford was at the entrance.  Although the car itself is not Art Deco, its radiator cap is for sure.

1931 Model A Ford

Art Deco radiator cap.

Miami Art Deco buildings.

Art Deco Skyscraper.

New York's Chrysler Building.

Art Deco Fashion.

Flapper dresses...