The Donut Rally

One of the favorite annual camping trips of the kids is what they call "The Donut Rally."  It's more commonly known at the TAC Amish Country rally.  One of the staples of the rally though is that donuts are available for breakfast every morning.  Therefore, the kids have deemed it the donut rally.  It happens in early April in Wooster, OH.  Yes, it's a cold weather rally but amazingly there is usually one day or part of the day that is nice enough that people can get out and socialize around the campers.  However, there's always the fairgrounds' building to congregate in and the Saturday night pot luck, raffle, and trailer park gift exchange have become staples of the rally.  We converted over to the Argosy motorhome for this rally and it was the season-opener for the moho.

Mason learned to ride a two-wheeler at the rally!

The smoker setup.  Since we live close by, I usually bring quite a load of things including my charcoal smoker.  As usual, I smoked about 10 lbs of pork all day on Saturday for the potluck.

East Coast Spring Vacation part 3.5 - Forts in SC

So how can I end my last blog post by saying we're on our way home and now post more pictures from vacation?  Well, there needed to be a special post just for the forts that we visited in Charleston, SC.

The first was Fort Moultrie.  To be honest, if you go to the Charleston SC area and plan to visit only one fort, skip Fort Sumter and go to Moultrie.  This fort is incredible in that it is setup to show the progression of artillery and fort operations from the revolutionary war to WWII.  It was very cool and the entry fee was like $5/family.

The second was Fort Sumter.  Andrea and I visited Fort Sumter when we came to Charleston many years ago.  Hard to believe, but that was over 10 years ago.  Yikes!  So we remembered it as a little tiny boat that was operated by a ranger and you had all the time you needed to tour around the fort.  Not so now.  You have to pay $20+ per person to be herded onto a huge boat (2 level).  You have to stop and get a group photo that they of course want you to buy for $25.  There's not enough seating for everyone.  Once getting to Fort Sumter, you have 45 minutes to tour.  Not enough if you're trying to do Jr. Ranger stuff.  I even asked one of the rangers at the fort if I was crazy thinking of the little boat operated by the NP service.  Her response: "a lot of things used to be different at Fort Sumter." Intentionally very cryptic.  In the end, the visit to the Fort netted the kids some more Jr. Ranger stuff but it was a nerve racking trip for mom and dad.  Do yourself a favor and skip it if you're in the area and go to Moultrie.

Entering Fort Moultrie

The signal flag station

Cannons and guns through the years

In case the kid reference isn't enough to make the point, this is a BIG cannon

Waaaay of in the distance in Fort Sumter

I'm stretching the limits of my camera's zoom feature.

Andrea and Mason on top of the control center at Fort Sumter

All of these are flying over Fort Sumter

East Coast Spring Vacation part 3 - Charleston, SC

On to Charleston, SC and numerous National Park sites...  We visited so many Nation Park sites that you'll forgive me for forgetting many of them.  Our NP Passports document the travels so that I don't need too!

This was a plantation national park which was owned by one of the contributors to the Declaration of Independence.  Mason is working on his Junior Ranger certificate here.

I didn't know the drawing-on-the-ground position was hereditary, but it seems both boys do it the same.

Discussing Junior Ranger business

I think Mason was happy about getting his Ranger certificate

Our rangers

  

This was not a national park, but nonetheless a cool plantation to visit because the house is totally unrestored.  Literally.  Is was never updated to electricity or plumbing and the person that left it the trust requested that it remain as such.  Pretty neat to see.

Charleston River Walk

Not Fort Sumter, but some seemingly un-visitable fort in the bay.  Note the dolphin coming out for air.

Whoa, another NP stop.  This one was a surprise.  We were travelling on I-20 in SC and Andrea noted that we could hit a NP outside of Columbia, SC.  So, we went for it.  It's a forest preserve.  I didn't catch a picture of it, but they have a "mosquito meter" at the ranger's office.  I think the top of the scale was "you will be eaten alive without repellant."  Luckily, we were there early enough in the season that they weren't an issue.

Mason's drawing of the leaf in teh picture above.

This picture got thrown in here because we were on the way home and stopped in southern WV for the night.  We thought it interesting that we were camping next to leftover snow.  We did it all on this trip: mosquitoes, humidity, and shorts to camping in snow.

East Coast Spring Vacation part 2 - Savannah, GA

Savannah Georgia has been a destination for Andrea and I since before we had kids and before Airstreams. It just never panned out, though.  So on this trip we made it a point to go.  Despite how bright and sunny the pictures below look, it was rather cold and windy.  We'd like to go back sometime and spend more time there which is ironic because when really looking into the planning of our visit, we weren't sure what we were going to do there besides seeing the park.  There were so many things that were neat that we didn't take pictures of; in particular two of the places we ate at.  A trip back for a longer stay when it's warmer is for sure in the future.

All pictures above here: the central park (I forget the name of it).  It is huge.  There's even a Starbucks and a Cafe on-site so you can spend all day there.

Apparently Parker is a popular name for businesses in the south.  This chain of markets is actually a convenience mart chain.  But the shopping selection is incredible.  We bought some candies that we haven't seen since living in Germany and they were even in the German packaging!  Amazing for a gas station convenience store.

The entrance to Fort Pulaski.  This was to be an interesting adventure because the ranger at the entrance asked if Parker wanted to become a Junior Ranger.  We had avoided exposing Parker to this before because we know that Mason is not old enough to do it to which would cause issues if Parker was doing it.  Fun.

We were crossing the moat here.  Ironically, the ranger said that there's some people who aren't familiar with alligators that see them in the moat (in warmer months) and actually want to try to pet them.

Musket firing demonstration...very cool!

Parker and his ranger garb with certificate

East Coast Spring Vacation 1.5 - St Augustine

One of the primary reasons for this trip was to visit St. Augustine, FL.  The main attraction there being the fort and the old town.  Admittedly, going to the fort and the old town wasn't high on my personal list, but I am glad I went.  The fort was really cool.  The old town, well, not so much.  Having lived and travelled extensively in Europe, we've seen OLD towns; and they are usually really neat.  The St. Augustine old town might be on the site of what once was the old town, but I cannot believe that much is left that's original.  Really, it felt more like a cruise ship stop that anything else.  But the fort and the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that we found for lunch (no pics, sorry!) made it worthwhile.

The boys have to "read" every sign.  With Parker now being able to read, this is a much longer event than it used to be.  He usually gets bored after one sentence on a sign like this.

Ahh, sailboats.  Anywhere there's sailboats is a wonderful place.

Crossing the drawbridge!

I forget what this was, but obviously Mason feels it's very important.

Now I know why the Spaniards stopped and built a fort here.  What a view.

Entry to the fort is quite an ordeal, but pretty neat nonetheless.

The telescopes are out again.

Parker's spying, Mason's "bamming" the mortar.

Cannons and the Spanish flag (of the period that Spain held the fort).  Who knew Spain loved St Andrew's cross so much that they put it on their flag?

Supposedly the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the USA.  I think not or at least not original.  It was done-up for paid tours.  Anytime there's a mannequin sticking it's head out of the window and they want to charge me money for a guided tour, I walk away.

OK cruise ship go-ers, look familair?  Oh yeah, not as many people, no cheap liquor stores, and no "Tanzanite" stores.

The original city door.  This is the one thing that I think that was original to the old town.