Annapolis, Maryland

A long day's drive......

We headed from Wilmington towards Washington, DC with no real end plan for the day. Our plans were not to arrive in the nation's capital until the day after but we had no particular plans on where we would end up this afternoon. We decided on Annapolis, Maryland and arrived late afternoon, just in time to quickly locate the information visitor centre and see what we could do the next morning before heading to Washington.

Eventually we decided to again pay to take a driving tour of the town on a small bus as we wanted to get a good overview of the city and how it was laid out, as well as some information about the history of the city and what we were looking at! Annapolis is a quaint historical town with a cute look about it. The town sits on the water and has a few small 'neighbourhoods' within the city limits. It sits on Chesapeake Bay and is only 47 kilometres from Washington DC.

Main street of Annapolis, looking down to the harbour.
Lined with cobblestones and old style architecture buildings.

The war memorial overlooking Annapolis and the Naval Academy.

One of the main 'attractions' in town is the US Naval Academy. It has about 4,500 midshipmen who attend the academy at any one time. One of the pieces of information we learned from our tour driver is that each student is required to play at least one sport every year they attend the academy. Also, just last year the daughter of the first female midshipmen to graduate the academy graduated, making them the first mother-daughter pair to be alumni (there are obviously plenty of father-son pairs!!) The Naval Academy has also produced 52 astronauts from their graduate pool and one President of the United States. The midshipmen are also given 20 minutes to eat their lunch - all at once - in the HUGE dining hall in the Yard. The Yard (campus) is really huge and takes up a lot of area very close to the harbour - I didn't realise it would be so close to the middle of the town :-)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Naval_Academy_sign.jpg
 

We left Annapolis after a quick lunch and headed towards Washington, DC. More to come.......

Keep smiling,
Candice :-)

On the way to TV Land, North Carolina

South of the Border, South Carolina

Driving from Savannah we headed north on our new friend, Interstate 95 towards North Carolina. As we drove through South Carolina though, we kept seeing these weird and wacky billboards promoting a place called South of the Border. I vaguely remembered this from my Contiki trip eight years ago, but I wanted to see if it was as I remembered. As we got closer and closer, the billboards started to intrigue Ashlee as well. When we arrived, just before we crossed the border from South Carolina to North Carolina, it was like a large, wacky and weird Mexican themed mega rest stop! There was heaps of parking, some eateries, shops selling souvenirs and clothing - there was even a huge shed sized store selling fireworks! But the craziest thing there had to be the statues - there were gorillas, giraffes, dogs, flamingos and heaps of other animals and plants dressed and standing in wacky poses. It was entertaining to walk around and stretch our legs here for sure!! Check out some of the amazing things we saw here:

Wilmington, North Carolina

Once we got back on the road from our wacky rest stop, we continued our drive and arrived in Wilmington early afternoon. This was a place we had both wanted to go for a while, for one simple reason - we love our TV!! A few of the shows that Ashlee and I have loved in the past have been filmed here - including Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill. We spent an hour walking the Riverwalk and the main street area and I loved seeing different spots and having flashes of these being in scenes on TV. It was like the town was familiar and I had been there before, even though I hadn't!! :-)

One of the main streets leading off the river......
the small tree covered street could often be used for 'walk and talks'.

River walk area - particularly used in Dawson's Creek
(the yacht race episode with Leery's Fresh Fish over back on the left)
and further along was where they staged all the 'Burning Boat Festival' scenes in One Tree Hill.

A steamboat with the bridge in the background

Typical look of lights on the river walk - Dawson's Creek-esque :-)

Karen's Café from One Tree Hill........ empty at the moment!

The 'new' café from One Tree Hill's last season -
across the road from Karen's as in the show!

After walking and seeing the sights from the shows we have enjoyed over the years, Ashlee and I headed across the river to the USS Battleship North Carolina. Yes, a battleship!! We were able to walk around and go down underneath to see the spaces and where the sailors lived and worked on the ship. It was awesome - very tight spaces down below! I understand why they slide down the stairs on any shows I have seen - much quicker to get down the steps for sure since they are so steep. The battleship was huge on deck and there was so many little rooms and areas down below for the hundreds of men that lived on board...... I would just not like to be anywhere below deck if there was an emergency!

Walking onto the USS North Carolina..... exciting!

Looking off the back (I don't know the proper terminology, I'm sorry!)
across the river at Wilmington Downtown area.

I don't want to be anywhere near these when they fire!!

Exploring the below decks.......

Engine room buttons and dials.......

Engine room small space and mesh wire floors......... think thin!!
(also exploring on my own this far down as Ashlee stayed on below deck level 1)



Bunk racks for sleeping......

Alligator in the water alongside the battleship!!

Topside and exploring the HUGE deck......
(look how BIG everything is compared to me!)

The view from the bridge seat where the Captain (or in charge person) sat

Welcoming us........ and farewelling us as well as we left the same way!

Overall our time in Wilmington was short but it was fun and I wold enjoy spending a weekend there I imagine. There were lots of cute little shops to explore downtown and a heap of great restaurants on the river walk to eat at. A great stop along our trip up the East Coast! :-)

More to come so come back soon!

Keep smiling,
Candice :-D

Savannah and Tybee Island, Georgia

Savannah, Georgia

Sometimes when you arrive in a new place, you want to get out and explore the area but really have no idea where to start. Savannah felt like this to us - we wanted to see the gorgeous buildings and grandeur that we knew was in the city, but had no real plan (well I didn't!) of where to go to find it. So Ash and I decided to go on a hop on, hop off trolley tour of the city.

Old Town Trolley Tours were great little buses with wide open windows. There was 13 stops on the route and if you stayed on for the whole ride it took about 90 minutes. However, the trolley was a hop on and hop off tour where the tickets were valid for the whole day. Ash and I started at the first stop and hopped off first at Forsyth Park, then at the waterfront, and then in the city for lunch.

The word that comes to mind when I picture Savannah I mentioned above - grandeur. This city has it in droves - grand buildings, grand history, grand squares and grand towering oak and magnolia trees lining all roads. It is a truly beautiful city that melds the old and the new quite well with each other. I have included some pictures to show how wonderful Savannah looks, even in the misty weather we faced. It was still quite humid even with the clouds that covered the sky and stopped the sun from showing - a true southern rain day!

Savannah's Town Hall - the dome at the top is covered in 23 carat gold.

One of the many gorgeous green tree filled squares in the city.

Forsyth Park fountain - so pretty!

Ashlee in the mist watching the 'boat' - this container ship
was moving faster down the river than we were strolling!

The Waving Girl statue. Her story is that she stood on the dock
 every day waving at every ship that came into the harbour,
waiting for her fiancé to return on his boat. He never did and she died
40 years later never seeing his face again.

Savannah's River walk area - great cobblestone street
look and old rails set into the road.

Savannah's Riverwalk area again.

The bell that would ring to signal the end of the workday.

The old marketplace area - Savannah has great little pockets of
historical looking areas throughout town.

We had to walk down some very steep stairs in the rain
 to get to the Riverwalk area :-)

We were planning on utilising the trolley and on/off more, but the whole morning was misty wet and then about 1pm the clouds just opened up and poured the rain down! Torrential is how I would describe it! Thankfully the rain slowed down after about 45 minutes, but then it started again as we were driving back to the hotel. Driving in torrential rain when you can't really see the lines on the road or what's in front of you is not great to be doing for longer than 5 minutes, let me tell you!


Tybee Island

About 45 minutes away from Savannah is Tybee Island. We headed this direction the day after the torrential rain storm passed by. It is also known as Savannah Beach and is a great stretch of sand along the Atlantic with sand dunes and large houses overlooking the view. Downtown driving in looks similar to other beach communities (it bought to mind driving into Inverloch, Victoria!) but the beach is exactly which I picture from movies and TV set in Georgia and North Carolina!

Looking over the sand dunes to the pier.....

Ready to inhabit movie scene....... ;-D

...... Ash enjoys the view!

Tybee Island is kind of known for its lighthouse. It is over 270 years old and is one of America's most intact lighthouses, as it has all of the historic support buildings on the five-acre site. It has 178 stairs winding up to the top and of course I had to climb to the top!

 

The lighthouse :-)

Views from the top! The beach line......

It was a tad blowy when I reached the top - the wind actually
blew me back around the corner when I tried to walk
around the outside to start with!

On the way back from Tybee Island, we came across a National Monument called Fort Pulaski. It was an awesomely designed fort that was kind of star shaped and had hillocks protecting the front of the fort and rooms hidden underneath them.......

Looking at the front of Fort Pulaski - you can't see it past the mounds!

A look at the mounds hiding the front door from the roof......

The unassuming entrance

Some information about the mounds protecting the entrance!
(I am a teacher after all! hehehe)

They had a section inside taken down to the ground of the
different parts of the walls..... pretty interesting!

The view from the top - all down the river!

Savannah was a great stay - we saw some great, grand areas of the city and found a wonderful little beach community on the beach close by. Definitely a place I would spend more time in at a later date - I actually can't wait to spend a day just wandering the city again without the torrential rain!! :-)

On the rain - driving through Tybee Island I saw the City Town Hall and noticed an interesting structure outside...... a hurricane storm surge level!

More on the road to come......

Keep smiling,
Candice :-)