Early Spring 2014 Update

Mary Ann at her desk..Hilton Head

 It's the end of March, 2014, and we've landed back in Savannah for a more in depth visit. I must say we have been looking forward to this revisit since we were first here back in 2010. Savannah, so far, is our favorite big city in this part of The South. It's full of southern charm. The kind you read about or hear of when people talk about The South. The genuine warmth and kindness that many think has been lost in our society still generally exists here, even four years later than my first story about it. (If you want a quick reference to what I'm adding in this post, start back in June of 2010 over in the right hand column, and then come back here.) We had to revisit a favorite stop in Savannah, Leopold's Ice Cream http://www.leopoldsicecream.com/ . A hundred years of tradition, and one of the most iconic ice cream parlors in the USA! Where else to eat in this foodie town? Well, there are tons of upscale to down home choices, but two places got our attention this time. The first is an out of downtown place called The Crystal Beer Parlor http://www.crystalbeerparlor.com/. Billed as the second oldest eating place in this very old town, the good, basic pub food and amazing selection of beers from all over are well worth a stop. It's a place so good that the locals come in droves, not minding the mix-in with the tourists. The Green Truck Pub http://greentruckpub.com/about/, which you really have to hunt for outside the downtown area, is another mostly local place but we found it filled with curious and adventurous tourists too. It's a neighborhood bar with terrific food choices, mostly on the healthy side. If you get there after about 5pm...prepare to wait a long time to get seated. It's small but worth the wait! Again, a terrific selection of craft beers, and Mary Ann ordered a reddish IPA, but I ordered a wonderful glass of Camenere Wine from their diminutive but interestingly eclectic list. It went well with my grass fed burger.

Leopold's Ice Cream, Savannah

 I digress though. We actually started this segment in Miami, where we spent most of the winter with brother Ed and sister-in-law, Pat. We'll miss the drive to the Keys, bike rides, and discovering new eating places with them, and our 5:30 pm walks with friends, Dee and Jimmy, near their home, where H2 was residing in their yard. We headed up to Central Florida in the beginning of March and stayed in the Mount Dora area for a couple of weeks.

Mount Dora, FL.

Never heard of Mount Dora? Good! They'd probably like it that way! It's a small town, about 40 miles northwest of Orlando...but a world away. Cuddled up next to a large lake, one of hundreds in the area, the charming downtown is full of shops and restaurants and pretty little parks. It's another in our growing list of very livable places that harken back in time.

 We left there and drove right back up the East Coast highway (I-95), past St. Augustine and Jacksonville, and stopped in Jekyll Island again, but this time we opted to stay right on Jekyll Island so we could spend more time in the old historic village. Again, see my posts from June of 2010. The entire St. Simon's Island, Jekyll Island, Brunswick, Georgia area is so filled with beauty and American history, that we still don't think we've absorbed it enough. The highlight of this stay was a Saturday night dress up dinner at the original  Jekyll Island Club Hotel, built by the likes of Goodyear and Rockefeller. The pastry chef there caught my attention too, especially with the very delicious danishes they sold at the little coffee and pastry shop in the hotel. The little lemon/cheese and cherry/cheese ones in particular! MMM,,.definitely another visit will be needed in the future.


Jekyll Island Club Hotel

 We keep rolling up the coast after the stay in Jekyll and then Savannah, We thought that Charleston was on our route map as the next stay, but ace time share exchanger, Mary Ann, scored a prime time share trade in Hilton Head Island. So on Saturday, after a night's boondocking, we stored H2 for a week away from "the house", and drove about five miles to the Marriott Monarch Resort on a wonderful stretch of beach on The Atlantic. It turns out this is the original property with which Marriott started it's amazing collection of world wide resorts thirty years ago. Our two bedroom, two bath condo is on a high floor, with a great view of the beach (see pic at the top of this story). A near perfect location for a week off the road. It's a luxurious four star property that would have cost over $3000 for the week had we not had that week of time to trade. Mary Ann mined a big one!! Since we have a four star kitchen here, and even though there are some very appetizing looking eateries all around, we are choosing to cook in mostly while we're here. Fresh shrimp and seafood, good grocery stores, and that kitchen, are keeping us mostly home for food this week.

 Our plan is to keep driving up the eastern edge of the country, and another stay in Charleston, until we get to the most Northeastern part of North Carolina and The Outer Banks, and then head west, right back to Asheville for the summer of 2014.