Swan-y lake

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 RICHMOND HILL, GA – That’s right, we’re out of Florida! So this is what happened: Val looked at me, and I looked at Val, and we said “let’s go home.” We’ve been on the road, seeing all kinds of amazing things and places, since January 9th and it just feels like time to go home. So, from this point, we’ll be making steady headway for Ottawa, one day at a time. We decided to save St Augustine for another time. It’s tagged as “the nation’s oldest city” and has lots of interesting attractions, such as an alligator farm with more than 20 varieties of crocodilians represented, and the country’s first schoolhouse. They will be something we can look forward to the next time we head in this direction. So, we packed up, hitched the car to the back of the RV and hit Interstate 95, just west of our campground in Rockledge, and headed north. As we passed Daytona, we saw next to the highway the spot where every motorcycle rider in the lower 48, plus their passengers, was gathered for Bike Week. There must have been more than a thousand bikes, a large majority of which were Harley Davidsons, parked on the grounds, and more thundering by on the highway either on the way there or leaving. One that passed us had a big stuffed Tweety Bird on the back! A lot of bikers had opted to forego helmets, chaps, heavy boots, protective jackets and gloves and were just belting past with no protection. We hope they had a safe journey. We took the ring road around Jacksonville and before long we were passing the sign welcoming us into Georgia – “We’re glad Georgia’s on your mind” said the sign, quoting the wonderful tune made famous by Ray Charles, and now the state’s official song. We’re at a KOA campground just outside Savannah, where a large pond next to the site is a way point for Canada geese, as well as home to several beautiful swans. The KOA employee who registered us warned us to look out for one of the swans that’s less than fond of campers. He said the swan is pretty aggressive, so just to back off if it approached. When I took a stroll over to see, none of the serene-looking birds made any unwelcome advances. They just glided peacefully along – at least until a pair of them got too close to the small island where some Canada geese were resting. One goose let out a squawk and dive-bombed the pair. Their peaceful gliding immediately changed to hyperspeed! I wanted to share a picture of the swans in today’s blog entry, but for some reason, the download function from the camera wants to save all 1,800 plus pictures in the camera instead of just today’s shots. So you’ll just have to imagine how lovely they are till I figure out how to fix the problem. Meanwhile, here's a shot of Savannah I took the last time we were here.