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Monday we drove five miles to the RV Park at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station, a part of Joint Base Charleston. It is an open, quiet RV park that used to be a housing trailer park for enlisted housing. Once they built some adequate enlisted housing, the place was turned into a FamCamp. It was a win-win. As you know, we have had a lot of work done on the rig this winter, so we wanted to the opportunity to get everything checked out before we took off for five months. 
We did some serious spring cleaning. I pulled out every slideout storage tray and removed everything. Then I went through each tray and vacuumed it, and I vacuumed under each tray. Old stuff went to the dumpster and the remaining stuff was cleaned and resorted. Durelle did corresponding things inside. The weather was perfect. Sitting outside in the evening could not be nicer. The next shot shows the sunset.
Next door is a young couple with an apparently homemade trailer that was built to replicate a caboose. It looks nice.
Last evening this scene prompted Durelle to say,"Come see the sun setting behind the thunderstorm." This morning there were eagle(s), deer, and an alligator on our pond in the back yard. First the eagles.
As you can imagine, we never get tired of watching these wonderful birds. One of them was down on the far bank eating something...a fish, I assume...when an alligator made a run at the eagle, who promptly departed the premises.
This is the unsuccessful eagle hunter. While I'm glad he missed, it would have provided one of my most dramatic pictures. Can you imagine?
All's well in SC. We leave Monday for our five mile trip to the campground for our shakedown cruise.
It has been a long time between posts. But, we are about to get on the road again. It appears that all the trauma of the burglary damage is behind us. It took a couple of more iterations to get the TV back in operation. Today I brought the rig to the Camping World in North Charleston. We now have the TV back in normal operation. As most of you readers know, we don't go anywhere without the sports channel and DirecTV coverage. I do have some pictures, but as the title implies,they are not connected by any coherent theme.
This picture is of Drayton Hall. It was taken while the Dunns were here. That's Durelle on the portico. I used this shot in the previous post.
This one is a view toward the Ashley River taken from the entrance to the house.
Since then we have finally gotten the TV system debugged. It took a while. The burglars not only took the TV, they took the card out of the satellite receiver. We have reservations at the Naval Weapons Station (5 miles away) for a three night stay next week. The purpose is to make sure that we have all of the bugs out of the system before we take off for the summer. We have a new TV, a new drier, and a number of changes. I think everything is squared away, but it is worthwhile checking things out to be sure.
We have taken a few backyard pictures that are worth noting.
This is one of the pleasant sunset pictures.
This is a shot of my beer mug from my college days with a bunch of fresh oysters at an oyster roast at the next door neighbors.
The last picture is of a heron in the back yard. I am told on good authority (thanks, Ann) that the apparent injury on the shoulder is simply a changing of plumage as he enters into the mating season. Why would he be so obvious?
This weekend we were pleased to host Bernie and Ann Dunn as they motored north to Cape Cod in time to vote in the Massachusetts Republican primary. It was a great visit even though it was shortened by a day because they had to have some brake lines replaced before they could leave Florida. They arrived Friday and we met them on route 17 and led them in to Charleston AFB (Joint Base Charleston) to the FamCamp. It has been newly refurbished and has vaulted Charleston from being one of the worst FamCamps to one of the best. They got set up and we went home to get the camera and then took them to the Citadel for the Friday afternoon Retreat Parade.
It was a perfect day for a parade. Both Bernie and I have done our share of parading, and we enjoyed watching the Citadel cadets doing theirs. Below are a couple of shots from the parade.
After the parade we went to the Hominy Grill for an early supper. It is a classic, out of the way, Charleston eating spot that has been serving traditional southern recipes for a long time. Saturday was a bit rainy, so the traditional carriage rides did not seem to be the best option. We chose, instead, to visit Drayton Hall. It started life as a typical, pre-revolutionary rice plantation; but, at some point, evolved into a phosphate (fertilizer) mine. It carries the distinction of being preserved, not restored. There is no electricity or plumbing. The brick s---house is a seven-holer (family meetings?). The building must have been a marvel in its time. When the rest of the countryside supported log cabins, this place sported 27 foot ceilings in the foyer and sculptured plaster ceilings in the entertaining rooms. The cypress wainscoting looks as good as it did two centuries ago. It was a bit special when Bernie was able to assist the tour guide in the intricacies of plaster ceilings because his father had made a living creating them.
