Bob and Camille's Puerto Rican Wedding

A drive to Orlando for our flight to Puerto Rico. We spent Christmas Eve at a rooftop restaurant in San Juan.
On Christmas Day, we were off to Viejes. John fortunately called the airlines in advance. They had cancelled our flight, so we had to head back to the main airport to catch another flight. It was a 10 person plane flying visual to the small island of Viejes. Bob and Steph met us at the airport and we drove to Casa Cielo. The island was reminiscent of Costa Rico – bad roads, a lazy feeling and stray dogs (and horses) everywhere. We had a quick lunch with the entire family, took a quick nap and then headed for a pre-wedding dinner.
December 26 - Wedding day. John, Bob and I took off for the morning to explore the island while the others had massages and did their nails, etc. The wedding was absolutely beautiful - simple and elegant with a touch of Bob and Camille making it truly their ceremony. Father Tomas (“Doubting Tomas”- a priest from Guatemala who had the irritating habit of saying “exactly” in every sentence) did a great job. We had champagne and appetizers then headed for a wedding dinner.

Mom's Birthday!

A birthday celebration for Mom at Margarita Grill. It was a wonderful dinner- blackened mahi and a huge margarita for Mom. The owner, a Greek immigrant, entertained us with magic tricks and we got to see the parade of boats down the river. It was a perfect evening!

Amelia Island

It was a very short drive from Sea Island, Georgia to just below the GA/FL border to Amelia Island/Fernandina Beach. We found a great campsite- Hance’s First in Florida RV Park. No pretense- it had concrete pads, cheek by jowl, just off I-95. After a stop at the Florida Visitor Center, we headed to Fernandina Beach and the historic district. The historic district was tiny, but absolutely beautiful. Huge Victorian houses built by railroad and shipping money in the late 1800’s.
The island itself is home to about 20,000 people and is only 30 miles north of Jacksonville airport. It is 3 miles long and 2 miles across at it’s widest point. Driving south on the island, we noticed the roads filled with Volvo’s, Lexus, Porsche’s and high end retail outlets. The northern money had found Amelia Island. We had lunch at the local coffee shop complete with Sunday NY Times. The downtown area is adorable- Italianate buildings, 2 bookstores, waterfront at the end of the block.

We met with a local realtor in the morning. He turned out to be a wealth of information about the island and real estate.

A few notes:
Almost 100% of the island is built out.
The growth area is now the area from the island to I-95. Most of the housing being built is entry-level ($125K+) with golf courses.
Much of the growth is coming from Jacksonville sprawl. Becoming bedroom community to Jacksonville, off-island particularly. (3500 houses going in off-island)
Average home price on the island is $200K.
Much of the property buyers are from Atlanta (a 5 hour drive, 1 hour flight to the beach.)

We found a few properties on the IntraCoastal Waterways- gorgeous views of the water, but they needed alot of work and the price tags were outrageous....back to square one....

"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"

After an evening of running the numbers on the Charleston house, we came to the conclusion that, although we loved the house, it wouldn’t support our lifestyle. We decided that we really need a home with at least one dependency to cover our fixed costs and give us the freedom to travel. With the Charleston house, we would have required about 9 months of executive rental to cover our fixed costs- so we’d have a beautiful home, but wouldn’t be able to live in it ourselves.

So, we were off to Savannah- The weather turned on us and it was pouring rain all morning. In the afternoon, we drove out to Savannah’s beach community, Tybee Island. It was a 40’s style beach community filled with a range of housing styles (mostly small and tacky) and a few restaurants. We stopped at the local crab shack for an overprice “thimble” of clam chowder. With high prices and an unheated dining room, we opted to dine at the Korean restaurant. It was wonderful to have spicy Korean food again.

The area around the KOA where we were staying was rural Georgia- lots of auto parts stores and churches (with signs like, “God answers kneemail”). All the men own brand new SUV trucks and like to start them up early in the morning and just let them idle a while.

We spent the day touring Savannah. We took a trolley tour (all three of us- although we had to keep Mija hidden under a map to try to stop the smells from wafting through the entire trolley). She was definitely ready for a bath.

Savannah is a simply beautiful city- maybe the most beautiful Historic District ever. The city was planned with a series of public squares filled with huge live oak trees and fountains. The feeling of neighborhood is spectacular. It reminded us of Boston’s South End. There is a lot of gentrification and also a lot of gorgeous unrestored homes.

We had lunch at Clary’s (featured in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”). It was another hearty lunch. We took their famous bread pudding home for my birthday dessert. We rented “the” movie and had bread pudding for dinner. It was a wonderful birthday.

We spent the next day driving through the historic district and getting a better sense of the housing. We used the real estate guide to get a sense of the housing costs and found some beautiful properties. It was time to call a realtor to see if this city would make the list.

Armed with a book on Historic Savannah, we did another drive around seeing the areas outside the HD- the Victorian District (both the “Afro-Victorian” and “Gentro-Victorian” areas) and Ardsley Park (a kind of Cleveland Heights with beautiful squares). We stopped at two open houses on Jones Street. Jones Street is one of the most beautiful streets we’d ever seen. Rows of beautiful townhomes lined with live oak trees and brick streets. The first house was beautiful from the outside, but the inside was the work of a local Home Depot job –and it was horribly over-priced. The second house on East Jones was an interesting property. It had the feeling of our house in Boston when you walked in – with heart pine floors, very high ceilings, floor to ceiling windows in the living room and master bedroom, a beautiful backyard and a 2 car carport. It had been vacant for over a year and was definitely a property that we could tackle. We had a quick lunch on the riverfront at one of the many tourist restaurants. It’s the Quincy Market of Savannah- lots of tourist shops, bars and restaurants.

The next day, we dropped Mija off at “Spa Dog” for her day at the spa. We headed off to Celia Dunn Real Estate to meet with Celia herself. We had a 2 hour meeting with Celia. She was a local Savannah resident-and a huge supporter of renovation in the Historic District.

A few notes on real estate in Savannah:
Any modifications to the exterior have to be approved by the Historic Review Board (some can be made by the staff, some require a committee review.)
The rental market is primarily SCAD students (grad and under-grad) and young professionals.
Local industry is doing OK- there’s some talk of Daimler Chrysler building a plant. Otherwise, locally things are fairly stable- with the main industry of manufacturing (steel, tractor equipment, sugar, paper), banks and the port.
The Historic District is a real neighborhood where people know each other and look out for each other. Crime is a problem- primarily auto theft, but also assaults and home burglaries. Much of the violent crime is black on black, but there is a large ‘indigent’ population that increases the theft problem.
Property taxes are high- a rough estimate is 2% of the selling price of the house. There are both city and country taxes.

Something is nagging at us about this beautiful city. The local paper (which doesn’t seem to cover any national news, but is filled with local info) has been reporting on the high crime rate, the flight from the city (a 4% decline in 10 years), and the high taxes. The crime rate has placed Savannah in the top 10 of all metropolitan areas in the US. Security systems abound (along with ‘beware of dog’ signs). The local mayoral election is starting with one candidate declaring a war on crime as his first priority. There appears to be a general lack of leadership/vision in the city.

We spent the afternoon with our realtor looking at properties in the Historic District. The range of properties and prices were stunning. We saw new construction (with elevator and carriage house) for $490K and town homes for $925K with no parking. We kept coming back to the house on East Jones and spent some time re-looking at the property. It could be beautiful and the block is spectacular. But, again, it’s too much, too soon.

Beaufort----
We took a day trip to Beaufort, SC to see if it was as beautiful as we remembered it from our last visit. It was truly charming. So charming in fact, that we called a realtor and spent the afternoon looking at housing in the historic district (Old Point) and the surrounding communities.

According to Judy, the realtor, about 70% of the buyers are coming from outside the area. About 1/3 are looking for anything on the water or with a water view. About 1/3 are looking for golf communities and the last 1/3 are looking for historic properties. The lower home market is going strong- largely due to low interest rates and the 2 military bases close to Beaufort. Over $300K, it’s a bit slower moving. There’s a large market for ST rentals, but very little availability. The real estate company rents a small cottage for $1200/month furnished. Most of the demand comes from people who are in town building and want to be close to the site, but don’t want to move their stuff. There’s also a market for military personnel coming in on temporary living allowances. They just opened Oaks Apartments- furnished two bedroom apartments rent for $1500/month. Judy expects appreciation at 10-15% on housing.

The housing in Old Point was lovely- we looked at a beautiful Victorian (needed some work, but it had a lovely feel- high ceilings, open rooms). It didn’t have parking and needed some structural work – and had been on the market for over a year. We also looked at several other properties downtown and one with a water view. While the views were lovely, the house was unimpressive - open floor plan with a in-ground pool and a guest apartment. It was priced at only $415K, but there were lots galore in the same area.

Sea Islands...
Content that we’d seen Savannah and surround well enough to count it in as a possibility, we headed south to the Sea Islands of Georgia. First, we stopped for lunch at the TA Truck Stop restaurant. For $4.99, we had a ½ pound hamburger with fries- enough food to feed a truck driver (or in our case, enough for the two of us and several meals for Mija) When we got to the the Sea Island area, we stopped in a state park with beautiful live oaks and no possibility of satellite reception. So, we tried the park down the road. While lacking in any atmosphere (most of the sites were water logged or filled with muck, we were able to find a relatively dry spot, got satellite reception and called it home for a few days.

We took a drive to Brunswick to track down a book store (limited, but it was a book store- which is hard to find in the south). Then we took a quick stop at the TA and FlyingJ Truck stops. The parking lots were filled with RV’s- most of them from Quebec- spending the night for free on their way to Florida. All the campgrounds and truck stops are filled with snowbirds making their way south before Christmas.

We did a tour of the Sea Islands – starting with Sea Island. We drove around the Cloisters, where John’s family vacationed when they were kids. It was definitely white man’s land. We asked one of the “help” for directions to the swimming pool. He rolled his eyes and said, “No sir, I don’t rightly know”

From there, we drove all around St Simon’s- a bastion of white money. The south is filled with white people with money living in enclaves (gated communities or named communities) while the poor whites live in run down homes or mobile homes- completely separated from the poor blacks.

Fleeing the white bread atmosphere of St Simons, we found the historic district of Brunswick. Completely surrounded by run-down black neighborhoods with a small buffer of white red-neck housing, it was several blocks of large, beautiful Victorian homes in various stages of renovation. The streets were lined with live oaks and it was truly lovely. (They had a unique real estate pitch- a drive by house description- just turn to 1610 on your AM dial and listen to a description of the house. ). On the way out of town, we drove through the historic downtown area- with too many ‘for rent” signs in the windows.

We drove north to Darien, hoping to find a small town with a historic district, but didn’t find much but an outlet mall and a few old houses. John says that the south is filled with “live oaks and dead brains”.

Jekyll Island...
Our last stop was at Jekyll Island. The island is owned by the State of Georgia and the scenery is spectacular. The island was originally the playground of the Rockefellers, Goodyears, etc. They built a huge private club and gorgeous “cottages” for their summer retreats. Now, the club is a hotel and the cottages are art galleries and inns. Surrounding the beautiful homes was a development of 60’s style brick ranch houses with the most amazing views of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Could Charleston be our new home?

It was on to Charleston and the KOA in Mount Pleasant. Coming to Charleston was like coming home. We found our old notes from our trip in 1994 and started to re-discover our favorite spots. We ate at The Wreck on Shem’s Creek – the best fried shrimp in the world.

We spent the day exploring Charleston – driving the streets and looking at the spectacular houses and neighborhoods. We stopped for lunch at Poogan’s Porch on Queen Street and I had their fried chicken salad – it was wonderful. We knew that this city was a possible “home base” for us so we met with a realtor in the morning and got an introduction to the neighborhoods, the market and got some listing sheets to give us the chance to drive around and get a bit more comfortable with the city. We looked at South of Broad, Harleston Village, Wraggsboro and Ansonboro. We grabbed lunch at Cru Café (another re-run for us) and it was wonderful to sit outside in 70 degree weather in November.

Thanksgiving Day- November 28th- We had the option of doing the traditional turkey dinner at one of the local restaurants, but opted instead to go to one of the two Indian restaurants in the city- Nirlep (which means ‘peace’ in Hindi). It was spicy hot and the perfect way to spend the holiday.

The day after Thanksgiving and it was time for some serious house hunting – we started with the $1.3M house on Pitt Street. It was simply stunning – double piazza, high ceilings, perfectly decorated with two “dependencies” in the back bringing in about $2000 in rental per month. They had incorporated the ruins of the old stable into a beautiful garden complete with potting shed. But, it was a bit too much house for us- and the price tag was just a bit too high. We went to a series of other houses, primarily in Harleston Village and they ranged from charming to over-priced. But, the house on Wentworth, however, got our attention. It was built in 1810 and moved to its’ current location (= new foundation). It had a grand piazza, 3 car garage, spectacular garden, 12 foot ceilings and was stunningly decorated (the current owner was an interior designer). They had a tragic story- they lost their oldest son in a car crash and the womans’s health went down hill. So, they were moving to be close to their other son in Tennessee. We loved the house – it had “oomph”.

We headed out to Bowen’s Island for dinner to talk about the house and whether we really wanted to get a house at this stage. We had many glasses of wine and a full dinner of shrimp and oysters and talked with the “chef”, Henry.

The next day, we drove through Sullivans Island and Isle of Palms, had a great lunch at the Banana Cabana. The beach communities here are done very tastefully. The housing stock was mixed, with huge houses on one side of the street and 60’s style housing on the other. But, the prices were well over $1M-and it’s still a beach community.

December 1st and the weather is beautiful- sunny, crisp days – sweater weather. We had a quiet Sunday morning- reading the paper and having a big breakfast. We had a few more houses to look at/drive by. Lina, the realtor, has ignored our $$ limit and had us looking at houses from well over our budget. We tried to do a modeling of the cost/benefit of the house on Wentworth- but still need some information to fill in the blanks. At lunch, Poogans Porch, we talked about a lifestyle where we would be always available to rent out the house. It might be a possibility- a justification to getting this beautiful house. But there was still that nagging doubt that we just weren’t ready for a house commitment yet.

We met with Lina at 10:00 and spent about an hour at the Wentworth house. Hoping that our second impression would find fault with the house, we found that we were still bowled over by the beauty of this place. It was truly “Debbie’s Dream House”. We took a look at a few other properties but nothing could compare to this house.

Myrtle Beach

Off to Myrtle Beach. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and the 85 miles went by quickly.
We made a stop at Camping World. It was filled with people over 55, mostly couples, wandering the aisles picking up “stuff”. Meanwhile, 50’s and 60’s music played in the background.
We opted not to go to one of the 5 or 6 huge “family campgrounds” in Myrtle Beach and headed to Huntington Beach State Park. The park was the only piece of property not completely overrun by ticky-tacky hotels, restaurants and shopping centers. It was beautiful- wooded campsites with trails directly to the ocean – all for only $19/night.

Since it was Friday night, we decided to go out for dinner. We stopped at Pawley’s Island Tavern and Restaurant- expecting a cheap dive. We got the dive part, but the cheap wasn’t part of it. It obviously catered to the northern transplants with $5 wine and $4 beers. But, the fish was fresh and wonderful.

Pawley’s Island claims to be “arrogantly shabby”. It was a mix of old and new style houses. The houses on the island itself weren’t anything to write home about, but they had both an oceanside and an inlet side with slips on the inlet side.

Georgtown was adorable- another Mayberry RFD town. The main street ended at the steel mill and the waterfront had a view of the paper mill. The housing was a mix of 1800’s and 1930’s architecture with only one street (2nd street) with any real charm.

We decided to look at one of the gated communities and get some sense of price and atmosphere. We stopped at “deBordieu”. It was awful- manicured grounds with a serious security system. They wouldn’t even let us drive through the community. Prices ranged from $600K and way up. We decided that even if resale would be good as babyboomers retire, we couldn’t live in a community like this.

We grabbed a pulled pork sandwich at Hog Heaven restaurant before heading north. We drove through Murrell’s Inlet which was basically one long row of seafood restaurants. Garden City was a mobile home park – streets lined with mobile home “communities”.

Myrtle Beach was the worst of Florida beach front. They even had mobile homes on stilts.
Note- The honky-tonk ocean development starts in NJ and goes all the way to Florida. The only exceptions are state parks and gated communities.

We drove through one of the family RV parks and were promptly horrified. It wasn’t hard to imagine what it would be like in the summer with every one of their 1400+ sites filled. In addition to the RV sites, they also had a trailer park where they added permanent additions onto their mobile homes.

We stopped to take a photo of the classic southern restaurant- SBB Burnout Saloon (the “Suck, Bang, Blow” – “Thaaatts Right”….

Exploring North Carolina

We had an appointment with the RV dealer in Wilmington for Tuesday at 7:30 am, so we stopped by to introduce ourselves and “build rapport”. Our first impression was one of extremely friendly and helpful people. It continued over our stay in Wilmington. Everywhere we went, we found people willing to go out of their way to help – and we found people who actually knew something about the area.

On Tuesday, we arrived at the dealership at 7:30 and they actually had us in on time and had the problem diagnosed within an hour. It meant ordering a part for the hydraulic line and rescheduling the work. The service we got was phenomenal. Becky, the parts guru, called Winnebago. When they couldn’t get the part immediately, she called the manufacturer who could ship it but would charge overnight shipping. So, she called Winnebago and got them to pick up the shipping. We scheduled the service for Thursday .

We spent the afternoon driving around downtown Wilmington. Even in the pouring rain, we could tell that it was our kind of housing and neighborhood. The historic district is the largest in NC and one of the largest in the country. The houses were typical Southern style- front porches on the sidewalks with brick. The streets were alternately paved with brick. Evidently there is an ongoing battle with the city who keeps trying to repave the streets with concrete – and the people in the neighborhood come out at night and clear off the concrete from their brick streets.

The next day, we took a look at properties on the Intracoastal Waterway. On the waterfront, the homes were beautiful- graceful split staircase entries going up one floor (to allow for hurricane flow-through on the ground level) and multilevels with decks overlooking the waterway. We called for a price check with a realtor- lots for $700-900, homes from $1.4M.

The Minnie Winnie was ready that afternoon. While we waited for them to finish up, we took a tour of the Class A and Diesel Pushers on the lot. What a selection- everything from $100-$450K. The high end coaches were gorgeous- 3 TV’s (plasma and flat screens), side by side refrig/freezer, convection microwave, granite countertops, marble baths, washer/dryer. You could easily imagine living full-time in one of these. The sales guy told us that you can count on about 20% discount off list - and then about 10% depreciation the first year.

They fixed the slider and the shower in about an hour and we were off. I finished shopping while John continued the march on “Humpty Dumpty”. We stopped for dinner at the local fish restaurant (owned by a guy from Boston) – fried catfish, hush puppies, baked potato, and cole slaw (and unlimited glasses of coke and iced tea).

We decided to spend one more day in Wilmingon. It was beginning to feel like home. We drove out to Wrightsville Beach. It was very tasteful (for beach property) – not at all honky-tonk. The houses along the Intracoastal were lovely and they had a number of good restaurants right on the water. We stopped for a quick lunch and a waterview before taking the trolley tour of historic Wilmington. After the tour, we drove around picking up realtor sheets. The price range looked good- historic homes still available under $300K. We stopped at one, built in 1930. They were asking $299 and it was small but lovely. It had a beautiful backyard with a 2 car garage and potting shed, original hardwood flooring, 10’ ceilings. It would need some work in the kitchen, but otherwise was in move-in condition. Two guys were looking at the property and probably made an offer on it. We had a nice talk with them and the realtor –getting the local input on the town, real estate, etc. We made one last stop at the Chamber of Commerce and got a relocation package. Then, we headed home through Wilmington traffic – it was pretty bad.
Note: Come back here in the summer – humidity can be dramatic.

The next day, it was time to leave Wilmington. We had a sunny day for our drive to New Bern. It was only 85 miles from Wilmington and we arrived at the Neuse River Campground to find another “Mount Doo-doo”. Most of the campsites were filled wth full time trailer folk. We parked on Squirrel Alley, right next to Bee Hive Trail and I took Mija for a walk to the river (trying to avoid the muck and standing water left over from the rain).

We took a drive to downtown New Bern to grab some lunch and check out the town. Trying to find anything open on a Monday afternoon was tough. The downtown area was deserted. We stopped at a restaurant claiming to be the home of Pepsi Cola.

The historic district of New Bern was absolutely charming- a mix of colonial and Victorian architecture. It had an Annapolis feel. Once again, there was a beautiful waterfront with virtually no restaurants or bars taking advantage of the views.

November 19th --We got up at 5:30 am to see the Leonid meteor shower. The next viewing won’t be until 2098.
That day we drove north of New Bern to a small town, Washington. It was a cute town with very inexpensive real estate. It reminded us of Havre de Grace – using their waterfront for a parking lot. The downtown was filled with empty storefronts. You definitely got a feeling of a depressed economy.
From Washington, we drove to the coast to the town of Oriental. It had gotten tremendous press in the guidebooks for it’s historic sailing charm. We completely missed any charm. We found the one restaurant in town that was open- Mis Sal’s Kitchen. It was like eating in an old age home- complete with a room full of senior citizens eating from a huge buffet (featuring ham, yams, cole slaw..)

From there, we took the ferry from Minnesott Beach to Cherry Branch and drove down to the Beaufort (BOU-fort, not BU-fort). Beaufort was a cute little resort town- only a few streets of restaurants and shops and a few streets of historic houses. Evidently the summer is packed with tourists. In November, there was no one on the streets.

We drove back through Morehead City and Havelock (a military town). The countryside is ticky-tacky –dotted with mobile home parks and gated golf communities. We had seen a young girl living in a trailer with her very large mother at Neuse River Campground. As we watched her going to and from school, we commented on how difficult it must be to live like that and deal with peer pressure at school. Driving around NC, we realized that living in a trailer park doesn’t have a stigma- it’s a way of life.

A few comments about North Carolina:
Coastal NC (except Wilmington) – you have to drive forever to get anywhere.
There are churches everywhere – Baptist, Pentecostal, and a host of denominations that we’d never heard of before.
Black and whites do not mix – not in the restaurants, stores, or bars. The blacks do not make eye contact with whites.
Life is country, cars, Christ, fuhball, fishin and firearms.
Bookstores (except Bible book stores) and computer stores are virtually non-existent. Auto parts stores and car dealerships are everywhere.
The Coastal plain is either swamp or scrub pine.
NYC has Ralph Kramden, Mpls has Mary Tyler Moore, NC has Andy Griffith. (They’re even building a statue to him in Raleigh)

We drove back to Morehead City for lunch at the “Sanitary” Restaurant. It was, again, senior citizens on parade. We’re not sure how much more fried food we can stand- lunch was fried fish, french fries, fried onion rings, fried hush puppies and unlimited ice tea or coke.
The Atlantic beachfront was nothing short of the best of honky-tonk Florida. The only quasi-quality place was Emerald Isle.

Staying at "Mount Doo- Doo" in Raleigh

Time to head to North Carolina. First stop- Raleigh. It gave us a chance to see an inland NC city and get to an RV dealer. It was another day of driving in the rain. It seems like every travel day is a stormy day. John stopped at every truck stop to try to get air in the tires. The tire valves that Winnebago supplied just wouldn’t work.

We arrived in Raleigh and headed to College RV. The dealership was filled with “good old boys”. They got us set up in their back lot/campground with some vague promises for “fitting us into the schedule” in the next few days.

We drove the RV back to the “campground” and discovered a whole new breed of “trailer trash”. We’d always thought of “trailer trash” as those folks living in mobile homes permanently affixed to the ground. These folks had travel trailers permanently hooked to their sites. For $270/month, they got a water, electric and sewer hookup. They wrapped their pipes for winter freezes, had used tire planter boxes (a lot with plastic plants) and some even had container gardens (growing vegetables). Most of them had barking dogs on leashes (and none of them cleaned up after the dogs). After a few days, we renamed the park, “Mount Doo-Doo”. We spent a lot of time cleaning dog shit off our shoes.

While waiting for the RV service, we explored Raleigh. It has an Atlanta feeling – shopping malls everywhere and huge roads to handle the tremendous traffic volume. The driving style is reminiscent of Nascar. Speeding is prevalent and they typically speed up and ride your bumper. They hate to be passed and speed up whenever you attempt to pass them. They also ride in your blind spot. It’s a very irritating driving style, not to mention being dangerous.

We spent most of the day shopping (seems like we do a lot of shopping in this new lifestyle). There’s always something that needs to be fixed, groceries that need to be replenished, etc). Fortunately, Raleigh was awash in Target, Home Depot, Kmart, WallMart…

We finally got to tour Raleigh's beautiful historic district, Oakwood. The neighborhood had a wonderful feel – quiet, tree lined streets with lots of houses with southern front porches. The houses were a mix of Craftsman and Victorian styles. North Carolina not only marks the beginning of the “south” in terms of attitude (Maryland and Virginia are more transitional states), but the housing also has the southern tradition of high ceilings (to deal with the heat).

We headed back to the RV to see if they’d been able to fit us into the schedule. Finally, at 4:30, they came to get the vehicle. They got it into the shop and got the tire valve extenders installed (and did a diagnosis of the slider problem). After the frustration of dealing with the dealer, we tried to find a restaurant for dinner. We settled on a Mexican dump across the street.

We headed to the coast in the morning. It was going to be a long day of driving, but we got an early start and it was fascinating to see the change in topography from Piedmont to Coastal Plain. We drove to Edenton (a town that most retirement books recommend). It was charming. The downtown was another Mayberry RFD main street. The housing was Summit-esque – large houses on beautifully manicured lawns. The waterfront housing was Big Chill-esque and the waterfront was truly spectacular. We searched for a restaurant with a water view- with no luck.

We had lunch at a little lunch spot and got the low-down from the locals. The real estate prices are rising- largely due to the influx of northerners and lots of homes are on the market with people trying to take advantage of the market prices. Hurricanes don’t appear to be a problem – no problems with tidal surges. They’re 1/5 hours from Norfolk (where most people go for serious shopping) and 1.5 hours to the beach. Although it was a beautiful town with wonderful housing and a great waterfront, it definitely felt as if it would close in on you in time.

We drove from there through Elizabeth City and onto the Outer Banks. The Outer Banks beach towns weren’t as honky-tonk as Delaware, but still beachy. We stopped at Kitty Hawk.

With another day in Raleigh, we took a trolley tour of historic Raleigh and went through the downtown area and Oakwood district. The downtown was virtually empty – void of life- on a Saturday afternoon. The only activity was around the City Market park (mostly blacks sitting around in the park and white people shopping in the cute little stores). The South is so segregated to this day. Whites and blacks live in completely separate areas, eat in separate restaurants and appear to have very little interaction.

We drove through several other areas of Raleigh proper. Cameron had a Cleveland Heights feel to it- housing built in the 1930’s. We also got some shopping done (shoes and rain gear for John). Cary, a suburb just outside Raleigh, was shopping central with every store known to man. We also found an ethnic enclave there –with a Korean restaurant and Indian grocery store. Dinner was take-out Korean (the woman in the restaurant couldn’t believe that we knew anything about Korean food- half of their menu was Chinese food and we ordered “off the menu”)

Dan and Joanne were in Winston Salem visiting their daughter, Meredith, so we decided to meet them for brunch. Another rainy day and horrifying NC drivers. We did find two truck stops along the way- a Petro and Flying J. We got a truck stop directory and marveled at the ammenities in these stops. Brunch was fun. Joanne kept us entertained – just by being Joanne. She told us that the first time she had ever been out of New Jersey was on a date with Dan. Her dad, a carpenter, thought a big outing was to take the family and drive Route 80 to see the progress. For a big treat, they’d stop by Dairy Queen on the way back for a cone. Jennifer, their daughter, suggested she write a book, “Life beyond Route 80”.

After brunch, we took a drive around Winston Salem. The West End was touted as their “historic district”. It was a Cleveland Heights-esque area and the downtown area was sterile (and dead –although it was a Sunday afternoon). The downtown looked and felt a bit like Rochester, NY.

On the way home, we stopped in Chapel Hill (home of the NC Tar-heels). It was definitely a college town (the campus looked a bit like the UofM campus without the beautiful old buildings and without the large city attached for life outside campus. We did find a NY Times and headed back to Mount Doo-doo.

Carry me back to old Virginia.....

Another rainy day- time to head out to Williamsburg, VA. We finally made it to the Jamestown Beach Campgrounds and set up camp. The campsite was viturally empty and immaculate.

We decided to take a look at several of the historic towns around Williamsburg. Smithfield was a gorgeous little town with some spectacular Victorians (and a ham packing plant). As with most of these small towns, they are very segregated. This town reminded us of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry. We had lunch at a bakery where they made their own bread (I had the Piggly Wiggly sandwich made with local salt cured ham).

From there, we headed to Portsmouth. The town itself was lifeless, but it had a beautiful section called “Olde Town”- with homes that reminded us of Dorcester. But they had done nothing with their beautiful waterfront- filled with high rise hotels and condos and no restaurants/bars.

Note- The driving style in Virginia is very Bostonesque- they all seem to be in a go-fast contest and the traffic density was similar to Boston.

We took some time to do errands. I had a two hour stint at the local laundromat- 4 washers full. They allow smoking so I’m not sure how clean our clothes smell. Meanwhile, John was working on the slider problem (the big "thunk" it made when it was retracted) and found it to be a leak in the hydraulic line. It seems to be a problem a day on the Minnie Winnie.

We’d heard that Richmond had the largest collection of Victorian homes in the country- so we headed off to find out. The reports were right. We drove through am area called Church Hill – it was reminiscent of a 1995 Charlestown. A collection of streets with beautifully renovated houses with mostly white residents surrounded by a black neighborhood with teens on the street corner. We drove to the Fan District which had the most amazing collection of Victorians ever. Monument Avenue was a Back Bay look-alike. Huge mansions going on for blocks. Several of the side streets were quite charming- a bit less imposing, but much more of a neighborhood feel. The streets were gas lit- with brick sidewalks.

Then, we tried to find a place to eat on the riverfront. There was absolutely nothing overlooking this beautiful river. Our conclusion was that we could find our perfect house, but never be happy in a city who so devalued their waterfront.

From Cape May to Ocean City

A farewell to the marina staff and to CJ and Jeff. Our plans to stay for only a few days had turned into a week, but we had the feeling that we’d be back. We headed south to the Delaware/Maryland beaches.

We pulled into Sandy Cove RV Park and gasped. The park was filled with trailers on cinder blocks with tacky wooden decks and lawn chairs – a year round site for trailers. Since it was the end of the season, the short-term rental spaces were completely vacant. The manager told us to take any spot and we hooked up to electrical and water and settled in. The view outside our window was beautiful- right on Indian River and Bay. Mija went crazy bounding through the open grasses by the water- her own personal playground complete with every species of bird – herons, mallards, cormorants… It was getting late, so we decided to try Bethany Beach for a sunset and drinks. The Mango was completely deserted. The two waiters split the two tables with patrons and we had happy hour drinks and appetizers (a quesadilla that was primarily cheese) and had great views of the beach and the sunset.

The next day, we explored the Delaware shore from Rehoboth Beach to Dewey Beach to Lewes. Rehoboth looked a lot like the ticky tacky resort towns in Florida. Lots of tourist shops and boardwalk. Outside the main town, however, the houses were lovely and well kept. Lewes was charming- a small, quaint town with lots of charm and beautiful housing stock. We called a realtor to get some sense of the market. A beautiful Victorian in town was selling in the high 500’s. With rental income of $1200-2000/week during high season, it became a real possibility for a different kind of lifestyle. We had a great dinner at Redfins – a restaurant just a few miles from our camp. Fresh swordfish and the best calamari we’ve ever had.

We got up the next morning and headed to Cape May. The ferry from Lewes took about an hour and we explored the beautiful Victorian town of Cape May – with some of the most beautiful Victorian homes we’d ever seen. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant and since the weather was heating up, we opted to have Mija leashed to the front porch of the restaurant. She caused quite a fuss with the people passing by.

From Cape May to Ocean City, Maryland. The day was overcast and did nothing to improve the strip that constitutes Ocean City. It was the worst of Florida beach towns. We stopped for lunch at General’s –chipped beef on bisquits. It was right across from Big Peckers Restaurant. We were able to track down some flip-flops at a reduced end-of-season price at the beach store (“gook shoes” as my friend from WalMart calls them).

From Ocean City, we drove to Berlin (where they filmed Runaway Bride). It was charming – but again, much too small for future consideration.

John had made friends with the guys at the local trailer service center. They recommended a great local place for wings- the best in the state. So, we headed off to Smitty McGee;s. The wings were as advertised. We tried them medium and nuclear. The bar was filled with retirees playing some video quiz show game, so John signed me up. While we didn’t score much on points, we did meet several of the locals and got some advice on retirement. Delaware is a retiree’s heaven- low taxes and inexpensive property.

Notes:
Hockesene- new money outside Wilmington
Greenville DL- old money outside Wilmington
Only Victorians- Lewes
New Castle- historical town – in town only, but watch the areas
Car 2.75% tax, no sales tax, Senior programs are great
1st 20K income not taxed. After 62, no school tax.
$300K house- $800/year property taxes.
2.5 miles from beach- insurance problems- floor issues over Bay Bridge.
Other suggestions: Duck, NC (on A-1A), Amelia Island FL, Sea Island/St Simons

The Chesapeake Bay

It was time to hit the road for real. No more safety net of RV supercenters or Kate’s house. We hit the road and headed for Castle Marina, just outside Annapolis. The drive down was uneventful. John made friends with a trucker who showed him the insiders method of checking tire pressure (all you need is a “Tire buddy” – which will also work for fending off any intruders). Everyone was buying gas in New Jersey before heading into sniper country in Maryland. The entire region was paralyzed with fear of pumping gas or shopping at Home Depot for fear of being killed by the sniper.

We got off 95 and onto Route 301, a beautiful double lane highway running through farmland and squash and pumpkin patches. We found our way to Castle Marina and CJ helped us settle into the parking lot outside the Marina office. After 10 years, it was good to see her again and the years melted away. Jeff was at the Annapolis Power Boat Show, so we made a stop at the boat to see their “home”- a gorgeous 58 foot boat. The “Pinch Me” was huge- much bigger than I ever expected. It was 58’ long, with 3 berths, a full kitchen (with full-sized appliances) and a real living room with large screen TV. CJ made a Cosmopolitan and after 2 drinks, we stumbled off to dinner at a local Italian place . Our first night in the marina was on our own- generator power, but once again, we slept like babies.

Jeff stopped by in the morning and with the marina manager’s help, we got set up with an electrical hookup. The propane gauge was showing empty, so we located “Big Daddy’s” Texaco station, towing service and propane station just a few blocks away. Big Daddy was out on a tow, so we talked with Big Mamma and she told us to stop by about 10:00. Big Daddy was a real local Eastern Shore guy – huge beer belly and a marble-mouthed accent. We filled up the tank (it wasn’t empty) and filled the gas tank.

In the afternoon, we headed to Chestertown with CJ and Jeff. The town dates from the 1600’s and has a charming little business district just blocks from the harbor. Housing styles ran the gamut from Federal to Georgian to Italianate to Queen Anne. We walked the downtown streets, got an ice cream (3 scoops for $1) and then drove through the historic district of houses. The houses on the water were beautiful and the town became #1 on our possible list of future homes.

We headed back to Kent Island and had a beautiful sunset dinner at The Narrows. Food was spectacular- pecan crusted catfish.

Encouraged by the charm of Chestertown, we decided to head north to another small historic town called Chesapeake City. Situated on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, the views were spectacular and the possibility of watching the Canal traffic was intriguing. But, the town itself, was very small. The main business street was filled with small Victorian houses, but there wasn’t much of an infrastructure to support anything but tourism. It was a micro-Marblehead without the surrounding neighborhoods – a one street town.

We continued to Hartford County at the northern edge of the Chesapeake Bay and at the mouth of the Susquehanna River found a lovely town, Havre de Grace (pronounced by the locals as “Hava de Grace”). The town was real- obviously still oriented towards tourism, but with the feel of a real town outside the tourist season. They made abysmal use of their spectacular waterfront with only one restaurant on the water. Another possible option if small town life and a Victorian house are our primary factors.

We drove back through Baltimore and got back to the Marina for dinner on the boat with CJ and Jeff. She made fresh grilled trout and zucchini pancakes. It was wonderful.

John started to make a daily am visit to Big Daddy’s to dump our trash and get the Washington Post. The first day, he put in a quarter and the box wouldn’t open, When he asked Big Daddy, he simply explained that the paper was now 35 cents (he just hadn’t gotten around to changing the sign)

To pay them back for two dinners in a row, we took CJ and Jeff to Annie’s for brunch. The brunch tables filled two rooms with everything from fresh made omlettes to chipped beef to a table of just desserts. We ate and ate and ate. Then, Jeff drove us all around the islands of Kent (through the tiny town of Stevensville) to Romancoke and Love Point. We saw a few interesting houses but determined that the area would probably close in on us.

With Annapolis just across the Bay Bridge, it was time for a visit. After a quick stop at Home Depot (Jeff and John shopping while CJ and I waited by the registers), we headed into the historic district. We found a parking spot and grabbed lunch at Rams Head Tavern and Fordham Brewing Company. It was sunny and still warm enough to sit on the patio and gourge on fish and chips. After lunch, we took a bus tour of the city and we were in love. It was no doubt that we could live in this town. The historic district was a bit of Marblehead and Salem mixed together – beautiful houses on tree lined streets with brick sidewalks and tons of porches right on the sidewalk. We called a realtor on the way home to set up an appointment to explore further.

Dinner was back at Kent Island- this time at a crab shack. We all ordered all you can eat crabs. In addition to a huge platter of large crabs, we got hush puppies, french fries, green beans, and potato salad. The group behind us were on their third platter of crabs- while we managed to only finish one platter plus and extra 6 crabs. By the time we finished, the table was filled with cracked crab shells.

We met Nan, our Coldwell Banker Real Estate agent and got the low-down on the Annapolis real estate market. Expensive- but not quite to Boston standards (although, fast approaching the insanity). The properties that we had admired on our bus tour were all in the $1M plus range, but she did have a few that were smaller and a bit more modest in price so we asked her to set up appointments.

We started our house hunt at a B&B on Duke of Gloucester Street. The property was in bankruptcy and needed some work. It had some possibilities, but the street was fairly busy and parking would have been a nightmare. From there, we went to Market Street and before we even walked in the door, we were in love with this house. The street was tree lined, with porches on all the houses, abutting the sidewalks. The house was small- long and narrow with a beautiful entryway, small living and dining rooms and beautiful kitchen overlooking a large garden. The second floor had 3 bedrooms and a bath and the master was on the third floor. As John mouthed “I love this house” walking behind the realtor who asked no questions, we continued the march.

We looked at a house in Eastport, a older blue collar part of Annapolis. The area had definite potential- a up and coming area with an old “Townie” feeling. The house outside was gorgeous, but the developer had made a Jewish suburban dream house on the interior. The property next door was being “renovated” by the owners. The only thing standing from the original building was the front façade, propped up by wood beams. We couldn’t figure out if they were rebuilding a house or a bowling alley.

We made another stop in the Murray Hill neighborhood (John compared it to Cleveland Heights). A bit too suburban for us.

Finally, we made our last stop at a property on Green Street. The street was lovely, but the house wasn’t much (especially at it’s 589,000 asking price). We kept going back to the house on Market Street. The possibility of having a house with rental income (during the summer) and a house that we loved was becoming very real to us. We asked the realtor to set up a second look and we headed off to lunch in Eastport at Carol’s Creek, a restaurant right on the water. We sat at the bar and over lots of wine, tried to decide if “this was the place” for our next home. We consulted with the bartender, a local who thought it was a great idea and talked it over and over. We went back to the house and spent an hour walking around. If our new friend Nan had pushed us just a bit, we would have had our checkbooks out. But, we decided to mull it over that night.

We called CJ and Jeff and had drinks and appetizers on the boat and talked through our dilemma. We left the boat talking about making an offer on the house. But, turning into the parking lot, with the "Domuz" waiting for us, we had second thoughts. With only 2 weeks into our ‘adventure’, we weren’t ready to chuck it all and deal with a house and all the responsibilities associated with it. We just weren’t ready to give up our gypsy lifestyle.

When we got back, our other new realtor friend, Nan #2, called and told us about a house in Centerville, so we set up an appointment to see it the next day.

We met Nan and followed her up to Centerville and an old Victorian farmhouse just outside town. For just over 300,000, you got a huge house, garage with apartment, huge yard, but it just felt too country for our taste. Centerville was a candidate town for us –as long as you could be off the main road and close to town. The town was filled with huge Victorian houses. We continued our drive on the DelMarVa peninsula to see Queenstown (much too tiny with no infrastructure) and Easton (similar to Chestertown without water – given the choice, go for the water). St Michaels (too small, too cute), Cambridge (a lifeless town that was obviously experiencing white flight. The houses were beautiful, but the town was abandoned) and finally to Salisbury. Salisbury was the only candidate town – a good size town with several historic districts. The Victorian houses North of 50, West of 13 in New Town (off Isabella Street) were definite possibilities.

Time to start thinking about heading on. John made another run to Big Daddy’s (getting the last paper in the newspaper box again). We spent the morning combing the streets of Annapolis and mapping out the potential streets with housing that we would be interested in. It turned out to be just a handful of streets with housing and ambience that we liked. Then, it was errand time as we packed up.
We had dinner at Big Bat’s Sports Bar with CJ and Jeff for “graduation dinner”.

Our first road trip

Ready to hit the road- and still raining. Our first stop was at the closest truck stop to weigh the coach. With a GVWR rating of 14, 050, we weighted in at 14,600 with serious weighting problems between the front and rear axles. While John laid on the wet pavement of the truck stop to fill up the tires, I waited in the truck stop (complete with Internet terminal, shop, and café). Dripping wet, he came back in and we got a huge trucker burger and fries before heading off to the Garden State.

We arrived at Kate and Mike’s house just minutes before they got back from Martha’s Vineyard. John did an amazing job of backing the RV into their driveway and we did the “tour”. Everyone was amazed at the quality of the "Domuz" (our new name for the Minnie Winnie- roughly translated in Turkish "The Pig") – real upholstery and cherry cabinets. Not at all what you’d expect for trailer trash.

Rather than try to stay in the RV, we opted for the hot showers and soft beds at Kate’s. Mike headed to the local market and got a huge piece of beef and we pigged out on meat and potatoes.

The next day, we horrified the Kate and Mike as we took over their dining room with PC’s and stacks of RV manuals. Taking advantage of the space, we organized all the manuals for everything from the RV Systems to appliances to electronics. John made new friends at the Saab dealership trying to get new keys cut for the Saab and continuing the march on RV systems issues. We had a pre-birthday dinner for Kate at the local pub. Other than the rude service and expensive food, we had a great time.

The next day, we had more work on the organizing part of the start-up. We took a break and drove into NYC to meet Steph and Brett for a pre-birthday dinner for Steph. We met at a wonderfully quirky restaurant in East Village (the new hot spot for bohemians and the art community which equals strange colored hair and lots of piercings). After a $150 drink bill, we headed downstairs to our $300 dinner. Who said that staying with relatives and friends saves money?

Closing day - a final goodbye

At 8:00, Bette and the new owners arrived for their walk-through. The house was sparkling clean, but looking very empty. Joanne and Mark seemed excited to be buying, much to our relief. Trying to avoid the sway-back kitchen floor, the dog stained bedroom carpeting and the sinking stone wall, we emphasized the beautiful garden and the complete supply of paints and hot tub supplies. Mark was pleased with the notebook filled with owners manuals and mentioned bringing it home to read that night. You might call him “anal”.

We left Mija in the house with her blanket and dishes for the closing. By the time we returned, she was ballistic. I’ m sure she thought it was all over and that she was being left forever. With tears in our eyes, we closed the door for the last time on our home of 11 years, took our trembling dog into the car and headed off to our new home. With the Saab packed with boxes, we looked like the gypsies that we were about to become. To soften the blow of leaving the home we loved, we immediately took the check to the bank and deposited it.

Then, it was off to Arlington RV SuperCenter. The RV was stacked high with the boxes that John had been carting down. So, in the packing lot of the SuperCenter, just off busy Highway 2, we started packing and repacking our belongings into plastic buckets and trying to figure out where they would fit in the "basement" of the RV. Fortunately, the weather held out and, although we must have been an amusing site for the drivers on Hwy 2, we managed to get everything into a place in the RV with room to spare.

Our first night was fast food and traffic noise, but we actually slept better than we had in the weeks prior. With the pressure of the move and the fear of the deal falling through gone, we slept like babies.

Rain arrived the next day and we concentrated on the inside of the RV. Highway 2 was retail row with every possible chain store imaginable within 5 miles. While I shopped, John worked with the “systems” making frequent visits to the Service Center for questions and problems (and opening an ‘account’ at the Retail Store. We needed everything from toilet paper to sewer connections to refrigerator bars.

The next day, we faced yet another rainy day and more time to continue the RV setup. The setup process took much longer than we expected, but being close to stores and mechanics was a god-sent. We finally finished – at least enough to feel comfortable leaving the safe haven of Arlington RV. Dinner was a Boston Market chicken dinner- comfort food for 6 for 2.

The reality sets in....

The reality of selling the house was smacking us in the face as we looked around our once beautiful home now filled with boxes. We’d spent the time after our return from New Orleans trying to balance the packing/moving of our old home with the outfitting of our new home. John moved the RV to the Winnebago dealer outside Providence to get warranty work and satellite TV and radio installed. In between, he made trips back and forth with the Saab filled with boxes and “stuff”. Meanwhile, I was back home packing.
At 7:00 pm as 60 Minutes was starting, John finally pulled me away from the packing process and I resigned myself to not finishing all that I had planned to pack. With 125 boxes filling the house, it was time to stop and let the “professional” finish the job on Monday.

October 7, 2002
The packing crew arrived at 9:00 and started the arduous process of packing the kitchen, pictures, mirrors, clocks and lamps. A crew of 4 was working until 7:00pm. The kitchen packer spent the entire day just packing up the kitchen. At the end of the day, they still hadn’t begun the crating or inventory.

October 8, 2002
A late start for the moving crew. Our experienced (older) crew chief was out and the owner’s son was in his place. The discipline of the previous day was severely lacking as we had four 20 somthings handling the process. With assurances of completion by 6 or 6:30 pm, we let them work at their own pace. At 6:30, John, Martin and I pulled out the wine and beer and ordered some take-out food. At 10:30 pm, they finally called it quits with the pier mirror still uncrated (the crate built was too small). Exhausted, we headed to bed in our empty house. Thank goodness for the Murphy bed.

October 9, 2002
Time to clean the place. John, Martin and I started cleaning first thing in the morning. By mid-day, John was getting woosy from the oven cleaning fumes and all of us were pretty depressed. Feeling sick, John headed for bed and I made an appearance at Rick and Jim’s for cocktails. Looking around the house without all it’s furniture and accessories, it began to look a lot like a box with foo-foo plaster and nice paint. All of our hard work renovating this beautiful home - and tomorrow, it would be someone else's home.

Escape from Isadora!

JEANS REPORT ON OUR LAST DAY IN NOLA AND THEIR TRIP BACK TO THE U.K.
So, it was up at 05.45 and we left early for the airport. We said our goodbye’s to John & Debbie who had been such good friends but we agreed to all meet up again next year in Istanbul. They were going back to a new life, having sold their house in Boston and bought a motor home and they intended travelling South and checking potential new homes on the way. We too, were hopefully going to move house again before too long but first, we had to face the horrendous journey back to Edinburgh. The airport was busy and it was obvious that quite a few people had decided to leave town but not much in the airport was open as locals hadn’t turned up for work that morning. We later found out that the airport had closed later that afternoon.

John & Debs left at 10.45 and then we left at 12.05 and had an uneventful journey back to Atlanta and from there on to Charles de Gaulle airport where we arrived at 08.30 the next day, Thursday September 26th. On the journey between Atlanta and CDG, I was sat next to an Indian guy and we started chatting as you do. Now whether this guy liked the sound of my accent, wanted to practice his English or was genuinely interested, I don’t know but it was like sitting an exam for almost the whole time we were in the air!! Once he found I was from Scotland, he started asking me all these questions……. Not easy stuff but “What is the main source of wealth of the Scottish population?” “What percentage would you say are homeowners?” “Who were the first people to colonise Northern Britain?” I kid you not!! I felt so ignorant but bluffed my way through most of it figuring that he wouldn’t know the difference anyway!! (Memo to Debbie—that’s a good tip you gave me!!)

One final highlight in the holiday—if that’s the right word for it. We had 7½ hours to wait in Charles de Gaulle airport for the only flight to Edinburgh of the day. We were tired and bored and desperate to get home. At one point, we noticed all these policemen running about quite near to us with these massive sub-machine guns and then they cordoned an area off. Gordon went on a wander and came back to say that he’d heard that a suitcase had been abandoned and they suspected it to be a bomb as no one had responded to an announcement on the PA system. Next minute….BOOOM!!! They’d blown the thing up!! Then they swept up all the clothing and bits of suitcase, removed the cordon and went away.

We finally landed in Edinburgh at 5.30 p.m. local time or 11.30 a.m. New Orleans time so we’d been travelling for 30 hours by then…...and we still had an hours drive home!!

Overall then, we felt that we’d enjoyed the experience as both of us had wanted to visit New Orleans for ages. It was good to see John & Debbie again and we had so many laughs BUT it was a lot of money and a very long journey for only 5 days there...

Hurricane Isadora!!

MORE TALES OF NOLA FROM JEAN

The next day was September 24th and we woke up to the worrying news that Hurricane Isadora had begun to move our way. It was torrential rain and looked as if it was set to stay that way but the intrepid explorers had decided to do a Voodoo Walk and nothing was going to stop us. Besides, as I pointed out, we were from Scotland where we had icy cold rain and not the namby-pamby warm stuff they get in New Orleans!! So nothing daunted, we bought some Bourbon Street ponchos, a sort of designer bin-liner, and headed off round another cemetery. I have to say that in better weather, this might have been OK but the rain just got heavier and heavier the more the day went on.

We decided after the tour to lunch in a place we’d read about called The Two Sisters. According to the guide book, this place was famed for its authentic Southern food and was patronised by the cops. We set out to find it but had some bother so eventually, we pulled over and asked directions from this black lady who was walking down the street with the cutest little girl you ever saw. When John asked if she knew of a restaurant called the Two Sisters, she said “Just that one across the street there” and we were almost on the doorstep. To cover his embarrassment, John asked her if the place was any good for lunch to which she replied, again in that Southern drawl, “I don’t know. I’m a junk food eater myself”. Priceless! Anyway, we had smothered chicken, potato salad, macaroni cheese, peas, rice and cornbread and none of us could finish it. As well as the cops, complete with their big guns, there were three fellow customers sporting the logo “Three Damn Fools Towing Company” on their shirts…….different!

When we left the restaurant, it was still torrential rain so we decided to go to the D-Day Museum which I thought would be really boring but which turned out to be exactly the opposite and we spent about 3 hours there.

We then headed for another dive—this one was supposed to be the haunt of college kids and it specialised in cocktails with risqué names. (Note- Nick's Train Bar) It was there we decided that enough was enough and we really should be thinking of leaving New Orleans. We’d been told that the schools were closed the next day and we’d seen lots of evidence of sandbags being prepared and as New Orleans is built below sea-level, it was not a good place to be when a hurricane hit. Poor John & Debbie spent almost an hour calling the airlines on their cell phone and Air France were particularly unhelpful asking things like “When is the hurricane due to hit?”. It turned out that we were actually speaking to a call centre in Canada so of course, the woman there wasn’t too worried about the prospect of an impending hurricane down in New Orleans and obviously thought we were over-reacting. Eventually though, it was all sorted out even though it had cost us an additional $73 each—about £100. We had a final good time in the bar that night which Debbie and I both regretted next day when we had to leave early. (Note- The bartender evidently thought that it would be fun to get the girls a little tipsy--and started pouring gin and tonics with more and more gin and less and less tonic. The boys thought we should get some food to counteract the alcohol, so we drove the streets of NOLA in the torrential downpour searching for an open restaurant. We were told by John and Gordon that we were quite drunk when a police car stopped us- probably wondering what these crazies were doing driving around in hurricane weather- When I leaned across the car and slurring my words started to ask "Where is Liuzza's". John quickly hushed me up - afraid that we'd all end up at the police station for drunk driving!)

The Garden District and Dumps and Dives

JEAN'S CONTINUING STORY OF OUR NOLA ADVENTURES

September 23rd, and we start the day with fruit & Danish pastries and then we’ve got a walking tour of the Garden District arranged, including the No 2 Cemetery. Our guide this time was Anna-Ross who again was very pleasant and knew her stuff. I’m not very knowledgeable about architecture (a fact I hope to remedy as I found it interesting and would like to know more!) but I heard them talking about Greek Revival and Italianate houses. What I saw were beautiful houses with lots of balconies and ornate iron work—these people had serious money.

In those days, they would have a complete change of linen with every course of the meal so if you imagine a modest 5-course dinner, the washing and ironing would have been horrendous (and no automation like we have these days!!). Some of the houses had ironing rooms which employed a small army of servants just to wash and iron all the table and bed linens. Aaahhh!!! Doesn’t bear thinking about!! According to Anna-Ross, the owners of these places preferred Irish servant girls to slaves as they lived out so didn’t cost so much to keep and also, if they were sick, they would just send a sister or other female relation to take their place.

As for the cemetery, this was interesting as well. To begin with, people were buried below ground in the same way as anywhere else but due to New Orleans being wholly below sea level, they would hit water almost as soon as they began to dig. In addition, if they had a bad storm, it would not be unusual for the coffins simply to float away. Obviously, they had to find a solution so it was decided to build a mausoleum for each family so that they would be buried above ground. Space was tight though and it was just not practical for every corpse to have it’s own burial space so it was decided that if a member of a family died, he would be interred in the family mausoleum for a minimum of a year and a day. After this time, if the space was required by another family member, the original coffin was opened and by then, because of the heat and humidity in New Orleans, there would only be a pile of bones left. These were bagged up then re-buried in a corner of the mausoleum, leaving space for the new casket. If the space was required before a year and a day was passed, you could rent a sort of drawer for the casket until the time was up and the reason the time span of a year and a day was decided upon was that they needed a minimum of one year but felt it would be distressing for the family to open the casket on the anniversary of the original burial. Some of the caskets were equipped with chimneys and/or bells because of people worrying about being buried alive. Yep—there’s not much I don’t know about New Orleans cemeteries!!

After our walk, lunch was to be another long-awaited experience…….a Po-Boy, which turned out to be a long roll, sort of a French stick, so once again, Debs had come up with the perfect venue — well, it was more like Joe’s Greasy Café but this one was called Domilises. Let’s just say that this place was again in the low-income part of town and I had my misgivings at first but the clientele seemed to be friendly enough and as it was quite crowded, the food was obviously good.

Debs and I watched our Po-Boys being made and ours were prawns with lettuce and various other bits of salad (I achieved another ambition and said those immortal words “Hold the mayo!” just like in the films. I actually like mayo but just wanted to hear myself say it out loud in an American accent!!).

The guys though had the piece-de-resistance…...bread dipped in gravy, then lots of slices of roast beef heaped on top followed by mustard, ketchup, dill pickles and then more gravy poured over the top. Not for the faint-hearted or those dressed in white!! To accompany this gastronomic delight, we had Dixie Beers, the local brew and Root Beer for us girls—which is like sarsaparilla. Apart from the fact that a caterpillar somehow landed on my head while I was eating and a spider ran over Gordon’s hand, we enjoyed the whole experience. Incidentally, the name Po-Boys came about because that’s what the lower paid used to have as their lunch—obviously.

After Domilse’s, I thought that we were maybe going to go a bit up-market for our next bar but no, this time Debs had found a place in the guide book called the Saturn Bar. This was in another part of the low-income neighbourhood and now I was really worried because we were warned by the book that we should keep a low profile and not stare. Oh dear.

Maybe the warning that there was a mummy hanging from the ceiling should have prepared us for this place—it certainly didn’t look much from the outside, in fact I thought it looked closed (and breathed a sigh of relief!) However, John opened the door and said to the guy inside “Are you open?” to which he replied, in his Southern drawl, “I am now”……….. Imagine your hobby is collecting various bits and pieces from jumble sales, car boot sales and the like and then not doing any housework for 40 years and you will have an idea of what The Saturn Bar was like.

There was junk everywhere. A yappy dog, a neurotic cat who climbed on my lap and sucked at my dress leaving a big wet patch, two birds in a cage (which the cat obviously thought was his packed lunch as it made various attempts to get at them!), a snooker table laden with various tools, bits of furniture, old pictures, glasses and everywhere covered in 40 years of dust and cobwebs. And of course, the mummy. It hung there in a state of undress and when John asked the bloke where he’d got it, he replied “Made it” as if it were the most natural thing in the world!!

This place was famous though. The owner had pictures of himself with John Goodman, Nicholas Cage, Tommy Lee Jones etc etc—all of which had visited his bar. Here’s a photo of us there which unfortunately doesn’t show much of the surroundings but hopefully, you get the drift.

We still hadn’t finished our tour of ‘The Dives of New Orleans’ as Debbie had found us one more place to visit that afternoon but I really had my doubts about this one. It was called Jack Dempsey’s and according to the guide book, was mostly populated by ex-jailbirds and ex-boxers. Now, it’s not as if we could just go in unobtrusively—I mean, we stood out as tourists like sore thumbs—so I was really pleased to find it closed that afternoon. We’ll save that one for another day!!

Nothing else for it then but to head back into town (from this ‘low-income’ place we’d frequented for most of the day). This time, we headed for Bourbon Street and “Lafitte's”. Lafitte's was the first gay bar in New Orleans and was part of the tourist trail as it was so old.

From the outside, it looked as if it was falling down but inside, it was fine and there was a good atmosphere. It is no longer a gay bar—that moved down the street to new premises. We were served our beers in there by a gay policeman though—we knew he was a policeman because when I asked him to take our photograph, he said that his other job was as a police photographer and to prove it, he insisted on showing us his official badge. He told us that the bar was now owned by the sheriff who had asked this guy to do some bar work for him …… all sounds a bit far-fetched but that’s the story he told.

Debbie and I had a drink and then left Gordon and John while we did some shopping. There wasn’t much to see though, just tourist tat, so after about an hour or so, we met up with the guys again in another bar where the drinks were 3 for the price of 1. We ate in a burger bar called Pappy’s and then headed for this R&B Bar we’d noticed which was playing fabulous music. It turned out to be full of “in-your-face” women—you know, the type wearing things like tight trousers with a pink & white bikini top, but there was a good atmosphere and we had a good laugh in there. At one stage during the evening, we were sitting almost half in and half out of this bar people watching and some crazy guy wandered up, leaned towards me and said “I lurve you”. I could hardly understand a word he said he was so spaced out but John seemed to understand him OK as the two had a good few minutes conversation. Then you realised that none of their sentences matched and in effect, they were both carrying on simultaneous conversations with themselves. After the nutter had moved off, John admitted he couldn’t understand a word either but whatever, it got rid of him!!