Next stop: Atlanta, Georgia. Well, not quite, but close enough.
We stayed about 10 miles to the east of the city, at the Stone Mountain Park Campground, in ..  Stone Mountain (yeah, who'd thought?).
We used our Passport America and got in for half the price, which was nice, because on top of the campground fee, they charge you a one-time park-entrance of $20! Oh, well ..

It's a beautiful park with a lot of 'attractions', most of which we're closed for the season though, and they even have a golf course on the premises,  managed by Marriott Hotels.
Needless to say, after settling in, James went golfing and I spend the afternoon reading while looking out at the lake.

     

In reality you could see more of the lake than these pictures are showing ..

Isn't it gorgeous?

The next morning I caught the sun rising over the mountain ..

Apparently the water was warmer than the air, the lake was steaming ..

The main reason for 'hitting' Atlanta, was that we wanted to visit the Center for Civil and Human Rights. There are several large museums in this part of the US that cover the civil right 'topic' and I wanted to visit at least one of them.

 

We went after the morning commute had calmed down, and breezed straight into down-town, right up to the museum, we even found cheap close-by parking!

The center is fairly new and dedicated to the achievements of both the civil rights movement in the United States and the broader worldwide human rights movement including human rights struggles from women’s rights to immigration to child labor to LGBT issues.

There's a large section dedicated to Martin Luther King ..

The museum has a number of imaginative, interactive, and compelling displays that greatly enhance a visitor's appreciation of the subject matter.

Especially the "Sit -in counter" experience. It is hard to believe that anyone could have sat through that kind of harassment and humiliation without flinching.

 

This museum is not for the faint-of-hearted and the boxes of tissue paper placed throughout the building are well used (included by me).

OK. This trip we covered the holocaust museum, the civil right museum and the civil war museum .. I think we're sufficiently awed and impressed and humbled and depressed, but most of all reminded that we are so very, very lucky ...

The next day we were back on the road again and early in the afternoon we reached Tifton, Georgia, where we'd booked a campground at Paradise Lake campground.

Using our PA once again this nice little, rural park cost us only $15 per night!

The sites were huge!

The plan was for this stay to be just an 'over-nighter', but you know that thing about making plans ... yeah ..
When we tried to lower the front landing-legs of the RV, one of the legs was stuck and didn't want to budge, no matter what we tried!
Since this meant we couldn't disconnect, we decided to extend our stay in this much cheaper campground, rather than drive to the next one, order a leg on-line and have it sent asap.

We couldn't do much else than go for some short walks in the meantime and James used the time to set up a 'driving-range' to practice his golf game:



We found some legs that would fit, and they arrived fairly fast (but after the weekend of course).
James had to make some modifications ..

In the end we had beautiful working legs again!

I forgot to mention that we found ourselves in cotton-country once again! Look at these beautiful fields:

  

Of course I raided some of the already harvested fields, the machines leave plenty for hand-spinners ..

This cotton was much whiter than the cotton I once got in Arizona, where the red soil had colored it pink!

Merlin took the off-time to recuperate further from his dental ordeal. He finished his antibiotics and his diarrhea cleared up (thank goodness).
The fur on his leg started to grow back, but you could still see very clearly where they shaved it off ..

The sunset were very pretty that week. Must be the (slightly) cooler weather ..

 

So, one week later than planned, we finally drove into Florida where we headed for the (East) coast. 

Before long we arrived at St John's RV Park in St Augustine.

It's only a couple of miles outside of town and, most import, only 15 miles from the World Golf Hall of Fame, which, being in the neighborhood, we couldn't pass visiting of course!

It was a little cloudy and they'd predicted some rain but we dodged most of it by visiting the museum first.

We were there!

The exhibits are well done and offer a great immersion in the evolution of the game from its earliest days and the evolution of golf clubs.
A special exhibit (a big one!) is completely devoted on Bob Hope who was a big ambassador of the game. It's fun and very interesting. 

We got to putt on an old style putting green using old style wooden putters, and you could also use a modern green with modern putters.
I liked the extensive 'locker-room' they set up where you can take a peak in almost any Hall-of-Famer's locker, to see what personal 'stuff' they would store, together with some other interesting memorabilia of each player.

    

Included in the ticket price is a chance to hit balls to a replica of the TPC Sawgrass island green which James had to try out of course. 
He actually had 2 chances because due to my bad shoulder I couldn't hit. Not that it helped ... it's a tough shot!

  

You can also play an 18 hole putting course outside, but unfortunately it started to rain so we passed on that. 
Not a big loss I read later, since it's not in a very good condition (odd, for such a 'famous' location).
 

 Looks like Nicklaus beat you, honey!

Later that day we met with Tom Forlenza, Rita's husband, whom we'd met a long time ago in Lahitas, TX, and had stayed in touch with through Facebook.
Originally from Vermont, they bought a condo in St Augustine a couple of years ago, and are staying there through the winter. 
Unfortunately Rita was visiting her family in Vermont but Tom was able to get together for dinner.

We met at The Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche at Mission Nombre de Dios.
Tom does some maintenance work here and Rita helps cleaning and maintaining the shrine.

      

This was the first shrine ever to be dedicated to the Blessed Mother in the United States and was established on the very spot where the first parish Mass was offered 55 years earlier when the first Spanish landed here in the early 1500's. 

It's a beautiful setting, right on the water and a very peaceful and spiritual place. 

The small chapel is for Mothers and those soon to be Mom's, and houses a replica of the original statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary
breastfeeding the infant Jesus, that was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War of March 13, 1936.

There is also a 300 foot cross erected here that you can see from all over St. Augustine.

Afterward we had dinner at the Reef, a seafood restaurant  with ocean views from waterfront tables.

This was kind of a historic moment for us; our first view of the Atlantic Ocean!
After 8 years of traveling, we finally reached the East coast!

 

We spend a nice meal chatting up with Tom, exchanging stories  about his and Rita's (as well as our) life and travels since we parted at Lahitas ..

Maybe next year, on our way up in the spring, we'll meet again, or otherwise perhaps in Vermont! 

There's a lot to see in St Augustine and it's a very pretty little town but one of the first things we looked for was this street, beautiful but miss-named Magnolia Avenue, less than a mile long, and St. Augustine's most photographed and impressive street. 
The 60 live oaks that are between 80 and 100 years old are dripping with Spanish Moss, making it one of the prettiest streets I've ever seen!

We spend most of the next day exploring town, and I was happily snapping pictures of all the beautiful scenery, until I discovered that my camera was on the wrong setting, namely 'soft-focus'.
So, everything is 'fuzzy' and no, it's not your eyes .. sigh ..

 

The Old City Gates with Castillo de San Marcos, a 17th-century Spanish stone fortress, in the distance.

 
Old town Colonial St Augustine in the Historic District is the oldest part of the city with many buildings dating back to the 1700s.
It's streets are laid out as they would have been centuries ago, and are paved with cobblestones.

This is where you'll find the majority of the city's restaurants, cute little shops, hotels, and attractions.

But our first order of the day was to find some coffee and some good pastries which we found at  Choco Lattes ..

Look at those slices of cake!

St. Augustine lays claim to being the oldest city in the U.S., and is known for its Spanish colonial and Spanish Renaissance Revival architecture.
The center of the city overflows with stirring examples, like the Lightner Museum, housed in the former Alcazar Hotel that dates back to 1888.

And the  College of St Augustine .. built by millionaire industrialist and developer Henry Flagler in 1887 as Hotel Ponce de Leon, now Flagler College.

He envisioned creating an American Riviera in St. Augustine and it  beautifully recaptures the architectural spirit of old Europe.

And the beautiful Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine is the seat of the Catholic Bishop of St. Augustine:

In the afternoon we visited the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum.
The lighthouse stands 165 feet above sea level, overlooking the Matanzas Bay and the Atlantic Ocean from Anastasia Island.

You can actually climb the 219 steps to the top, but we didn't think it was really worth the $12.95 a person ... yeah, I know, we're such cheapskates ..
The beautiful keepers mansion next door is barely visible through the beautiful, gnarly Live Oak trees in the front yard.




 
From there we went by St Augustine Beach to at least get our feet in the Atlantic Ocean ..

The shells were nothing special here:

Apparently you have to go to the west coast of Florida to find the big and beautiful ones everybody talks about ..

Alright .. it's done! Another post down!

Only one more to go and I'm current. Yahoo! 

Phew, sometimes I wonder why I keep up writing this blog, it's really a labor of love I would say, and sometimes quite a struggle.

Nobody reads it as far as I know, except for my mam, but she can't read English so she just scans the pictures.

But it really is fun to read back at times, and see what we did when and where and why, and the pictures help a lot to remember, so

I guess I keep doing it ..

To be continued,
for now ..