Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah

Two years ago, Mike and I spent hours at Colonial Park cemetery in downtown Savannah. It's one of the oldest and largest in that great city. The stories it tells directly and indirectly are fascinating. Since then, thanks to my friend Laura, I heard of the far bigger and slightly older Bonaventure Cemetery on the eastern edge of the city.

There is a comprehensive grave site locator newly available for this rambling and peaceful resting place. A nice staff person in the visitors' center there gave us a lot of information for the cemetery and for the next stage of our trip. We mentioned we were going to Charleston next. She was born and grew up there. (Charleston and Savannah have a bit of a rivalry, so normally we wouldn't have gotten much helpful info in Savannah about Charleston. We've come across a few other such competitive areas. GA vs SC and SC vs NC to mention a couple of obvious ones. One not so obvious is western NC vs the rest of NC. It makes a little sense if you look at it on the map, but still it's so well established that WNC is seemingly understood everywhere down here.) Then when the woman staffer learned we are from VT, she reacted because her husband graduated from the first class of Vermont Law School.

We also learned from her the two most popular grave sites: One, a little girl named Gracie who died around 1900 at six years old. Her father had run a large hotel in Savannah. She was well known for running around the lobby bringing smiles to all. Her site is so popular that it had to be fenced off and restored due to excess wear and tear. The other is the grave of songwriter Johnny Mercer (many songs us old guys know -- Autumn Leaves, Moon River ...).

Lastly, before the photos, we walked around for about an hour with a quiet spoken veteran who lived next door to the cemetery for many years. He'd walked miles every day for years in this beautiful place where some of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was filmed. He told us back stories on a lot of the graves and pointed out some we never would have seen, hidden by the way the cemetery is laid out. He also told us of his research into Gracie and her family. Her parents were devastated by the loss and her father went to NYC to manage a big hotel there after Gracie died. Our "tour guide" walking his Old English Bulldog said he has been trying to find out if she had any siblings. No luck yet. He said that every year around Christmas Gracie's grave site is covered with new toys.

The angel holding a shell above is near the Mercer grave, but well hidden.

Accidents and non-accidents

Quite a while back, as far as this trip goes, we were traveling south on an interstate -- maybe in Mississippi -- when smoke started billowing from a semi in front of us. I backed off, pretty sure of what was happening, called Mike's attention to it as he was studying a map, and we got to see a tire or two disintegrate from the right rear of the truck.

What surprised me the most was not the truck swerving about nor the amount of time it took the driver to get full control of the vehicle ... it was the large chunk of tire that flew maybe 50-60 feet in the air. So high in fact that I could only guess where it was for a moment and had to make my decision as to where and when it was coming down without being able to see it at the top of its arc. On our trips we've seen some other trucks lose parts of their tires, but nothing as dramatic as this. I would never have guessed a piece would fly that high.

That particular chunk had so much hang time that I had time to ask Mike if he thought left was better than right to avoid its re-entry. And he had had time to shout a warning, not knowing I'd seen it take off also. He was able to lean forward and look up to follow its path better than me, as I still had to watch the surrounding traffic.

Anyway, none of the pieces ended up in the traveled lanes and no accidents resulted.

We did have an accident of another kind last night, however. It happened in our motel room. We'd reserved a "suite" at the Comfort Inn West of the Ashley in Charleston. It turned out to be much nicer than we expected. The in-room jacuzzi that Mike has enjoyed so much in a few past hotels was in a spacious bathroom. We both spoke high praises of the whole set up. Separate room with a large flat screen TV. Anyway, very nice and we should know better by now than to be vocal with such praise.

We got back from a Ruby Tuesday's where we met an especially interesting server named Bann, when Mike went in to start filling the jacuzzi. Less than a minute later, as I sat at the computer, seemingly all hell broke loose. BANG CLATTER BANG CLUNK! Mike swearing. Water sounds. I hustled to the bathroom. There was water everywhere. Mike, fully clothed, was soaked ... and still swearing. The big heavy curved faucet was sitting in the middle of the jacuzzi.

Here's what happened according to MICS: When Mike turned on the water, it sprayed outside the tub and onto the bathroom floor and Mike's legs, socks, and sneakers. He twisted the faucet a little to try to shut off the spray from the base of the faucet. That was all it took for the water pressure to shoot the several pound metal faucet off the pipe and into the air. Water hit the ceiling, the rest of Mike, most of the wall space inside this large bathroom, and was pooling on the floor. Mike was shutting off the water and managed to somewhat contain the damage.

It was Saturday night. No maintenance people here. A very nice desk person named Sharleen brought up an armful of towels. Mike was now laughing about the whole thing. Sharleen tried to understand what had happened. In the process she put the faucet back on the pipe and turned on the water. For a moment it looked like it was going to work, then I spotted the faucet moving up the pipe and shouted to her in time to turn it off or she would have been as wet as Mike.

So we finished drying things up as best we could. Sharleen went to maintenance to try to find a screw or something to go in the empty hole at the faucet base to secure it. While she was gone, I had a chance to look more closely at the problem and realized that whatever was missing wasn't a screw nor a locking device that she was going to find. By the time I tried to call her to tell her that, she was just arriving at our door with a big box of screws and what-nots. None came close to working.

Part 2 of this story is still developing, with an added cast of characters. More later. I'm sure yawl are holding your breath.

U.S. A1A

The Atlantic Pacific Coast Highway. The Atlantic off northern Florida and Georgia is prettier and bluer than I remembered. There are so many houses of enormous size and others that are simply joyous celebrations near the sea that I wonder if this country isn't in better financial shape than is often advertised.

We must have passed by 5,000 houses worth many millions of dollars (some far, far more) in 100 miles ... and tens of thousands worth half a million or more. Anyway, it boggles my shriveled brain.

We got very lucky to see a school of dolphins, porpoises, or orca. Again I have video and will try to post in on YouTube later.

WWII coastal watch tower from where we saw the dolphins/porpoises/orca.

I expected surfers on this beach not far north of Daytona.

Entering St. Augustine from the south. I believe this is the historic Flagler hotel. Google Flagler sometime if you want some interesting reading. He built a railway to Key West, among other things. A UVM graduate has a one man show about him in St. Augustine ... or did two years ago.

All of the houses are different along A1A. Many have clever variations of "widow's walks." That said, this one doesn't, but it is a fairly representative house of the thousands we went by.

Most are hard to photograph because of vegetation, gates, sand dunes, and walls.

Kennedy Space Center

Went for a couple of hours. Stayed all day.

Here's just a few of the reasons:

This is where they build shuttles and rockets. Inside there's about 500' of clearance. Outside on the top, you could fit Yankee Stadium and have an acre left over for parking. 

Saturn 5 rocket, stage 1. The end of the most complex device ever created by human beings, we were told. I took a stroll along it with the camcorder. I hope to post it and other videos on YouTube.

Saturn 5 again. Perhaps this gives some sense of the size of the rocket that got our guys to the moon.

Apollo 14 capsule.

Memorial to astronauts who lost their lives while progressing the space program.

This and the actual mission control room for our first moon landing were very emotional for me. I have some video of mission control, but no flash photography was allowed. In a multimedia presentation, television coverage of the countdown as well as highlighted displays as would have been seen in mission control were all mixed together. Walter Cronkite was of course featured. You could go aboard a shuttle, climb up a viewing tower, touch a moon rock, see the stages of development of space suits, lunar transport vehicles, actual handwritten logs of various events, capsule designs from the early 50's, the chance to have lunch with a mission tested astronaut, and lots of stuff I can't remember right now. Be aware that if you go -- and you should if you can -- the nearest motels are about ten miles away. And if you're in better shape than me (which I think means all of you), two days might be better than one.

Disney

Three days and two nights at Disney. Mostly Epcot and Hollywood. Some fun stuff. Some interesting stuff. Some not so much.

Highlights?

There's a chip at the bottom of all the soft drink cups at the resorts that keeps track of how many times you've refilled the cup within a certain time frame. You're limited to three refills in one hour and after that you're cut off.

Surface temperature at Disney 100+ rising up from the walkways. The macadam parking lots were much worse.

At Epcot the intro ride which created a glimpse into your future based on questions you answered while taking the ride incorporated pictures taken of Mike and me while on the ride, superimposed on stick figures of us. Unexpected fun. Pretty much like Jib Jab.

We saw the Indiana Jones live show (which I participated in around 1988) and had a neat movie ride through some famous films (Wizard of Oz and Alien to name two). Also went on an unexpectedly neat ride in the Norway pavilion. I've got some videos of the first two, but still having trouble posting them here.

Kennedy Space Center tomorrow. Meanwhile a few pictures from the last couple of days. (I refused to pay for an internet connection at Disney. This time it was the principle, not the money ... so I'm catching up here.)

In real life, I'm not sure it's possible for anyone to be prettier than the young lady on the right who works in the Norwegian pavilion.

These warriors, the real ones being six feet tall in the tombs of Chinese emperors, are thought by some to each be representative of a real man since each are unique. One tomb even had a "cafeteria" to feed the warriors. A relatively recent discovery in 1974 made by some Chinese farmers working on their field is beyond staggering. Exploration of it has hardly begun -- but it has been mapped out. The underground "tomb" for this emperor (Qin, I think) extends for 22 square miles. That is NOT a typo on my part. Imagine trying to do that even today.

From what I read, this is a thrill ride. Sure seems elaborate for that ... even for Disney. I took their word for it as a merry-go-round is pretty much my limit for such devices. I believe there is a 12 story near freefall contained within.

St. Pete's Beach II

Sunset deux.

St. Pete's Beach

We've settled in at the Beachcomber on St. Pete's Beach in St. Petersburg, of course. The big sandy, seashell filled beach here faces west into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here's our first sunset: