Monday, November 6, 2017–We left St. Catherine’s at about 8:30 to get Tom to the dentist in Weir and for me to go on the Baptist Church in Ackerman to stop briefly at Cheryl Stacy’s visitation. I was able to speak to the family members and left before the service to go to our old house—now Josiah’s—and change my clothes. Zoe was eager to go into the house and looked all around as if she was searching for people. She seemed quite disappointed not to find anyone and seemed unsettled by the changes in the house. We went to pick Tom up at the dentist’s and waited for him on a bench in front of the City Hall. I talked with a couple of men who came by—one about dogs and one some kind of law enforcement who seemed concerned about why I was sitting there. When Tom came out we drove to Starkville, left Zoe at the Shaggy Hound, and went to Oby’s to eat a late lunch. After stopping at Starbuck’s we started our drive to Myrtle Beach. We made it through Birmingham and stopped at a Hampton Inn near Leeds, Alabama. ($100)
Tuesday, November 7–We had a good breakfast in the motel and talked with a man from Kodiak, Alaska, who now has a winter home in Florida. It was nice to reminisce about Alaska. The room was fine except that the tv remote didn’t work well. We thought we might make it all the way to Myrtle Beach today, but when it became certain that we wouldn’t make it until after dark, we decided to stop for the night. We tried a Hampton Inn in Columbia, but it was full so we went next door to a Holiday Inn Express which seemed to have plenty of room. The desk clerk at the Hampton Inn said that the Holiday Inn was a “sister property.” We asked about good places to eat, but decided to pick our own and went to a restaurant named Solstice that was less than half a mile from the motel and turned out to be very good. We didn’t have a reservation and it seemed crowded, but they seated us in the bar. Although it was very noisy and the bar crowd seemed to be having a great time, the food was good. We are enjoying some good meals being out of St. Catherine’s! We both had the chicken, leek, and mushroom soup, shared some roasted oysters, and then had fish for entree. Our waitress was good—attentive enough, but not too much. Motels are much more expensive than campgrounds and we both prefer traveling by RV. ($134)
Wednesday, November 8–We left the motel and followed the GPS and Marthan’s directions to the condos. It was about noon when we finally arrived there. We were in time to see Marthan and Charles and eat a sandwich before they left to pick up Harley at the airport. While they went to the airport, we rested. Jackson “Huck” Boswell came in about 4:00 and Ellen and Phil about 5:30. They had had terrible traffic from Conway. Marthan had prepared soup for us for supper. She does an excellent job of catering to everyone’s ability to eat. We talked until around 10:00 and then went to bed.
Thursday, November 9–It was still miserable weather when we woke up and didn’t improve during the day. It was cold and wet. We ate at the condos and talked all morning. We went to the Captain’s ? for lunch. It was not very good. Harley quietly mentioned to the waitress that the flounder that three of us ordered was not good at all—it was very dry—and she removed it from the bill. We returned to the condos and all took naps after enjoying some chocolate that Jackson had brought. When we woke up, it was talking again and then had another supper of soup with cheese, guacamole, and almond butter. We also had some wine that Jackson had also brought. We talked again and went to bed around 10:00. We’re all counting on better weather tomorrow.
Friday, November 10–We woke up to a beautiful day. It was still cold, but the sun was out so we decided to go to Brookgreen Gardens.
Marthan and Ellen had been before and thought they were well worth visiting. It is a garden of over 9000 acres of former rice plantations. There are many statues, some made by the wife of the founder (I think that’s what she was). It was around 11:00 when we arrived.
Ellen, Jackson, and I took a boat tour that involved some of the history of the area and supposedly wildlife. All the wildlife we saw was one duck and two turtles, but the scenery and the views of the former rice fields were very interesting. We ate a delicious lunch at the cafe in the gardens. I had she crab soup and a cheese quiche. Everyone found the food really good. Afterwards we returned to the condo and rested. Phil and I were both having some trouble walking and weren’t really interested in continuing to walk and others didn’t seem to want to continue either. No one was was particularly hungry so we ate lightly—cheese and crackers and such. We went to bed a little earlier tonight since we’ll all be traveling tomorrow.
Saturday, November 11–Everyone was leaving this morning and we were all walking out by about 10:00–Harley to the airport and the rest of us driving. Tom and I drove steadily and reached Douglasville, which is west of Atlanta. We stayed at another Hampton Inn and had supper at Cracker Barrel. It was one of the better meals I’ve had at Cracker o Barrel and I was hungry. We had not stopped for lunch. ($124)
Sunday, November 12-–We were on the way about 9:00. We knew we didn’t have far to go and had plenty of time,l but we were to pick Zoe up at 4:00– unfortunately not before that. We did almost make it to Starkville by noon thanks to gaining a hour as we reached the central time zone and had lunch at Pepper’s. It was very crowded with the football crowd. We then did a little shopping at Walmart and went to Starbucks to waste an hour before going to Shaggy Hound. We were early getting to Shaggy Hound, but the door was open, so we went in to wait. Shortly after we went in one of the workers came in and we were able to get Zoe a few minutes early. She had had a bath and smelled good! We were able to reach home by 6:00, but, of course, it was already dark.