Wasn’t that the name of a snazzy dance song back in the 20’s? Well anyway, we went to Charleston but unfortunately there was certainly no dancing for us.
When we drive, Wazzu always lays on the couch opposite me and just lays there staring at me the entire time. But when we left on our drive this morning Wazzu wouldn’t lie down. She just stood next to me with very wide concerned eyes. She panted the whole time and was very nervous. The drive was our most difficult one on me due to all the starting, stopping and turning. But I knew Mike was doing his very best to drive as smoothly as possible. It just wasn’t possible. Wazzu seemed to be trying to tell us to stop. As it turns out she knew much more than we did what a problem this was going to cause. I’ve never seen her so uneasy.
We got to the RV park we intended to stay at and it was full. What! Six hundred spots in off-season and it’s full? We couldn’t believe it. They send us down the road a short ways to another park. This one was full too but they had just had one cancellation for two nights. We wanted to stay three but took the spot and waitlisted the third night.
Turns out this place is really popular for its Christmas Light display. And well they should be!! This was truly amazing and quite a sight to stumble upon. There was a three mile driving tour of lights in the park. The lights were plentiful and spectacular. The majority of the displays were moving even. As an example, over the lake they had a dolphin that jumped out of the water doing a big arc, landing back in the water probably 40’ away and then a big splash. Then there was the golfer who swung his club and you could then see the ball going in the air and down the fairway, landing on the green and rolling into the hole. There were hundreds of displays like this.
Each display was sponsored by some sort of business. This first one I thought was particularly funny. I don’t know if you can see the picture well enough to see that Santa has his finger to his face wondering how someone as big as he is going to fit down this tiny little chimney. This display is sponsored by Weight Watchers.
There were many “lands.” This particular one is Candyland.
After the entrance to each land is a quite elaborate section of lights for that theme. There were probably 15 different themes: Toyland, Outer Space, Dinosaur, Sea World, etc. This next picture is from the U.S. section.
We came across one display that was sponsored by JDM Productions. The sign read like this:
JDM
(Just Debbie & Mike)
Productions
In addition to the driving tour, they also had a passenger train ride that went on another light route that you couldn’t drive on. Mike walked the route and said it was quite spectacular. There were some Christmas shops, Santa Clause sittings, marshmallow roasting, musical events, etc. This looked like a lot of fun. I always love roasting marshmallows and shopping so I was really exited for this!
We arrived before dark so we took the dogs for a walk. This park has three different trails – each one close to two miles long. One trail leads to an off leash dog area. It is an extremely large field next to a lake. It was really warm so there were many dogs there enjoying the open space and the lake. Slugger enjoyed swimming after his stick while Sparkie found dogs to play chase. Wazzu was the park police making sure no one was too unruly. My only concern was that there was a sign next to the lake saying that it was unlawful to feed or aggravate the alligators! Mike tried to convince me that Slugger wasn’t going to get eaten by an alligator. He said he was sure all the other dogs had scared the alligators away. I guess he was right as Slugger went swimming four different times during our stay and he didn’t get eaten by an alligator. Phew.
Suddenly on the way back from the lake my leg totally gave out. Wazzu was right – the jerky driving was too much for me. Mike and the two kids went back to our RV to get the car while Wazzu and I waited for them to come get us. We were waiting on a bench by the lake. But it was close to dusk and we where both getting eaten alive by hundreds of mosquitoes. Poor Wazzu was shaking her head and scratching everywhere. We were very happy to see our ride come! But I was very disappointed to miss the opportunity for some evening Christmas shopping and marshmallow roasting.
The next day Mike took us for a driving tour of Charleston. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy it at all. I was in way too much pain to even concentrate on the scenery. So we cut the drive short and went back. The little bit I could see looked very interesting. Mostly I just noticed that one of the parts of town we went to had huge houses and it smelled exactly like the Caribbean. I really felt like I was in the Caribbean. Funny how smells can transport you somewhere else so quickly.
When we returned to the park the wind had started to blow and branches were getting in the way of the satellite so we couldn’t get TV or internet reception. So we put up the antenna so we could at least watch TV. By doing this we get the local stations – which we don’t get when watching satellite. The local stations were all telling of a tornado watch. They were telling us what to do to be safe during a tornado. Being in an RV was not where you were supposed to be! The tornados were supposed to hit between midnight and four AM. This was a bit concerning to us as we’ve never been anywhere near a tornado but knew from TV that they are very dangerous.
Mike stayed up until two AM to keep watch for a tornado then fell asleep. Slugger woke us up at five as he was sick and needed to go out. We had made it – no tornado hit us (although there were tornados only a few miles from where we stayed only yesterday and a few people were killed) – but Mike didn’t get much sleep. We thought we were in the clear but at 8AM they announced another tornado watch until 3PM.
RV’s were pulling out one after another. I’m guessing there would be plenty of room for us to stay our third night if we wanted to. But we decided to join the mass exodus and get out of there. Unfortunately this was the day Mike was going to get to do the museums and other sightseeing around Charleston. Poor Mike. Something always happens and he misses seeing what he really wants to see. I’m afraid our east coast swing has been very disappointing for him.
Holding on…….
Debbie
11/14-15/06
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