On the road again

Spent a week at dad's and got a lot done during that time.  I feel good about the people coming in every day to visit dad.  Anne-Marie from Mercy Home Care visits every Monday taking his vitals and filling his meds.  On Tue-Wed-Thur, Josie comes in for an hour or two for house cleaning, laundry and shopping.  On Fri-Sat-Sun, Sherry comes in for meal preparation, companionship and to take dad for a drive or walk, etc.
All three of these special ladies also cared for my mom.

Spent some time with Denis' mom teaching her how to use her tablet.  She learned how to video conference using ooVoo and how to open up her emails.  She did good!

Friday morning we began our travels at 6 AM and drove until sunset, finding ourselves in a Wal-Mart in Virginia.  Today we began driving at sunrise and didn't stop until sunset.  We made two stops along the way.  The first, was off 81 South because Denis saw a sign for a natural bridge in the town of Natural Bridge, Virginia.  We were there before 9 AM and the park was closed but we were able to walk down the 100 some odd steps to view this magnificent natural limestone bridge.  This bridge is 500 feet higher than Niagara Falls, very impressive.

Cool ... huh?

Further down the road, 22 miles southeast of Roanoke, Virginia, we visited the Booker T. Washington National Monument and got our National Park Passport Book stamped, watched a short film. We toured Burroughs tobacco farm where he was born into slavery.  He lived there until at age nine, in 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation was read in front of the Burroughs home and he and his family were free.  The rest is history and his autobiography, Up From Slavery, tells his story in detail.

Just outside the visitor's center

Denis pumping the billows at the blacksmiths - wearing orange vest because it's hunting season

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the 4-point buck that we almost hit.  He came out of the woods on our driver's side and executed two magnificent leaps.  The second leap was so graceful and he cleared a six foot fence effortlessly on the opposite side of the road.  Couldn't grab the camera fast enough.

Beaufort

Boardwalk along the Beaufort River

Beaufort National Cemetery

First African Baptist Church 1863 - Forrest Gump prayed here

This property was for sale - I wonder how much it's going for?



The main entrance - Enjoy the video below

Today I discovered that this part of South Carolina is called Lowcountry. We drove into Beaufort and shared peach ice cream strolling the boardwalk.  Denis wanted to see the world famous U.S. Marine recruit training depot on Parris Island because his brother trained there.  Actually, it was rather interesting watching all the recruits in training, with all their "YES SIRS".  The museum was open to the public and was informative.  We saw the Beaufort National Cemetery which is one of the first cemeteries established during the Civil War.  It is one of the few that contains both Confederate and Union dead.

The Oaks Campground

Yesterday we left Savannah, Georgia and pulled into a nice Passport America campground.  This is our first time in this area and we look forward to visiting Beaufort tomorrow (it's only a 25 minute drive).  Tonight the park offered a BBQ with choice of pulled pork, ribs or chicken with the "fixins" for only $7.  I opted for the ribs and they were delicious.  Yesterday we took a 30 minute walk around a lovely lake here at the park.  Fortunately, we didn't see any alligators or rattlers, but we did see water birds and a small deer.