Our February road trip started out with plans to visit Gary and Ellen in Gulf Shores, AL. Then we get invited to Shannon’s birthday party in Wilmington, NC and it becomes a month-long trip. In Part 1 I talk about Ortona South ACE and Manatee Springs SP campgrounds and in Part 2 I talk about Gulf Shores, AL and Gulf Island National Park. In this part I talk about St. George Island SP, North Carolina, Charleston, SC and our trip back to Marathon.

St. George Island State Park

There are two ways we like oysters… raw and cooked. Apalachicola is famous for oysters. Since we are near Apalachicola, we might as well stop there.

The rain at Fort Pickens National Park lets up enough to put everything away, although still wet. We dump black and gray water, fill freshwater to 1/3, attach our toad and leave by 9:40 CT. We stop once for gas and get to St. George Island State Park by 3:30 ET.

Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park is at the eastern side of St. George Island. When we first booked it, there was only one night available. Later,  we booked the second night at a different site. After we decided to go to NC, we booked a third night at another site.

We get to St. George Island State Park. The ranger changes us to a site that is available for two nights. This is a beautiful place, with nice sandy beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. We have a huge site with electric and water. We can walk across to the beach or hike on trails by the sound side of the island.

We need groceries and today is Fat Tuesday. Since we have to go to the store anyway, we decide to make jambalaya on the Coleman stove. The closest store is Piggly Wiggly Express. It’s pretty small and doesn’t have a large selection. We buy some items and go across the street to SGI Fresh Market. This store is no better, but they do have andouille sausage. We go across the bridge to Big Top. They don’t have what we need either.

We go to Lynn’s Quality Oysters to buy oysters and mussels. They only have shucked oysters and no mussels. We drive 13 miles into Apalachicola. They have no oysters but we buy frozen mussels.

We go to Hole in the Wall Seafood for lunch. This place is small, and very busy. We have raw oysters and seafood gumbo. The food is great, the service is just okay and the cleanliness is questionable.

We go back to Piggly Wiggly Express to get the remaining items. This is the best of the three grocery stores in the area.

We drive back to the campground, take a walk on the beach and cook jambalaya.

Today is Valentine’s Day. We move to site 4. Then we go to Lynn’s Quality Oysters for lunch. We have raw oysters. They are delicious. The steamed shrimp is slightly overcooked. the service is great and the people are friendly.

We walk on the trail and the beach. We have salmon with spice rub, grilled on a cedar plank and mussels.

North Carolina

We leave St. George Island after dumping black and gray water, and attaching the toad. We stop at Cracker Barrel in SC for the night.

We have breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We are underway at 8:10, stop at a Flying J for gas and propane, and get to the Wilmington Elks lodge at 1:00 PM. It costs $75 for three nights, with water and electric. Sewer is available on-site.

We go to the laundromat and wash sheets, towels and clothes. We visit the kids and grandkids. We go to Shannon’s birthday party and oyster roast on Saturday and visit on Sunday. On Monday we go to the grocery store, dump the black and gray water and attach the Honda CR-V. We drive to James’s in Ernul.

The next few days we work on the RV. We wash and wax it. We fix the leak in the bathroom vent. We also order a new motor for the steps.  It’s $164 on Amazon.com. The steps have not worked for the past week. We replace the motor and they work.

Charleston, SC

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We drive to the Low Down Oven and Bar for dinner. We have beer, cornbread and pizza. We meet some friendly people, both local and visiting.

The next morning we take the shuttle downtown for $10 per person, round trip. We have breakfast at Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit. Very Good! Then we go or a self-guided tour of the Aiken Rhett House. Very interesting. Next, we stop at The Brick for Bloody Marys.

We walk to the waterfront and have lunch at Fleet Landing. We share shrimp & grits and crab cakes. Great food and service. We even get to watch dolphins playing in the water.

We walk some more and it starts to rain. We go to Low Country Bistro to get out of the rain, and have a couple of beers. The staff is very friendly. We don’t have any food, but I’m sure it is great.

We ride the shuttle back to the campground and pay for another night.

Today we want to see the Angel Oak tree and Folly Beach.

The Angel Oak Tree is on John’s Island. It is the largest tree east of the Mississippi River.

After that we drive to Folly Beach. Our first order of business is to find a place for lunch. After driving around, we find Washout. Food and service are good. The staff is super friendly.

We drive around the island. We go to the county park, where we can park for free with our campground receipt, but it is too cold and windy to enjoy the beach today.

Return to Marathon

Our February road trip is almost over, but we want to make one more stop to clean the RV and get it ready to put back in storage. We book a night at C. B. Smith Park. This is a Broward county park in Pembroke Pines, FL.

This campground is in a good location for us. We arrive in the early afternoon and have a short distance (115 miles) back to Marathon. We can easily time it to not hit Miami peak rush hour traffic. The site is full hook-up, so we have extra time to empty and flush our black and gray water tanks.

The next day we clean the RV, dump the tanks and pack our things to take off the RV. We hook up the Honda CR-V to the towbar and leave the campground at 11:30 to drive to Marathon. We make an expensive mistake.

When we tow the Honda CR-V behind the RV, we use a Patriot Braking System, from Blue Ox. The braking system sits on the CR-V’s floor, in front of the driver’s seat, and attaches to the brake pedal. It senses when the RV is braking and pushes on the brake pedal to brake the tow car. In addition, it has a break-away sensor that will apply the brake if the tow car comes loose from the RV. The braking system in the tow car wirelessly connects to a control panel in the RV. The control panel plus into a 12v, accessory outlet. We don’t have enough 12v accessory outlets for everything. The braking system works without the control panel, so we have not been plugging it in.

We get to the place where we store the RV at 2:15. We get out to unhook the tow car. The braking system says it is break-away mode and it is pressing on the brake pedal. We don’t know how long it has been in break-away mode, but the brake lights have been on long enough to kill the battery.

We jump-start the car and unhook it. The brakes are not good. We have to replace the rear rotors and pads ($424). That will be the last time we tow a car without plugging in the braking system control panel.

In Conclusion

It has been a good trip. We left on January 31 and got home on March 2. We got to spend time with our very good friends, Gary and Ellen and time with some of our family. In the process, we got to explore some areas of Florida, our home state, and Alabama that we hadn’t seen before.