Sciuris Carolinensis…..Cont.

I don’t want to talk about it, they mean nothing to me, at the end of the day they are just tree rats! That,s the reason there are no pictures of the little *****!
Ok I admit it they won the battle, but the war is not over, I’m just moving the battle field 130 miles north west.
It did not matter what I did, those little grey squirrels got to my nuts, well to the bird feeder nuts anyway. They ruined one holder, and severely injured another one. They emptied the bird feeders quicker than I can fire a catapult at them! Until the next battle……..

We ventured 107 miles west to Atlanta where we took the free tram around downtown (free until Jan 2016), and visited Martin Luther King Jnr. House, grave and memorial site with an eternal flame,

and also went to the 1996 Olympic Park. On the tram route there was an indoor market where they were selling pie and mash. Kathryn had a steak pie which was lovely. ($7.50 lovely!) We went to the Coca Cola exhibition as Atlanta is the birthplace of this soda, but decided for the entry price it was not worth it, and did not interest us that much. After spending the morning in Atlanta we went to Stone Mountain which is 15 miles west of Atlanta and it is a 3,200 acre national park which has the sculpture of the 3 Confederate heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson.

It took 49 years to complete and covers about 3 acres of rock face. There is also a cable car to the top of the mountain and a railroad, and other attractions. It cost $126 for the 3 of us and we managed to do the cable car and train before all attractions were closed due to lightening in the area, but luckily they reimbursed part of our money, but it was a long way to go for part of the experience. We must in future remember to do the outside things in the mornings as by 4pm thunderstorms can bubble up on a daily basis. We did find a covered bridge whilst doing a Geocache, which is the first one we have come across so Gill was very happy as she wanted to drive through a bridge like this.

This is the last week of our time at Carolina Landing, near “Fair Play” South Carolina. Its been another week of traveling, seeing the sites and meeting new people. This weekend is going to have temperatures in the low 90’s so any jobs that need doing are done in the morning, then it is time to retire into the RV with the air conditioning on until the evening or go to the pool and swim.

Despite our brave attempts at fishing from the jetty at the bottom of the camp ground, we caught nothing, then one evening I went out in the boat and managed to catch a small catfish. Now if you remember the last ones we caught were back in Florida and Gill would not let us eat them. So when I got back to the landing there were a couple of lads there who I got talking to and knew how to skin it and prep the fish. Young Ayden also wanted to show me the fish he had caught that day………OMG!! He opened up a very large cool box with a 15-20lb striped bass.
He then introduced me to Barry, the man who had took him out. Well to cut a long story short Barry said he would take me out fishing on the Friday. On the Thursday I went down to see Barry to finalize times etc for the following day and he was just coming back in with his daughter Kelly. They were struggling with that old cool box again……Kelly opened it up to reveal her catch…..a 30lb striped bass. That evening they invited us down for a meal of fish…..stunning fish and great company.
Barry said we would go out “early” 6am, now bare in mind the last time I saw anything before that time of the morning was my last early with B&Q back in February…ouch.
Off we went at 6am in his boat on Hartwell lake and got to his site, and set up and watched the sun come up,

20 rods out of this one boat and anything over 2lb for me would beat my PB, well about an hour later, I did with this one;

After that another 3 come in and that finished off a great day spent with another true gent.

We also met Dave, who was Barry’s neighbour, who also had a boat and after talking to him, he said he would take us out on his boat for some fun. Fun? 40-50 mph sat on a rubber ring attached to his boat…..well it was fun for me and Kathryn, despite her asking Dave to try and shake me off…I held on….for dear life! When you see water coming towards you at that speed, what else would you do? It looked like it would hurt real bad if you hit it at that speed. I was holding on…. Hello everybody:

One of the bikes that we bought from Wallmart had to go back this week as it had started falling apart, so off to Anderson we went to sort it out, and I have now got a nice “Giant” hybrid to get out on and start getting fitter again. We also went and saw Jurassic World at the cinema, followed by a meal out at O’Charleys” a nice steak was had and Kathryn as usual had too much!!

One of the giant signs at the side of the road had advertised “moonshine”. Now we have all heard of moonshine but I did not realise that it was now produced legally in SC, just outside Anderson, so Kathryn and I went to have a look and a brief tour. I tried some of it, bought some of it and now have the T-shirt too. However I still have not opened it yet, I’m not sure about the 105 proof!

Talking of B&Q earlier on in this chapter, I have found a new love, a new place to worship and devote my hardware shopping to, so far I have been in about 6-8 of these stores and have only come across 2 that were not up to scratch.
I’m talking about “Ace Hardware ”.

It is like B&Q used to be. The service is great and they seem to have everything for the outdoors and every piece of hardware you would ever need…..love it!