The biscuits and builders tour
February 2021
Looking back, I don’t remember what prompted us to take a
road trip in the dead of winter. The weather must have been mild, or we had china
virus lockdown induced cabin fever, or maybe we just wanted to get out in the
new to us RV. It was probably a little bit of all that.
Our plan was to travel to Andalusia Alabama, home of a woman Millie follows on Facebook. Not that there was any personal contact with her, she wasn’t going to
invite us in for lunch or anything. We would just be drive by fans of the
biscuit lady.
Our next stop was going to be in laurel Mississippi,
home of Ben and Erin and their HGTV show called Home Town.
In addition to driving around and looking at houses we had seen them renovate
of TV, Ben has a work shop/General store in town and maybe we would actually
get to meet him.
After Laurel Mississippi we planned on dropping down to the
coast maybe as far west as Biloxi and
then following the shore back to the east of Florida before returning home to
Myrtle Beach.
It didn’t turn out exactly that way, but heck our travel
plans practically never stay on our projected course or schedule.
February 7 2021 Sunday
We drove about 400 miles from Myrtle
Beach to Valdosta
Georgia,
arriving before dark but after the River Park RV park had closed. We followed
their late check in instructions, picked a site and paid them in the morning.
Not a bad little campground, it had a motel towering over one side of it, the
other side backed to some woods. Full hookups, and old asphalt site if I
remember correctly. It wasn’t exactly level but we perched the RV on the hump
and leveled it the best we could while leaving the truck connected so we could
quickly depart in the morning. I’d stay here again.
February 8 2021 Monday
We continued our drive across this mostly rural part of Georgia. It was
a 55 mph two lane road over flat terrain so it was easy going for the V-6
powered 2006 Dodge Ram. Our destination for the day was the Corp of Engineers Eastbank campground in the south western corner of the state, almost on top of the
Florida/Georgia border. Today’s drive was 110 miles, an easy run.
Like most all COE campgrounds Eastbank was very nice. Our
full hookup site was right on the lake. About the only thing negative I can say
is after we drove around the neighborhood we found the adjacent complex was a
mental hospital and right across the river was a state prison. Crazy people and
criminals locked up within a stones throw of our little RV, nothing to worry
about, right! We stayed two nights just to have a day of rest after two days of
driving.
February 10 2021 Wednesday
We detoured 110 miles due south to Dr Julian Bruce State
Park on the Florida
gulf coast. While planning this trip I was able to score a two night reservation
in this jewel of a campground on St George Island. We would definitely come
back here again but vacancies on these coastal state parks are very hard to
get.
February 12 2021 Friday
Today we traveled 116 miles; we followed the coast to Panama City and then north to Falling
Waters State
Park (Florida).
We only stayed one night for two reasons; we were setting up for our next days
travel with time to stop at the Florida High Point. Second was there is not
much in the area to see, the main claim to fame here is the waterfall into a
sink hole. Only Florida could turn a sink hole into a tourist attraction!
We enjoyed a mile walk thru the woods to the waterfall; the
trail went by a small lake and then on an elevated walkway through some rugged
terrain. Soon we paralleled a stream that led us to a series of steps down to a
viewing platform. And there, sure enough was a small waterfall into a perfectly
round sinkhole. It was probably 20 feet in diameter and about 60 feet deep.
There was no pool at the bottom, the water quickly disappeared into a small
opening on the side of the chasm and was gone. It was like a constantly
flushing toilet, Oh the things we tourists will pay to see!
An unexpected point of interest awaited us in this little
state park in the middle of nowhere. Just off the walking trail was a capped
off well. It seems in 1919 a man named Jose Mantanza convinced some apparently
gullible people to invest in an oil well here. They drilled for two years to a
depth of 4912 feet before giving up and capping the well. My question is, what
the heck were these people thinking? This isn’t Texas, there is no history of oil here.
There is not much here now and in 1919 I’m sure there was a lot less, what in
the world possessed Jose to stumble through the woods to this spot and say this
is where we will find oil. What convinced the investors to gamble on finding
oil in this unlikely spot? Somebody must have been a really good salesman, I once
bought a car that turned out to be a lemon, the salesman threw in an ownership
share of the golden gate bridge to close the deal. I think he was related to
Jose!
February 13 2021 Saturday
First part of the drive today was 60 miles to Britton Hill
which is the High Point of Florida. It is 345 feet above sea level. It is
probably the easiest high Point
to scale; you drive right up to it. The marker is about 25 feet from the
parking lot. The only High Point easier would be
Delaware, it’s
in a trailer park, and you just drive thru it.
After recording our successful climb to the summit of Florida with photographs
we continued on to our next destination.
It was only a 30 mile drive from the top of Florida to Andalusia Alabama. This little town, while it is a nice
place, it is not exactly a tourist magnet and if I remember The Oaks Campground
was the only place to camp in the area. It appeared to have been an old
campground that was in the process of being rebuilt or maybe new construction,
it was hard to tell. Anyhow it was decent enough but it wasn’t anything to
write home about, especially the site we were in. It was more of a gravel area
with several of us smaller RV’s parked on it, no site perimeter, no ambiance of
any kind, just parked on gravel in a field with several other people we didn’t
know.
The campground was a bit of a disappointment, but we weren’t
here for the amenities of the park anyway, we were here to see Brenda Gantt!
Well, not really, we’re more like tourists in Hollywood trying to get a glimpse of a star!
So who is Brenda Gantt?
Millie is a techno wizard and spends a portion of each day
on her Samsung pad. I recently bought her a new one, thinking I would get the
old one; no she uses both of them. Anyhow in addition to gaming as a bunny
slayer or is it candy crusher, she also watches youtube and FB videos. Admit it, you
get all your news from youtube too!
One of Millie’s favorite FB channels is an unassuming
little woman who is the quintessential southern homemaker. She is knowledgeable
in the old ways of cooking good food with what you have on hand, all the while regaling
you with southern folklore. She is born and bred in the south, she’s talks
southern, dresses simply, dispenses southernisms, common sense and praises god,
all from the kitchen of her home. This is Brenda Gantt.
I’m sticking my story that we’re not stalkers but had Cabin
fever and this was just an excuse to get out on the road, but we did ride by Ms
Gantt’s house, stopped and took pictures of the Bethany Baptist
Church and shopped in the
Piggly Wiggly where Brenda buys her White Lilly flour? Hmmmmmm.
February 14 2021 Sunday
Planning on continuing our journey west the next day we
happened to check the news that evening. This is something we rarely do on the
road, or at home for that matter. There was a winter storm barreling down from
the north and it was forecast to coat Laurel Mississippi with ice the next day.
We were supposed to be in Laurel
tomorrow, uh-oh! We had a strategy meeting and quickly decided we were going to
run to Florida
and let this storm pass us there. On the gulf coast it would probably be windy
and wet but not likely to be frozen.
Promptly the next morning with stormy skies building
overhead we left Alabama and returned to Florida. We’ll have to
visit our TV friends Ben and Erin on a future trip, I’m sure they will
understand. We made a beeline to Panama
City because that’s where the main road south went and
it’s a big place and we figured we could get in a campground there.
When we arrived on the coast we stopped in a Public’s
grocery store parking lot and started our search for a place to stay. We found
space available at The Emerald Coast RV Resort and reserved a spot. A short
time later we arrived, not really knowing what to expect. When a campground
bills itself as a resort, more often than not it is something less than
luxurious. Pleasantly surprised would be a good description of our impression
of Emerald Coast. This place was indeed classy, our
kind of place. lol We made the best of our time in Panama City, but the weather was overcast,
rainy and chilly for the next 3 days.
One of the highlights of our winter storm respite in Panama City was a restaurant
we discovered called Big Mama’s on the Bayou, which served real country
cooking. We ate there twice and it was just great, the tables didn’t match, the
silverware wasn’t silver, the food was delicious, our kind of place!
Unfortunately the winter weather just wouldn’t leave; the
five day forecast was for the current gloomy conditions to stay over the coast.
Once again we had a strategy huddle and decided rather than continue to pay the
high priced resort to just sit inside and watch DVD’s we might as well just go
home.
February 18 2021 Thursday
Early in the morning we hitched up and headed north, we
really didn’t have a plan other than to just drive until we felt like we had
driven enough for one day. About halfway up the road the Beeline Syndrome
kicked in and we decided to make a run for home. I don’t remember what time we
got back to Myrtle Beach
but we did the 600 mile trip in one day.
The travel bug bite scratched for a while, it was good to be
home.
