365RVLiving.com

Fort Sumter National Historical Park, Charleston, South Carolina

2026-02-062026-02-05 by Martin

We visited the Fort Sumter National Historical Park in mid-December 2025 while staying at the Thousand Trails Oaks at Point South RV Park in Yemassee, South Carolina just under an hour and a half away.

Fort Sumter is one of 40 fortifications that were built following the War of 1812 and up to the start of the American Civil War. These forts are collectively known as the Third System of Seacoast Defense. Today, Fort Sumter is an incomplete sea fort near Charleston, South Carolina, where the battle that sparked the American Civil War took place. Built on an artificial island at the entrance of Charleston Harbor, it remained unfinished on April 12, 1861, when attacked by Confederate Forces and greatly damaged. Efforts at rebuilding after the civil war never completed the fort’s original plan, but since the middle of the 20th century it has been open to the public and operated by the National Park Service.

Fort Sumter Tours provides access to Fort Sumter via their frequent boat service. The boat trip took about 40-minutes each way and we had about 1-hour on the island to see Fort Sumter. There are two departure locations for the tours: Fort Sumter Visitor Center at Liberty Square in downtown Charleston, and the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum on the opposite side of Charleston Bay. We decided to book our trip from the Patriots Point location because of the ample parking at that location compared to the Visitor Center.

As well as being the departure point for the Fort Sumter boat, Patriots Point also has the World War II aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown as its centerpiece. In addition to the USS Yorktown, Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum has a fleet of National Historic Landmark ships, the Cold War Memorial, the only Vietnam Experience Exhibit in the U.S., the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and the agency’s official Medal of Honor Museum.

On our arrival at the Fort, one of the Park Rangers gave a brief presentation on its history. Most famously, Fort Sumter is notable for two battles, the first of which began the American Civil War. The First Battle of Fort Sumter began on April 12, 1861, when South Carolina Militia artillery fired from shore on the US Army garrison. These were (both sides agreed) the first shots of the war. The bombardment continued all day, watched by many happy civilians. The fort had been cut off from its supply line and surrendered the next day. Major Robert Anderson took the flag with him as they evacuated.

The Second Battle of Fort Sumter (September 8, 1863) was a failed attempt by the Union to retake the fort, dogged by a rivalry between army and navy commanders. Although the fort was reduced to rubble, it remained in Confederate hands until it was evacuated as General Sherman marched through South Carolina in February 1865.

A widely announced “End of the War” celebration took place at Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865, which leads some to now claim that the Civil War started and ended at Fort Sumter. The now-Major General Anderson, though ill and retired, came to the ceremony and raised the flag. The assassination of President Lincoln, which occurred on the evening of that date, almost immediately overshadowed the festivities.

A massive concrete blockhouse-style installation, currently painted black, was built in 1898 inside the original walls, armed with two 12-inch M1888 guns, one on a disappearing carriage. Named “Battery Huger” in honor of Revolutionary War General Isaac Huger, it never saw combat. This battery was deactivated in 1947, and in 1948 the fort became Fort Sumter National Monument under the control of the National Park Service.

Our boat tour gave us about an hour at Fort Sumter, which was just about enough to tour the Fort and small museum that is located in one of the buildings. The park rangers were very knowledgeable in providing information on the history of the fort. It was interesting to see mortar shells from the Civil War still imbedded on some of the walls around the fort. Much of the original brickwork was destroyed during the Civil War battles and was not rebuilt. The bricks were manufactured locally, mostly by enslaved people, and you could still see finger prints of the original brick makers in some of the surviving bricks.

As part of the original construction, cavities in the brick walls were filled with “tabby concrete” which is visible in many areas where the original brickwork has been destroyed. This is a type of concrete made by burning oyster shells to create lime, then mixing it with water, sand, ash and broken oyster shells. The shells are still clearly visible in the exposed concrete that is still in place.

We had recently visited many Civil War sites on our east coast travels, and it was particularly interesting to visit Fort Sumter as the site where the Civil War started.

Pictures from our visit are included below. Click on the thumbnails for the full size images.

Savannah, Georgia

2026-02-01 by Martin

We visited the historic city of Savannah in mid-December 2025 while staying at the Thousand Trails Oaks at Point South RV Park in Yemassee, South Carolina just under an hour away

We decided to book a day pass on Old Town Trolley Tours to tour around the city. We parked at the visitor center in downtown Savannah which had a very reasonable hourly rate and boarded the shuttle at the nearby stop. The hop-on-hop-off trolley tour has 16-stops throughout the old town area. During our visit we rode on several different trolleys as we “hopped on and off” to walk around various areas of the city. The drivers of the trolleys all provided informative commentary about the history of the city, its buildings, and people as we travelled around.

Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia, and was the capital of the colonial Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Savannah’s downtown area includes the Savannah Historic District, its 22 parklike squares which are laden with monuments, live oaks for that iconic Southern-Gothic feel, and the Savannah Victorian Historic District. It is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the U.S., designated by the federal government in 1966, and largely retains the founder James Oglethorpe’s original town plan, a design known as the Oglethorpe Plan.

Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) with an enrollment of 18,000 students now plays a large roll in restoring and supporting the city. SCAD’s efforts to work with the city of Savannah to preserve its architectural heritage include restoring buildings for use as college facilities, for which it has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Historic Savannah Foundation and the Victorian Society of America. The college campus includes 67 buildings throughout downtown Savannah, many of which are on the 22 squares of the old town.

We enjoyed walking around various areas of the city in between our rides on the Trolley. We stopped for lunch at the 30-acre Forsyth Park that was established in 1841 and is the oldest public park in the city. We strolled around the park with its lush lawns and tree-lined promenades with a large memorial and some statues in the center. We bought sandwiches at a store that bordered the park and enjoyed a nice picnic lunch at one of the park benches.

We can recommend the Trolley tour as a great way to see and learn about the city. We particularly enjoyed the architecture and the many historic squares throughout the city with their iconic canopy of live oaks decorated with Spanish moss.

Pictures from our visit are provided below. Click on the thumbnails for the full size images.

Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

2026-01-23 by Martin

We visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial just outside the town of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina while staying at the OBX Campground and RV Park in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina just a few miles down the road.

The 428-acre park is situated on the Outer Banks, a chain of barrier islands along the Atlantic Coast. This park, established in 1927, is the site where Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first airplane flights in human history. They had three criteria for their flight testing location: wind, sand, and isolation, all of which could be found in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

We started our visit at the visitor center. There was a very nice display and timeline showing the history of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s annual summer visits to Kitty Hawk that started in 1900. It was during these annual summer visits that the two brothers, bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio, initially developed non-powered (glider) flight, and then moved on to powered flight. The visitor center had some very interesting displays including tools that the brothers would have used, and a recreation of a small wind tunnel that they designed and built to test different wing profile designs. The visitor center also has a full size replica of the Wright Brother’s aircraft “The Wright Flyer” in front of large picture windows that overlook the site of their first flights and the Wright Brothers monument on the nearby dune. It was interesting to learn about the Wright Brothers systematic engineering approach to solving the problem of powered flight, and how in doing so, their experiments proved wrong some of the prevailing aerodynamic theories of the time.

The site of the first flights is just outside the visitor center along with replicas of their workshop/living quarters, and aircraft hangar. Markers show the take-off and landing points of the first four successful powered flights in human history made on December 17, 1903. The longest of the three flights was 852-feet in length and lasted 59-seconds.

We walked to the large stabilized sand-dune known as Big Kill Devil Hill at the far end of the park with its huge stone monument to the Wright Brothers. Thousands of times, the brothers trekked up this and three nearby dunes to conduct glider experiments. These efforts paid off as they mastered their flying skills and refined their flight controls that would help with their later powered flights.

The design of the granite monument features an Art Deco style which highlights bold geometric shapes. A notable part of the monument is the inscription that reads, “In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright. Conceived by genius. Achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.” The monument also features curved, wing-like designs on either side and a lit beacon at the top which functions similarly to a lighthouse. The Memorial started construction in 1928 and was dedicated on November 19th, 1932, with Orville in attendance as well as prominent aviators and politicians of the time. Today the monument continues to sit atop Big Kill Devil Hills as one of the highest points in the Outer Banks.

Located to the south of Big Kill Devil Hill, a life size sculpture represents the Wright brothers’ first flight. Dedicated in 2003 as a gift from the State of North Carolina, the bronze and steel sculpture reenacts the historic first flight. Orville pilots the machine, Wilbur runs alongside, and the witnesses who assisted with the flights that day look on and cheer.

The Wright Brothers National Memorial was an interesting visit to an iconic site in the history of powered flight and had a very informative visitor center. We were able to walk around the entire site in a few hours.

Pictures from our visit are provided below. Click on the thumbnails for full size images.

Okefenokee

2025-12-302025-12-24 by Martin

Merry Christmas from the Okefenokee!

We spent Christmas 2025 at the campground in the Laura S. Walker State Park in Georgia, just outside Waycross near the North end of the Okefenokee. We really enjoyed the campground on the banks of a peaceful lake with a variety of scenic walking trails through the campground and surrounding woods.

During our stay we took a 90 minute guided boat trip on the Okefenokee which started at the Richard S. Bolt Visitor Center at the east entrance to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge near Folkston, Georgia. The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is the headwaters of the Suwannee and St. Mary’s rivers.  The refuge provides habitat for threatened and endangered species, such as the red-cockaded woodpecker, indigo snake, and wood stork, along with a wide variety of other wildlife.  It is world renowned for its amphibian populations that are bio-indicators of global health. The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge has 353,981 acres of National Wilderness Area within the refuge boundaries. In addition, the refuge is a Wetland of International Importance because of the Okefenokee Swamp’s importance and value on an international scale. The Okefenokee NWR is currently going through the nomination process to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Our boat tour through Okefenokee Adventures was let by Bobby who was extremely knowledgeable about the Okefenokee flora and fauna. We had a fairly small group on our tour, so everyone got their questions answered in depth by Bobby. We saw lots of alligators basking in the sunshine along the banks of the canal as we headed into the swamp. The canal is a former logging canal but has not been commercially active for many years. In years past, the Cypress trees were harvested and shipped along the canal, but as they’ve had close to 100 years to recover there were many mature Cypress trees in evidence. A couple of miles along the canal we headed into an open area known as the Prairie, which had been created by earlier wildfires. There were great views across this area of the swamp, and we saw many birds including Sandhill Cranes, Egrets, and Blue Heron. Here you could see the floating peat islands beginning to form and repopulate with grass and trees that will eventually fill open areas to create a denser swampland. The name Okefenokee means Land of Trembling Earth which references the floating peat islands that form the swampland.

After the boat tour we took the Swamp Island Drive motor tour just outside the visitor center. This is a self-guided auto tour “lollipop route” of a total 7.4 miles. Swamp Island Drive has 12 numbered markers that indicate walking trails, historic sites, and other interesting points of interest. Near the end of the drive we visited the Chesser Island Homestead, a recreation of a 19th Century homestead that was occupied by the Chesser family through the mid-20th Century. The main building was closed during our visit, but we were able to see through the windows and look into some of the four rooms, including an indoor kitchen. Bathroom facilities were outside, but a bathtub was located on the back porch. We walked around the outbuildings that include a smokehouse, syrup shed, chicken coop, corncrib, and hog pen. The yard retains its original character – it is free of all vegetation, as was the custom of the time to reduce fire danger and increase visibility of snakes.

A highlight of our visit was the Chesser Island Boardwalk. We took the fully accessible boardwalk to the 40-foot Owls Roost Tower for a vast view of Seagrove Lake, prairies, and the Okefenokee Wilderness. We were there during the golden hour and were able to take some spectacular pictures as the sun was setting over the swamp.

National Corvette Museum

2025-05-30 by Martin

We visited the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky while staying at the nearby Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV & Golf Resort in early May 2025. Bowling Green is the home of the Chevrolet Corvette with the manufacturing plant located nearby the museum.

The museum traces the evolution of the Corvette – Americas Sports Car – from its origins in 1953, through its eight major model updates (C1 through C8) to today’s spectacular mid-rear-engine iteration. The museum includes many corvettes from each generation and also several prototype and concept versions that showed design ideas over the years that may or may not have made it into production.
We particularly liked the classic 1963 split-window Corvette stingray, the only year with the split rear window design; the 1968 Jim Lovell Corvette that was an example of the Corvettes that were driven by many NASA astronauts during the 1960’s space race; and the 1962 Gulf Oil racing Corvette that dominated US sports car racing in 1962, winning 12 of the 14 races it entered.

In 2014 a section of the floor of the Skydome display hall collapsed into a massive sinkhole, taking 8 cars with it. The cars, ranging from unique prototypes to iconic classics, were recovered in a dramatic effort, with some restored to their former glory while others remain in their damaged state as a testament to the event. We saw one of the “unrepaired” sinkhole cars on display in the museum.

After we toured the museum, we visited the Stingray Grill restaurant attached to the museum for lunch. The museum had an excellent choice of food with some very nice vegetarian options included.

A selection of photos from our visit are provided below.