Day 11 Lake Park to Ft. Mc Allister Historic Park, Georgia

Day 11, March 29, 2008, Lake Park to Ft. McAllister Historic Park
After leaving the RV park we headed to a do it yourself carwash that I had spotted on the way in. It was time for both the trailer and truck to have a bath. We were lookin’ a bit
Alabama-ish. Ever notice that the entrance of those carwashes are a lot bigger than the exit? We went in the exit just to make sure we could get out. All went well and we look a lot better than we did. Our drive today was not very inspiring. No pretty little towns, but occasionally there would be a glorious display of azalia bushes. Our campsite is at Ft. McAllister Historic Park just outside of Richmond Hill, GA and about 20 miles from Savannah. Richmond Hill was the brainchild of Henry Ford. Don’t know why.
Our campsite is absolutely HUGE! If we were staying longer we could put in a garden.
At our backdoor is a saltwater marsh covered in something they call wire grass. There are bugs here, but our repellent seems to work well. Tippy is on high alert since he’s spotted squirrels, and a raccoon has been seen lurking in the undergrowth. Looking forward to tomorrow and Savannah.
Since there were no highlights on the drive today I’ll let you in on a new skill development that I’ve been working on. For Christmas a couple years ago I ask for a fire making kit. The kit consisted of a steel striker which is shaped like a set of brass knuckles, a piece of flint, a bag of tow which looks like unraveled baler twine, and finally some char cloth which is charred linen. You make a little nest of tow and place a piece of char cloth in it. Then you start hitting the flint against the striker to create sparks. Once you get the hang of it it’s surprising how many sparks you can create. But the real challenge is to get the spark to land on the char cloth. When the spark lands on the char cloth it glows for awhile and if your quick enough you can blow on the ember and ignite the cloth as well as the tow. At this point the score is one out of four. The only time I’ve been successful was at David Crockett State Park in Tennessee. But every couple of evenings I’ll give it a go again. I’m just glad that having something to eat doesn’t depend on me making the fire.
Picture 1. The "nearly an acre campsite! 2. Our view out the camper door toward the salt marsh.