Cumberland Island and back home

Our last stop before returning back to Hilton Head was Cumberland Island, one of the many barrier islands at the east coast. It is located right north of the Georgia-Florida state line and is protected as a "National Seashore" by the National Park System.

Except for a few private properties - including a large upscale hotel - the whole island is an undeveloped wilderness, consisting of a 17 miles long sand beach and a large Live Oak forest that covers most of the area off the beach. Cumberland Island is also famous for its wild horses.

The only way to the island is by a ferry boat that travels twice a day between St. Marys and a landing at the southwestern side of the island. The are no commercial activities (except the aforementioned hotel), so all visitors have to bring their own drinks and food. It is possible to rent bicycles, and this is what we did to be able to see a bit more than what would be feasible by just walking. We saw lots of horses which, apparently, live in families, at various places on our bike tour.

 

 

The ruins of a huge, four-story tabby mansion are located at the south end of the island. It was built by Catherine and Phineas Miller at the end of the 18. century with money made by harvesting live oaks to be used for ship building.

 

On the ferry back to the mainland

Our campground in a state park close to St. Marys



Back in "our" RV Park at the north end of Hilton Head

This concludes the blog about our RV road trip across the United States of America. We travelled about 24,000 miles (38.000 km) in 6 months to 20 states and 2 Canadian provinces, and visited 12 national parks and monuments, plus countless state parks. It was an incredible experience for all of us, full of challenges brought upon us by the uncharted territory of three individualists being confined to live on 400 sf with no place to hide. But at the end, we all are saying: IT WAS WORTH IT!!

And that's what counts.

 

Hilton Head Island - what a nice place to live

 

 

 

 

 



New Orleans

On our way to the next destination, New Orleans, I needed to make a nostalgic, quick stopover by my first employer after university, BASF.

BASF operates a 2,640 acres (10,5 qkm) site at the Mississippi in Geismar, Louisiana. But the chemical giant is just one of over 40 chemical companies that are lined up along the river here in Geismar, forming one of the largest chemical complexes in the US.

New Orleans is as touristy and crazy as ever, also outside Mardi Gras or the Jazz Festival. Silke and I enjoyed it, but Benjamin was more scared by the craze...

 

A wedding march in Bourbon street, led by a jazz combo



Bourbon street

 

Antebellum Mansions at the Mississippi

It's been a while since I posted the last time - mainly due to bad internet connections in many of the RV parks we stayed in.
From Carlsbad, we went eastward on I 20 to Dallas, where we spent the Easter weekend and Silke's birthday. We stayed in a beautiful state park campground south of the city, and enjoyed the nice spring weather and an opulent birthday/easter breakfast.

We even had the luxury of our own, "private" garden behind our RV, where the Easterbunny could hide easter eggs and other goodies.

From Dallas, we drove further westward to Natchez, Mississippi, place of the largest number of undestroyed antebellum houses. Natchez is located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, and became the home of a number of very wealthy planters that owned vast cotton and sugar plantations in the surrounding river plains. Most of them survived until today and are now a major tourist attraction.

 Left: Melrose estate is now a national historic park, administrated by the national park service.

Stanton Hall

Dunleith house, now an upscale restaurant

Most of these houses were built between 1840 and 1860, and almost all of them in the Greek revival style, except the Longwood mansion, the largest octogonal house in North America. The interior was never finished because the war started and workers returned to their homes in Pennsylvania where they were from.

Longwood Home with an octogonal, 30,000 sf (2.700 qm) floorplan

Of course, wealthy Mississippi planters had built their mansions not only in Natchez. Further south, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, is the home of the largest of all antebellum homes in the US, Nottaway Plantation.

It was owned by the descendants of the original family until 1970, and then sold to an Australian billionaire who runs it now as a hotel and a venue for events like weddings.

 

Phantastic Carlsbad Caverns

Our visit to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park was one of the most memorable and exciting  experiences of the entire trip. The more than 100 limestone caves within Carlsbad Caverns  are outstanding and notable world-wide because of their size and the abundance, diversity and beauty of the decorative rock formations within. The lagest cave, called "Big Room", is accessible by hiking down a 1-mile trail with a vertical drop of 750 ft (230 m). It is about 4,000 ft (1.200 m) long and 255 ft (78 m) high at the highest point. An almost 2-mile long boardwalk along the perimeter offers incredible vistas to hundreds of phantastic crystal and rock formations. As I said on other occasions before, photos can only begin to give an idea how impressive these caverns are - nothing matches the live experience.


On the hike down

Entrance to the cavern



In the "Big Room"

By the way - picture taking down in the cavern is rather challenging: The caves are only dimly lit, requiring exposure times of 30 - 60 seconds and, consequently, a solid support for the camera (next time I am going to bring a tripod!). And the built-in flash carries to a distance of 10 ft. maximum.

 

This formation is called "Whale Mouth"

 

 

The "Chinese Theater"

 

 

 

Another area in the Big Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Sands National Monument

Are you kidding me, snow in the Chihuahuan desert in New Mexico??

 

 

What looks like snow - not just on the pictures, but also in reality - is actually sand, but not made of silica, like usually, but consisting of gypsum crystals, chemically calcium sulfate. Several geological events had to come together to create this unique whim of nature, as is explained here:

 

 

We all were having a blast playing in that huge sand box that is made up by up to 60 ft high snow-white sand dunes.

 

Rolling down the steep dune slopes...

...is fun for all ages!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Tombstone and Bisbee, AZ

For a Western Movie fan like me, it was a no-brainer to pay a visit to Tombstone, the "mother of all western towns", only 60 miles south of Tucson. Tombstone was the place of the famous OK Corral shootout between the Earp brothers and "Doc" Holliday on one side and some leading figures of the "Cowboys", an infamous gang of cattle thieves and stage coach robbers, on the other side. Many of the original buildings, and of course the main street, are still there, although their purpose changed somewhat to tend to the needs of the tourists that nowadays are income-maker #1 for the town. In addition to browsing for souvenirs, we attended a re-enactment of the gunfight that is performed once daily.

The Earp brothers; the famous Wyatt is on the left side



 

...and their challengers

 

Tombstone's main street

 

About 20 miles south of Tombstone is the historic mining town of Bisbee. From 1880 to 1975, copper was being mined here; until 1950 in an underground mine and the last 25 years additionally in an open pit. The open pit mining became feasible by the development of heavy mining and earth moving equipment, and actually helped keeping the entire mining operations afloat, because the underground mine alone was not profitable enough anymore.

Like elsewhere, open pit mining does never leave an attractive landscape behind, but in the case of Bisbee, it is particularly unpleasant because it's so close to downtown.

 

Open pit copper mine in Bisbee, AZ

 

 

With the help of tourism, Bisbee flourishes now, but, of course, way less than at its peak times about 100 years ago.

 

Main street in Bisbee

Bisbee, AZ

 

 

The main tourist attraction in Bisbee is a tour of the underground mine which is offered several times daily.

 

 

Our tour guide was a great guy who actually worked in the mine until 1974, and he was able to tell us lots of little stories that filled the 1-hour tour with life and interest. In the picture above, he is explaining the use of that chest-like device, which actually was - the underground toilet. It's interesting to note that the miners obviously didn't mind using it in tandem...