Augusta, GA

13-17 March 2013

Some people have been watching this trip to see if such an elaborate scheme could be executed according to plan. Up until this point in the journey, almost everything has been in synch with the spreadsheet. When we arrived, however, at Fort Gordon, Georgia, to visit Java Daughter, things started to slip in minor ways. We planned to camp on the military base at Leitner Lake (no reservations available), but that campground was entirely full with long-termers and others who set themselves up a whole month early in anticipation of the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta. We couldn't have predicted that. Instead Great Husband found us a spot at Heritage Mobile Home and RV Park in Augusta. It's a very basic place, no shower house even. We paid $25 per night with full utilities, but the sites go up to $100 during the Masters.

Our granddaughter, who is four, nicknamed Blondie for this blog, camped with us three nights, always enjoying the amazing conversion of the dinette to become her bed. Blondie is already establishing a camping routine that must not be varied, playing with the same games and toys in the camper each time she is with us. “I never forget anything," she said. "Did you bring the crackers with letters on them?” She was referring to Scrabble Cheeze-Its imprinted with the alphabet. 

As Blondie was settling in one night on her table-bed she observed Great Husband and me in the queen bed and said, “It’s ridiclious for two people to sleep in the same bed.” "Ridiclious? Why?" asked Great Husband. Said Blondie, "One might push the other one out!" 

Blondie marched in a St. Patrick's Day parade at preschool, but she was a little confused about the saint. "Was he a leprechaun?" she asked.

The seashells collected on all the Florida beaches of this trip were a great hit with Blondie and her younger brother "Charmer." They washed them over and over, sorted and resorted, and tried to identify them according to the "map" we had brought from one of the parks. Charmer would have taken his seashells to bed if allowed. Since we are not grandparents who buy the kids lots of toys, seeing all this did my heart good.