We took advantage of an off day and slept till ten o'clock.
(What's this "we" stuff?? I was up at 8!) Felt goooood! Then it was off to the River Walk of Augusta. The rain cleared off over night and sun was breaking through the clouds as we left the RV. A couple of people have questioned me through social media about why we wanted to come to Augusta. The answer is twofold. One, is that I wanted to ride inland, on a totally different course than we took to Florida two years ago, and discover things that we know nothing about. One point five, is the unknown, which we found out about today! And finally two, which is 'because we may never pass this way again.'
We started with a stop at the bank and the post office, and then found the Augusta visitors center, which was about twenty minutes from the campground. The visitors center was in the Augusta historical museum. They had statues of golfers, like Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer, who became famous with wins at the Augusta National Golf Course, and also a gingerbread village, made out of totally edible buildings. The buildings were famous, local buildings, and they were very well done. Just out the door was the River Walk, which was about a half mile long, with two levels. An upper level with a nice brick walkway, and a lower level, with a more meandering path, closer to the water. There were lots of historical placards, and we learned much about the cotton industry, confederate history, religious history in the south, and the course of segregation as it progressed to modern times.
We missed the one hour boat tour on the Savannah River, because they took the day off, and we didn't have time to hit the museum before it closed. We did visit an active bank, which contained a museum, and was the actual site of the cotton exchange of the day. The huge blackboard still had the final transactions of the final day, written in chalk, preserved under glass. We had lunch at Joe's, a dive bar type of a place in the basement of a building in the downtown area. We weren't overly impressed with the restaurant selection that we found, as many places were closed for the holiday. As a matter of fact, we pretty much had the entire town to ourselves. We strolled past many monuments that were spaced out in the median strip of the main street, including the confederate soldier monument, and the monument to soul singer, James Brown. Quite a range of reasons for fame.
I made sure to get Pam home in time to start her famous Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling, for Thanksgiving tomorrow. It will be a romantic dinner for two, after a day of football on TV. Then we launch for Savannah.
November 27
Happy Thanksgiving. I had to go out to get a meat thermometer at BiLo, so I decided to do the rest of my Augusta tourist thing. I knew Pam wouldn't want to go see Augusta National Golf Club, and besides, she was busy cooking up some fantabulous Thanksgiving vittles. I had always heard that the Augusta golf club was an impenetrable fortress, so it was clear what I was going to try to do. I wanted to find a way to get a glimpse of the unglimpsable. As I drove around the property, which was surrounded by shrubbery, including double fences and bamboo forests, I found an open gate. Gate six afforded a view of some other gates, and a security office. I stopped the jeep, parked across the street, and jumped out to take a picture. I walked through the open gate, and immediately a security guy popped out of the little security building. He told me that pictures were not allowed, and that I should get back in my vehicle and leave. I knew that was coming, so I said okay, took one more picture, and left. But hey, I had to see for myself. Everything I had heard was true.
I headed towards town, and using my knowledge from biking, and riding around yesterday, I stumbled across the Augusta Canal, which is a waterway that was built from the Savannah River, to afford a water supply to inland textile mills. At the same spot, I found the Confederate Powder Works, which made a majority of the gun powder for the Rebels during the Civil War. According to a historical plaque, it blew up, killing a bunch of people. There was only a large smokestack left from that factory, but a textile mill was built around it in 1880, and it and many mills like it, helped make Augusta a cotton producing capital in the early 20th century, after the invention of the cotton gin, by Eli Whitney.
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