We crossed two state borders today, skipping over South Carolina.  We will be back in a week or so, but we are in a hurry to spend Thanksgiving with my cousin and his family in Orlando tomorrow.  By the way, Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  I trust you will be with family and enjoying the food, the fellowship, and “the game” (whichever one you watch).

I saw this in the center median…

…and very nearly missed this: Welcome to South Carolina!

We saw palm trees at the rest stop where we took a break midway.

Somewhere in South Carolina we came to a slow down in traffic on our side of the freeway heading south.  When we came to the front, a police car was protecting the car of a woman who appeared to have had car trouble.  She and her dog were waiting in the grass of the median for help and the police car was flashing its lights to warn us to slow down.  Not much farther up the road, another car was broken down in the median strip.

That was nothing, however, to what we saw in the northbound lanes a little further up.  First we saw a terrible accident where one car had rolled over and another seemed to be practically missing the whole engine area.  Traffic on that side was at a complete standstill.  A little further down the road on the northbound side of the median, a semi had jackknifed and you could see where his tires had skidded in the grass for a ways behind him.  Still further, there was a pile-up of about four or five cars.  It looked like when the first accident happened, the trucks and cars behind it had a hard time stopping in time when everything came to a halt.

I get the impression that people were trying to get home from work early for Thanksgiving, or maybe they were headed somewhere to be with family.  The two broken down cars on our side were easy to remedy, but I pray that no one on the other side was fatally wounded.  The really odd thing was that the southbound traffic had the sun in our eyes, but the series of accidents on the northbound side didn’t have that excuse.  Much as I feel for those people and their families, I also praise God that things were relatively clear on our side and we could proceed without too much delay.

I was reading The Hiding Place most of the trip and missed the sign as we were entering Georgia.  However, I was very aware of the sun beating in through the windshield and for the first time in a while, had to ask Mark to turn on the fan.

I began noticing that the scenery outside the window was becoming swampy.

As we got closer to our destination, I began seeing long moss hanging from the trees.

I caught this while driving by so it’s a little blurry, but the low shrubbery here looks like miniature palm trees.

The scenery while driving around our campground looking for our site.

I have to tell you a story about the place we are camped tonight.  When I initially called to try to make a reservation, they said that as of this date, they weren’t taking reservations for anything less than three days.  I explained that we were going to be on route to spend Thanksgiving with family in Florida and they allowed us to reserve a spot for one night.  They called earlier this afternoon to see if we would be in before 6:00 and I assured them we would.  When we arrived, we were the second to last guests they were expecting in tonight and they were eager for the last guest to come in so they could go home to prepare for Thanksgiving.

We got here well within daylight.  It’s fairly warm, to the point that people were sitting outside, playing music outside, and we have our windows open even now at 8:12 pm.  I am so grateful to be here, and this is one of the nicest locations we’ve stayed in since Juddhaven.

Beautiful reddish bark on a tree at our campsite

Tall, tall trees!

We even have a concrete patio next to our RV.

Christmas decorations already?

One thing I have noticed in our sojourns is that there are people who decorate their campsites.  I remember when I was a child at summer camp, every day there’d be a contest to see which cabin would get a reward for having the cleanest cabin.  It wasn’t just a matter of cleanliness, however.  We soon discovered that the cabins that had done something to spruce up their place, like spelling out “Welcome” with stones or putting flowers in a pop bottle on a table, were the ones who won.  That’s what I think of when I see campers decorating their sites.

We had a pleasant and safe journey today and we like the place we’re staying.  We are happy and content and thanking the Lord for His safety and provision for us.  I hope you all have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.  If you’d like to send me a note telling me what you’re thankful for, I will publish those tomorrow night.