Spring 2007 --- from Sebring FL to Indianapolis
After spending the winter in Sebring FL we decided to take two weeks to come up to Indianapolis. We looked at the map and decided that stops in St Augustine, Savannah, Myrtle Beach, and Ashville, NC would be a nice vacation.
We drove up to St Augustine, the oldest European settlement in North America. The city caters to the tourist almost as much as Key West with Old Town Trolley tours and lots of shops and nice restaurants. (We would recommend the Columbia!) We spent some time touring the Castillo De San Marcos, a Spanish fort built about 1672. It is the oldest masonry fort in North America. We toured the shops, went on a Ghost Tour and visited the World Golf Hall of Fame...Below you can see some of the pictures we took of our visit.
Savannah was our next stop. Again we took an Old Town Trolley tour. We spent a lot of time in the Mercer Mansion. The book and movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" was based on a killing there. The artwork, and decorating in the house makes it a must see attraction. We had lunch while overlooking the Savannah River. We found out that many movies are filmed in Savannah including Forest Gump. (See Bob sitting on the same bench used by Forest Gump in the movie.) The campground was located on the Ogechee river and we were amazed to see how much the tide affected the water level in the river.
Amid the report of bad storms we continued north from Savannah to Myrtle Beach. the weather was cold, and very windy...We were fortunate that the terrible thunder storms bypassed the area but it sure restricted our tourism.
We turned west to Ashville NC to visit the Biltmore House. The house was built in 1906 by William Vanderbilt. He modeled it after a medieval castle. It has 250 rooms on 8,000 acres. The dining room will seat about 80 people, with two fireplaces on one end and a pipe organ in the balcony on the other end. The house had a staff of 38 which didn't include the personal servants for the family and their guests. We had not been to the house for about 30 years so it was real interesting to see how they had changed the tour...it now included much more of the house than before.
