Posting tonight from St. Augustine, Florida. We are parked at the Elks lodge here, as the state park campground is full. It is a little known fact that I am an Elk, a membership I keep nowadays just because so many Elks lodges around the country have RV parking (many with hookups). I technically belong to the Tri-Cities, WA lodge, though I confess I've never been inside it. One of these days, we'll be in the Tri Cities when the lodge is open...

We've been off-the-air a while, so an update is in order. We left Savannah and the company of our friends on Monday morning, and headed up to Hilton Head island, where we stayed at the Outdoor Resorts motor coach resort there. We did get the dish up and on-line, and updated our map position, but I could not work up the motivation to post to the blog.

We spent two nights in Hilton Head, which afforded us the opportunity to unload the bikes and do some riding. Frankly, Hilton Head was very disappointing -- we rode around the island and had a few nice meals at the local establishments, but most of the shoreline was off-limits to us in either the coach or on our motorcycles. When communities arbitrarily ban street-legal motorcycles from their streets, we are disinclined to spend any of our money or our precious time there. It's a form of prejudicial discrimination, plain and simple -- not any different in my mind from a sign saying "Whites Only" or "No Jews." We had wanted to see Harbour Town (with its lighthouse), and Louise had plans to do some of her Christmas shopping there. As we were being turned away at the gates, I asked if there was perhaps a shuttle or some other way to reach the town and was unceremoniously told that I could call a cab. Harumph. We are not likely ever to return to Hilton Head.

From there we proceeded south, bypassing Savannah this time on I-95, and spent a lovely night at Fort McAllister State Park just south of Savannah. Interesting civil-war earthen fort here that guarded the Ogeechee river, a sort of "back door" to Savannah, from the Union navy. Tree cover was heavy in the campground, though, and we could not get on-line.

After Fort McAllister, we proceeded south on US17, which parallels I-95. The bridge on 17 into Florida is apparently out, so we entered Florida on I-95, then hooked left to A1A and spent last night at Fort Clinch state park -- about as far north as one can stay on the Atlantic coast of Florida. Apparently another fort here, which we did not see. But the campground was right at the beach, and we had a wonderful evening admiring the ocean from our roof-top deck, which afforded us a view over the top of the dunes.

At Fort Clinch, we were able to get the dish up and on-signal, but the aging laptop that has been functioning as out network server finally gave up the ghost, after a prolonged illness. I spent most of the night reconfiguring things to get a temporary backup machine in place. Tomorrow I need to find a computer store for more parts. Anybody want a ThinkPad 600E with a crumbling hard drive, cheap?