After taking Tal-y for a walk this morning, steering well clear of the lake, we went to get propane and pick up our mail in Yemassee. What a sad little town, it really doesn’t have anything going for it at all, it looks like everyone just forgot it exists. It’s another of the places that we’ve been through that was probably once a bustling little area but then the freeway bypassed it and all the life was just sucked right out – very sad indeed. Beaufort on the other hand is a completely different story. We visited Beaufort after we got the chores out of the way; it’s pronounced ‘Bewfort’ and is a really beautiful if somewhat touristy city. We ate lunch at one of the local cafes before walking to the Waterfront Park which overlooks the Beaufort River. Afterwards we drove around the part of town known as ‘The Point’ and checked out some of those antebellum houses; they are absolutely amazing, really beautiful with all the columns and balconies; I think though that what makes them so special is the trees that surround them. Some of the live oak that they have must be hundreds of years old, and the way the branches grow they are just like works of art.
Beaufort was nice, with all it’s old houses and churches and such, and they have an amazing little chocolate shop that sells chocolate in every shape imaginable and it all tastes really good.
When we got back to the park I persuaded Mike to take a walk with us and he was quite amenable to that since today is quite a lot warmer than it has been recently. We walked a little around the lake and even with the sunshine didn’t spot any alligators.

Mike: Magnificent houses, its hard to believe one family lived there! Good Chocolate!

Brrrr it’s still cold, I think Mike’s fingers may have finally gotten feeling back late this afternoon after he got to pack up the outside of the trailer this morning. We left fairly early so that we could get to Yemassee in South Carolina while it was still light. Really the drive wasn’t that bad, it was quite pretty and we got here around 3 this afternoon even with Nell taking us on one of her little detours. The campground is okay, it’s very flat and there are only a few people here but they have pizza that they make at the office so we had some for dinner tonight. The foliage here is different than we’ve seen so far, there are lots of small palms amongst the trees which we haven’t seen until now, and there are live oak everywhere, all hung with spanish moss; it’s very pretty and a little creepy. I took Tal-y for a walk along the trail to the lake and we chased the ball around on the side of the lake for a while. It wasn’t until we were heading back to the trailer that I saw the sign posted here – Do Not Feed The Gators. What, I thought the gators were all in Florida, not in South Carolina. I figured that maybe the sign was just a joke but when we talked to the woman at the office tonight it turns out it’s not, there are really alligators in the lake; not to worry though as they are all at the bottom right now keeping out of the cold. Yeah right, as if they wouldn’t rise to the top for a nice tasty welsh meal!
I learned a new word today, antebellum. Turns out it’s not just the second word of the name of a country group but actually means pre-war, pre civil war that is, so anything from prior to 1861. We are going to go check out some antebellum houses while we are here in South Carolina.

Mike: Tal-y or Becc, which is the tasty Welsh meal?!

The weather is no better again today, am I ever going to be warm again? At least it’s dry and sunny I guess. Not much on the agenda today. After we watched a couple of guys hooking up a really old trailer whos crank didn’t work (it was quite a feat really to get it hooked up), we just took a drive to the Post Office in Asheboro and then had lunch in town. It’s actually not a bad little town, it has everything one might need but we didn’t spend too much time there as we couldn’t wait to get back to the heater in the trailer.
I did make Mike take a walk with me and Tal-y around the lake; by the time we got home his nose was as red as his coat but at least Tal-y had a good time.
They have some really nice Christmas decorations here at the park that are all lit up at night but I didn’t get any pictures cos it was too bloody cold to hold the camera, even with my gloves on. Maybe it’ll be nicer when we head into South Carolina tomorrow which reminds me I have to go to bed as we have any early start tomorrow and about a 4 ½ hour drive. I just have to get my new best friend ready, it’s warm and rubbery and I can’t sleep without it at the moment.

Mike: I've been replaced by a fuzzy hot water bottle!

Well we had snow this morning; it was only a light dusting but it was there and little bits were still falling as we were packing the trailer up to leave. The roads weren’t covered, only the sites and the buildings so we didn’t have any trouble getting the trailer out of the campground.
We left Virginia today and drove into North Carolina, to Asheboro. The drive wasn’t bad, and the snow didn’t follow us, although it didn’t get any warmer as we went further south. We got to the campsite and got checked in and thank goodness that Mike had made a reservation as we had the last spot in the campground. There was a guy there hoping that we weren’t going to show up as he wanted to stay the night and there were no spaces left for him; I’m not sure what he did after we got there.
We got set up and it didn’t take us long at all, the cold weather is quite motivating. We had intended to leave the trailer hitched to the truck but the space wasn’t long enough so we had to unhitch; not a problem anymore though since we got our new crank. The park is not too bad or at least not as bad as it could have been after reading some of the reviews that had been written about it. I think most of the people here actually live here permanently, and some of the trailers look like they are ready to fall apart; a number of the tent trailers have tarps over them, I’m not sure what’s underneath the tarp and I’m not sure I want to know. I took Tal-y for a walk around the lake and then we didn’t leave the trailer for the rest of the night as it’s just too bloody cold, and we have excellent internet that lets us watch tv so we caught up with some of the stuff we missed last week, like Glee – Mike is officially a Glee fan no matter how much he tries to deny it.

Mike:I think its great, they sing almost as good as me! Gleeeeeeeeeeeee!

I spent a great deal of time this morning on the phone (Magic Jack is excellent) with a lovely man at Virgin Atlantic trying to figure out the best manner to ship Tal-y to the UK. Yesterday I spoke to the USDA as they have to be involved too, and got a bunch of info from them; the woman I talked to freaked me out a little as she informed me that the vet who drew Tal-ys blood for her rabies test had to be USDA accredited which apparently is not the same as being licensed, and if he wasn’t then we would have to start all over and wait another 6 months. I had no idea if our vet was accredited and it really sucks being 3 hours ahead of the West Coast as I had to sit and wait for them to open before I could get the answer. Turns out, thankfully, that he is accredited – step one sorted, only 300 more to go!
I had a list of about 20 questions for the Virgin Atlantic guy and he was really nice and answered them as best he could. It seems that this shipping thing isn’t going to be as complicated as it seems to be to me, Virgin basically takes care of everything once we get Tal-y to them, and will even check to make sure all our paperwork is in order. She will be in her crate for a long time, but the guy assured me that she will be well taken care of. She’ll be the last on and the first off the flight, and really the only difference between us flying and her flying is that she doesn’t get an in-flight movie. So, if that’s the case, why can I fly home for less than $700 and it’s going to cost us close to $2,000 to send Tal-y? I think it’s because there are so many people involved, Virgin, Defra, Animal Welcome Centre, Customs, the list goes on, and they all want paying. Whatever, Tal-y really wants to go and meet Rosie, and maybe teach her how to be a real dog with proper manners!
It’s supposed to snow here today, just in time for us to leave tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t be too much and we’ll be able to get the trailer out, as I don’t want to stay here any longer. I guess at least if it does snow it’ll be a little warmer than it is right now.

Mike: Oh well! Easy come, easy go!

Today we took a drive into historic Halifax in North Carolina. It seems that most places here are ‘historic’ so I wasn’t holding my breath that this place would be anything special but when we got there it was quite an interesting place. There actually is a lot of history surrounding Halifax, starting from the time that Halifax was founded in 1760 (it is right on the Roanoke River and became an important port town) through the 1830’s when the town declined due to the railroad bypassing it. Perhaps the enactment of the first legislation of North Carolina in 1776, known as the “Halifax Resolves” whereby independence from England was recommended is what Halifax is best known for.
The town itself today is quite small but contains a number of restored buildings that show how life was in the early years at Halifax; they include a Tavern, Jail, Plantation House, and the original cemetery. The whole place was quite well done, with people in period costume explaining about life in the early days of the town, as well as plenty of information in the buildings themselves explaining how they were used. There is also a really neat visitors center that has a short film and lots of artifacts about the people who lived here and the slaves they kept.
The only probably with the town was that it seems to be a place for school field trips and there were loads of kids running about the place; they were all very polite however.

Mike: Amazing, such an important place historicaly, boiled down to almost nonthing!

I can’t believe it, we are in December already, time sure flies. Well the storm came early this morning a little later than it was due, but it wasn’t too bad here. We did get the thunder and the rain but it didn’t last very long. We got some wind this morning though and it caused the pinecones and branches to drop on the roof, scaring Tal-y half to death. Everything inside this trailer sounds ten times louder than it really is, so that even a little drizzle sounds like elephants dancing on the roof; the rain this morning managed to drown out most of the thunder.
We took a drive to nowhere in particular this afternoon and we saw some convicts picking up trash along the side of the road. I didn’t think they were doing a very good job as there was white stuff all along the roadside, until Mike pointed out that it was not trash but cotton. There are field after field of cotton here, most of it has been picked at this time but there are bits of cotton everywhere. The cotton plants do not get very tall and I can only imagine how back breaking it was to have to pick it by hand.

Mike: When I was a "little bitty baby" in those old cotton fields back home.