Driving to - Hunting Island State Park

Monday, March-03-08

Four young deer see us off under sunny skies, $3.19 gasoline and 16C. I hope we don’t take too many mosquistoes with us. Our destination today is Hunting Island State Park on the Atlantic Ocean. According to MS Streets & Trips, this is a 5 hr drive, but past experience equates thiss closer to 6.5 hours.
Heading north on 441 to Homerville, we see fields of peanut bushes. Or least we guess as getting Al to stop the car for a closer look is … Then blueberries, to which Al wants to know where the power lines are since that’s where they usually grow. A convoy of 10 dumptrucks overtake us at great speed. As we turn right onto 83, we encounter another prison work crew, a not uncommon sight in the US.
We’re following a major railway line: engine repair depot, 2 frieght trains in the last hour which cause me to wonder the why’s of 2 locomotives, one of which is facing backward. Giant billboard in Screven ‘invites’ trucks to go elsewhere. We just happen to be following one that honks his horn for no other apparent reason. Then we encounter road-widening construction, or should I say, destruction.
Lots of flowering trees in these small communities– white, pale & darker pink flowers, trees beginning to leaf out – some red some almost yellow, and of course loads of azalias mostly in the form of hedges,
Jesup appears to be a one-industry town – Rayonier, a very large, industrial plant, produces one horrible, cough-sputtering smell from the smoke stacks. We stop to get groceries at – where else, a Walmart Superstore.
Walthourville is a strip town (like many others) alongside the highway & railroad line. For the most part housing is pre-fab with mobile home parks dominating the landscape, each one containing identical units. A surprising number of Japanese restaurants and then one big billboard asking if we want to support Japan by buying a Toyota, etc.
We’re parked outside a Travelodge and opposite Camping World in Pooler, Georgia. While I eat my sandwich lunch, I’m posting to the blog – text at least. The last state park had cable TV no less. I’d rather have WiFi myself.