July 3 - Celebrating at Ft Pulaski

Sunday,  my blueberry pancake day!  I did some turkey bacon and Bill wanted easy over eggs so we each had fruit and shared the pancakes.  I didn’t want to eat too much since we were going to the cookout at noon.  We did some tidying up and I put a load of wash in and we showered and drove to Wilmington Island to get a newspaper.  The traffic back looked bad when we got back on 80 but moved along rather steady til our lanes started shifting back to one lane.  We had the desserts with us as we were told to have them at the fort by noon.  We timed it perfectly. 

Our pitcher, Tramus

Then we got to watch the cannons fire and try out the new video camera.  The Fort Jackson vs Fort Pulaski baseball game was to start at 12:30 but things were late as the Fort Jackson team must have been travelling in the method of the soldiers of 1862 and were late.  Really it was the terrible traffic of the beach goers.  Two of the rangers led the National Anthem prior to the game and one of the rangers explained to the crowd that some of the earliest known photos of the game of baseball were taken in our fort and he had big blow ups to pass around.  The rules were really different back then too.   He explained that the batter was called a striker and he could wait all day for a pitch, there was no count.  The ball could be caught in the air for an out or on the first bounce for an out.  That’s only a couple of the big differences.  We watched most of the game from the top of the fort.  When we finally got too hot and tired we gave up and went to see if lunch was ready.  It was tied 0 – 0 when we left and we think that’s how it ended.  It’s hard to score when they can use the bounced ball to make an out. 

Lunch was just about set up when we got to the ranger office so I had 1 hot dog covered in relish and mustard and a small serving of slaw.  Not much was homemade.  I wanted to save my points for a slice of my cake.  We got to chat some with the staff but thought it best to leave quickly as once all the photo ops were done the office would be packed with the rest of the ball team ready for lunch.

We came home and Bill read the paper and I printed some things and caught up on journaling.  Bill said the Tybee fireworks are tonight so guess we will bike or drive up to the bridge to watch from there unless we spot one of the rangers in the fort after hours.  Then Bill worked on putting the new inner tube in my rear tire.  He said he was getting 2 in case the other one went next.

For dinner I made meatloaf as Bill has been talking about meatloaf for days.  He had white potato, I had sweet potato, as is the norm.  I sautéed some onion and garlic from Jeff and added in some yellow and green squash and it was very yummy and a pleasant change from steamed squash.  After dinner we tested the new bike tire and it held up fine.  We did 3 miles and upped our deer count to 33 deer.  It was amazing.  There was a huge herd up by the Visitor Center and for the first time we saw the 2 senior bucks with full racks.  There was also a very tiny fawn, not even close in size to the fawn we see all the time.  It couldn’t have been more than 18 inches tall.  They moved away from us a bit but they didn’t make a real run for it.  They are not as used to bikes and vehicles as the two herds at our end of the island.

We rested at home for a bit then headed up to the bridge for the Tybee fireworks just before 9.  We didn’t agree on the time the paper said the fireworks started and ended up missing the main event.  Someone lit some off our bridge and we could see 2 sets over in Savannah and some arbitrary ones on Tybee and thought they just weren’t very good.  Then when we got home we really heard them and checked the paper and they didn’t start til 9:30.  We will try again tomorrow night when they do the Savannah ones at 9:20.

We watched TV and I read the paper and did my coupon clipping for the week.  I made potato salad for tomorrow with an borrowed egg from out neighbor, Eric, and the purple potatoes Jeff brought me.  And I made a small fresh peach pie.  Yum!