Saturday, November 15, 2008

November 12th to 15th - Jekyll Island

After having left Savannah, I got lured in an outlet center. I had no real running shoes with me and without bicycle I will need them. I will still have more than 3 weeks to go until I return home. So I got a pair of trail runners which I hopefully can use to hike a bit as well. And I got even more audio books. Now I have really enough books to listen to for the whole long trip home.
I am reading "Journal of a residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-39" by Frances A. Kemble. The plantations she describes here are on St. Simon Island which is one of the golden isle just a short distance north of Jacksonville, Fl. First I missed the turn-off for it, so I turned and drove over the causeway. I followed a sigh which said tabby slave cabins and came to a big Methodist center filled with old women. At that time I had no idea what tabby means, but I learned meanwhile, that it is a building material baked out of oyster shells, sand and lime which was used a lot already by the Spanish in St. Augustine. The cabins didn't show anything about there past and seemed to be only used as backdrop for the local garden club nativ plant garden exibition. So I left for the beach. I took a wrong turn again and was on the causeway off the island again with no opportunity to turn back. So I just decided to go to the next island against I decided before because the information that I read out of a flyer was that it was very expensive and high end as having been for long time the vacationing spot of a club which consisted of the industriell elite of the noth like the Rockefellers and Pulitzers, which was by now a hotel. Never the less I was on my way there. Before entering there was a visitor center, where I got coupons for hotel room. They were all incredible cheap and I decided on a place at the very end of the island ( Villas by the Sea) where the rented out apartements for 70 $ per night. Unfortunately they had only the awful beachcruiser bikes but they send my to the main place to get bikes and I rented a Schwinn which was not much better, but had at least gears.
I surrounded the island the same afternoon (27km) and was smitten by it's beauty. It has wonderful cycle paths and wild pristine forest as well as lakes the historical center which is a very prettily maintained Statepark and a lot of marchland.
The next day I took a bit more time to drive around the island and had an exellent seafood lunch at he rah bar which has owners from LA. They have exelland oysters - not from here rather from Chesapeak Bay and a wonderful seafood boil with shrimps, dungeness crabs etc. I met this couple from Paris, Tennessee which invited me to join them at their table which makes lunch just more fun. I met them the next day again, they took a Photo of me before they left.
Yesterday I took a tour of the historical district, which was not too interesting even if it took one and a half hour and needed to eat a seafood boil again. By now I saw pretty much everthing on the island and after the weekend crowd arrived I am not to sad that I have to leave today.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Das ist ja eine super schöne Gegend! Grüße von Theo und Edda