Georgia’s Golden Isles: Jekyll Island
Day 1 of our Valentine’s Weekend Getaway | Visiting Jekyll Island, GA | February 11, 2016
This trip came immediately following our weekend in Savannah/Beaufort/camping on Hunting Island. We found out right before we left for Savannah that Curtis would have a 4 day weekend for President’s Day (which just so happened to also be Valentine’s weekend!) and we just couldn’t imagine not going anywhere to take advantage of that. Now that he’s tied down to school once again, we’re eagerly trying to find the time to go for adventures with any free time we get – even if it’s just a day and a half. More on that later. 😉
Our first choice for a long weekend adventure would be to head straight for the Appalachians, or the NW corner of SC to do some “real hiking.” However, one look at the forecast for the area sent shivers up our spines – highs in the 30’s and lows in the teens?? No thank you – not after our bad weather experience while camping! We realized that we were really tired of being cold all the time, and all we really wanted was to go somewhere warm where we could enjoy being outside, wherever that may be. After living and exploring in Arizona for 2 years, having to travel to be warm is a new concept for us. I’m not sure I like it.
All that to say, we realized that the only warm place within our 350 mile radius that Curtis is confined to was Florida, so to Florida we went! If you had asked us just a week before this if we planned to visit Florida, I’m pretty sure that we would have adamantly declared that we would never vacation in Florida, unless it was to the Keys or to one of the National Parks just because we were trying to visit them all. After living in the “Low Country” (fancy phrase people here use for swamp), it almost hurts us physically to look at a map of Florida and see how much of that land is swamp. And also to think about how far we’d have to travel from there to get to some good mountains. (I guess we’re just Westerners at heart, sorry Southeastern friends!) But now we see why people visit Florida, “The Sunshine State.” We needed a little sunshine too!
We left home and began our vacation mid-morning on Thursday, taking 17 South to I-95 and into Georgia. We made our first stop for a letterbox at “The World’s Smallest Church” a little ways off the interstate. Unfortunately, the church was under renovation at the time, but we were wondering how this constitutes as the world’s smallest. It could easily fit like 15-20 people inside. Maybe it holds services? We don’t know, but now we can add this to our random finds while letterboxing. This one reminded us of our visit to the World’s Smallest Museum while letterboxing in Superior, AZ. {Update: Curtis did some research and found out that the reason why the church is under construction is because someone torched it recently – how sad! We wish would could see it when it’s fixed up!}
We were spending the night in Brunswick, GA, but before checking in, we drove further East to visit one of Georgia’s Golden Isles – Jekyll Island State Park. Curtis had some letterboxes for us to find there, and he also heard about the driftwood beach that was supposedly called “one of the most romantic places” in some magazine or website – who knows how those things get chosen? I searched online to figure out why, and all I found on this beach’s website is that it’s a popular spot for weddings.
Jekyll Island State Park was different than other state parks we’d been to around here. There were a lot of facets to it – there was a downtown area (pretty touristy with shops, restaurants, lodging), lots of beaches or ocean access points, bike trails, historic structures, and a neighborhood. The entrance fee was $6 for visiting. We just wanted to walk along the driftwood beach and look for letterboxes along the trails, so we parked in a lot along the main road to the North of the island and set out walking. We realized that we didn’t park as close to the driftwood section as we could have, but that was fine by us. We were alone for most of the walk before the driftwood, and had a great view of San Simons Island and the big bridge connecting the two. It was on this beach that we saw our first jellyfish – well, more like our first 30 jellyfish! We find that when we see one of something on a beach, we’ll see lots more of that one thing that day. For example, the first time we saw a horseshoe crab, we saw 3 more. On our first dophin spotting, we saw a whole school. The first day we spotted a star fish, we saw countless more. I guess today was just jellyfish day at driftwood beach!
There were a lot more people around when we reached the driftwood part. Since we had visited Hunting Island in SC multiple times, we weren’t as impressed with this beach. It was still very enjoyable though – since all we really do when we visit a beach is walk, the driftwood gives a little something extra to see and enjoy. I wasn’t familiar with driftwood beaches before we moved here and visited Hunting Island, and I have to say I’m a big fan now. I wouldn’t say that I like them enough to want to get married on one, I just enjoy visiting them. 😉
We walked down the whole beach, then cut across to a bike path to take back to our car. Along the way, we saw egrets and deer in the tall grassy areas. After we made it back, we decided to continue on the road heading North and visit the historic part of the island, where we saw the tabby Horton House ruins (which were occupied by a British Major during the British Colonial Period), and walked along a short trail across the street to read some more about what had happened here.
It started to get cold as the sun was setting, so we made our way back to Brunswick for the night. We could’ve continued all the way to our destination for the weekend – St. Augustine, FL – which was only another hour and a half away, but decided we’d rather take it easy and enjoy the weekend. We also saw that there was another National Monument on Saint Simons Island, so we wanted to take another day to explore Georgia’s Golden Isles. (Coming up next on Saving Time in a Bottle!) 😉
To see more pictures from this day, visit savingtimeinabottleimages.tumblr.com.
