"...the richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible club in the world."

Jekyll Island Club Hotel, looking across the
lawn croquet field.  For the right price, YOU
can spend the night here!

After a week of rain & doing chores around the boat, we headed back over to Jekyll Island to rub elbows with the rich & famous.  We took the tours around the Jekyll Island Club, which existed from 1886 to 1942 as a winter retreat, where membership was by invitation only, limited to 100 of the wealthiest Americans.....gentle folks such as JP Morgan, William Vanderbilt, William Rockefeller, Marshall Field, Richard Crane, and Joseph Pulitzer.  A club hotel was built for most of the members, but some decided they needed a separate "winter cottage" (a.k.a. "mansion").  Keep in mind that the rich folk of this era also had "summer cottages" in places like Newport R.I., in addition to their primary home in towns like New York, Chicago, and Pittsburgh.  On Jekyll Island, Richard Crane (founder of Crane plumbing fixtures & pumps) had the largest "cottage", one with 17 bedrooms.

William Rockefeller's "winter cottage" at water's edge.

The club house & hotel was open only from Jan through March.  One of their rules was that all members had to take their meals in the club dining room, to encourage social interaction.  Obviously, the dining room was elegant.  It was said that during dinner, one-sixth of all the wealth in America was in that room.

I found it interesting that in the early 1900's, an offer of membership was NOT extended to Andrew Carnegie (of Pittsburgh & US Steel fame), so Carnegie bought Cumberland Island, the next barrier south of Jekyll Island & built his winter estate there.

Loggerhead sea turtle recovering from shark attack.

Also on Jekyll Island, we visited the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, where rehab is provided to sea turtles that have been injured by sharks, boat propellers, or disease.  Also had displays on sea turtle nesting along the beach (we've seen many turtle nests all along the Florida east coast beaches where we swam).  I learned that Loggerhead sea turtles, once they hatch & make it back into the ocean, will ride the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, all the way across to the Azores Islands off Spain, and sometimes return back to the US to nest again.


Finally, at low tide (remember that GA has 7-8' tides in this area), we walked along the beach at the very northern tip of Jekyll Island, what they call Driftwood Beach.  It was really unique seeing all these huge trees, mostly live oak, uprooted & bleached by the sun & sea.  It seemed a beautiful sight - a photo op - until you realize that this is an example of severe beach erosion by the seas.  All these trees were killed as the soil eroded beneath them.  A local lady said that erosion has taken several hundred feet of beach in only 50 years.  How can you stop Mother Nature from doing just about anything she wants?

Sue at Driftwood Beach with the lighthouse on
St Simons Island behind.  Casino gambling boat
was headed out 3 miles offshore on this windy day.

In a final burst of touristy patriotism (i.e., single-handedly supporting the local economy with MY dollars), we're headed up to Savannah GA tomorrow for a couple days.  When we return to the boat, it will be time to look for a weather window to head south for the winter.

Eating our way through Georgia

We've been back in Brunswick GA for a week now & we've done a good job acting like tourists!  We decided to first visit St Simons Island and Jekyll Island, both places where your net worth gotta be at least 7-8 figures to live there (more on that on a later post, after we visit Jekyll Island again).  But this area in general, and on SSI in particular, bear a lot of resemblance to New Orleans.



Live Oak trees & moss at the historic Fort Frederica
National Monument, where Gen Oglethorpe set up
the British fort in 1736 to fight those nasty Spaniards
to the south!
 

View from the top of the lighthouse.  Sue does

pretty well at the top, even though she's afraid

of heights!  Notice she's not hanging over the rail!

 

First resemblance is in the number of live oak trees, all of them with huge canopies, huge branches, hundreds of years old, and every bit as impressive as the live oaks in City Park in New Orleans. The ones around here, however, seem to have much more Spanish moss (which is neither Spanish, nor moss) draped all over them.  The story here is that in the 1700's, live oak trees from SSI were cut & shipped north to build the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides).  The entire St Simons Island was shrouded in shade by all the oak trees and the huge magnolia trees.

Hooray!  Another lighthouse to climb!!
This time, it's St Simons Island light!



 

We found our share of restaurants so far, and found that a lot of the food is just like New Orleans.  Many of the local dishes include some kind of Andouille, shrimp, and Zatarain's seasoning.  We've seen gumbo, jambalaya, and blackened seafood on the menus.  We also tried the local "Brunswick Stew", a thick tomato-based stew with pulled pork & lots of vegetables, spiced just right.  We have yet to try a "low-country boil", but I know they still make that dish in South Carolina when we get farther north.

 

Our highlight yesterday was heading over to Jekyll Island to the annual "Shrimp & Grits Festival".  It was held amid the "winter cottages" (I.e. mansions) built around 1900 by the rich & famous of America (think Vanderbilt & Rockefeller).  The festival had all the tents from local vendors, which kept Sue occupied for hours, and live bands.  The central grounds featured shrimp & grits from local restaurants, prepared many different ways.  We did our best to taste as many as we could.  And, yes, even though I'm still a "Damn Yankee" at heart, I actually let Sue trick me into eating some grits!  In addition to everything else, they also had a beer pavilion where we could sample the wares from local craft breweries (James & Chris, mom can compare notes with you about some more different microbreweries).



Good food plus a couple of good beers, equals
a hell of a good time!

I just had to get this sign along the road to St Simons Island!
  I've heard of deer crossings, and people crossings,
but these here Georgia folks are kinda strange!





Early September 2013

We're still in TN this week, and, by the time we leave, will have been up here for 3 weeks.  When we arrived here, we needed 3 days to sort through our mail, which was piled 1-1/2 FEET high!!  In addition to our own mail, Sue also takes care of all her mother's mail, and thirdly, has all the mail for her uncle in Ohio forwarded to this address.  Couple that with our absence from here of over 4 weeks, and we had a "project" ahead of us.

Our boating news is that our boat is still floating right-side up.  (From all the hurricanes we've been through, I've learned to ask not just "Is our boat still floating?", but to ask the RIGHT question of "Is our boat still floating right-side up?").  Also, we got word from the daughter of our nephew that the marina we stayed at in St Pete FL was hit by a waterspout, and had damage to some boats.  Looking at the pictures, we figured that we had been tied about 200 feet away from the damaged boats.

Back in the mountains of Tennessee, our big event these past 2 weeks was placing Sue's mother in a dementia center for a 3-night trial period.  The first facility here in town had no room in the inn, so our second choice facility was 45 minutes south of here.  There has been quite a bit of emotional stress around here as the events unfolded.  If the facility agrees to accept Sue's mother full time (i.e., can they deal with her special quirks and needs?), the plan is to place her into the facility full time when we return to TN in late October.  If that happens, we'll spend most of this coming winter getting the house ready for sale.