With spring still giving us "iffy" cool weather in New Jersey I jumped at the chance to visit my sister who spent most of the winter in a beach front condo (Seaside Villas) on Hilton Head Island. Another Jersey sister and I flew out of Philadelphia down to Savannah. Hilton Head seemed to be an hour away from the airport and my youngest sister picked us up at the airport or else it would have been an $80 plus tip trip to the resort. That is what we paid on the way back to the airport as my sister Judi headed back to Charlotte, North Carolina. On the US Airways plane I used my Kindle to access a flight tracker on this site called GogoAir. Paid $3 dollars for a half hour.
http://www.gogoair.com/gogo/splash.do
Betty greeting Judi:
Our first bird encounter! A wood stork poking around at a retention pond next to Wendy's.
So we had no definitive plans but I realized that if I wanted to see Savannah we had to do it on the first day.
The colony of Georgia was started by John Oglethorpe. He had planned to have it settled by people who had been in England's debtor's prison but other Europeans sought to find a haven for a better life in Georgia.
Spectacular live oaks were everywhere
and even more special when they were
draped with the Spanish Moss.
We really could not have seen or learned more about the historic town in that short afternoon after landing about 12:30 in Georgia. I loved it. I must have taken 200 photos and about 800 photos for the whole week! Words for the city: Spanish Moss, multiple parks, history, cotton, live oaks, old brick buildings, wedding destination, tobacco, rice.... Our trolley tour guide, probably about 70 years old, drove and used the mike in a non-stop entertaining narrative of all the important facts on the old southern city. There were stops and some visitors got off and were able to get back on the trolley for a higher fee but we stayed on. Some of my photos are a bit blurry but if they add anything to my story I used them anyway.
Also there were a couple of re-enactors of historic figures who stepped aboard dressed in period garb and related stories about the old days in the South. One black lady represented the Gullah people who maintained a special African culture that was quite different from most of the slave population after they were freed. Later that week we were able to visit a display of documents and pictures of a town called Mitchelville which was a successful black community after the Civil War years.
So then that evening we went to our beach front one bedroom condo. We only ate out about 5 or 6 times during the week. My sister got fresh shrimp at the nearby Piggly-Wiggly but we also went to Krogers and Harris Teeter food store. My youngest sister seemed to enjoy showing off her knife skills and chopped up nutritious delicious salads for lunch and it kept us from spending too much money on eating out.
https://www.pigglywiggly.com/about-us
http://www.yelp.com/biz/harris-teeter-hilton-head-2
Hilton Head has a culture that is much different that what I am used to in NJ. I would say that Hilton Head, for the most part, is made up of separate gated communities but they do not refer to their communities as that. They call them plantations but they are nothing like what I had in my mind when I hear the word "plantation". Golf is one of the main draws to the area but for us it was the beach, the sea, bike riding, the live oaks, the birds and the alligators---big ones---basking in the sun in residential areas next to lagoons. We saw about 5 that were about 10 feet long!
I have visited many east coast seaside resorts but none so lush and green. It seems that Jersey has more blooms in their landscaping. Maybe it was the way the season fell. It was April 25th and the tulips and azaleas were finished blooming. Maybe the heavy canopy of trees made flower gardens challenging.
We saw at least 3 brides out and about
in the many shady squares in the city. Absolutely picturesque!
Down by the river you would see old stone walls and cobblestone streets. I read where the streets and walls were made from ballast stones that were brought on the ships from England. More info on the following site:
http://www.thecreativecoast.org/factors-walk-revisited/#.VVS7qZXbJEY
Statue commemorating the life of a woman in Savannah's history who ran out to greet each ship that came to its port. We are told that the river will be dredged to deepen it to allow more cargo ships to gain access to the port. Now the ships are hampered because they cannot carry heavy loads and have to wait until the higher tides to be able to come into port. From the condo each night you would see the ships in position out at sea waiting their turn to come into one of the fastest growing ports on the east coast.
On Sunday we went to the Hilton Head Island Commuity Church. It was an auditorium with a live band, two female singers, and large monitors on stage. During the sermon on the proper role of money in one's life, each participant received an envelope with a dollar. The pastor wanted to know what were going to do with it. After I asked to go to a Dollar Tree store and was surprised that there was one nearby. I kept that particular dollar in the envelope as a souvenir of the memorable service.
This is one half one the Seaside Villas and we had a center unit on the second floor.
Makes sense that the Br'er Rabbit stories are linked with the African culture and the South. This rabbit maybe of the breed called marsh rabbit and probably quite at home in his own brier patch a few feet away. There is a long buffer of thorny bushes that line the beach that must provide refuge for both the fox and this rabbit.
So many of these live oak trees have heavy branches that seem to defy gravity. They do not have a season where they lose all of their leaves. Just a continual renewal. This one found blocking the walk way to Coligny Park even if you were five foot nothing you had to duck.
A bachelorette party going to Coligny Park:
View from the balcony of the condo:
http://www.htyc.com/amenities/the-mystique/
Spent an afternoon at the Harbour Town
Yacht Club and walked along their beach.
Quintessential Southern Magnolia:
We enjoyed bird watching on Pickney Island! We even called in a painted bunting.
http://www.fws.gov/refuge/pinckney_island/
I called this horse over and he came up to the fence to stare at me. I called him Clyde:
Judi made dinner with all the right herbs:
This Jersey girl had to learn a new trick....
Weaving done by former slaves in the Gullah community in an African style that is still done in Africa today. In fact I bought an African made placemat last year with the same weaving technique.
Just a special credenza found in the Westin Inn where
we saw an exhibit about the Gullah community of Mitchelville.
