The Georgia Coast and Forts

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!  Apologies since it has been a bit since our last update.  You see, in all honesty, I just wasn't feeling the urge to write another blog and I never want this to feel forced.  Maybe it was the holidays approaching and feeling sort of strange about not being with family and friends and all the activities we usually have around the holidays. Maybe it was the fact we hit that first park where we were let down and not feeling it was the right place for us or maybe it was that I just wanted to sit and do nothing...no planning anything, just sit and relax.  Or, maybe it was all of the above.  Anyhoo...with that behind us, let's get to the wonderful GA coast experience!

We left Gainesville on a very cold morning and headed south in search of warmer weather.  We were going to split up our drive to Savannah with an overnight half way at an alpaca farm which is part of the Harvest Hosts program that we joined.  You pay a small yearly membership fee and they have a national network of wineries, different farms, museums, etc. that welcome RV'ers to stay, usually just one night, on their property for free.  Usually the travelers reciprocate the favor by visiting their store and purchasing a bottle of wine or something.  Hey, we can do that!  We are all about some good fermented grapes!  Check out the link above if you are interested and you'll receive 10% off!
Well, we must have been in a hurry to find warmer weather because we decided to drive straight through to Savannah and called the park to come in a night early. We took mostly backroads there, deciding to bypass Atlanta all together and it turned out to be very nice ride.  It was a very picturesque drive, with little traffic and we got to see some of the cotton farms along the way.

Cotton still in the field

Cotton bales

We reached Skidaway Island State Park mid-afternoon with the sun out and temps about 25 degrees warmer than we left.  Still not balmy but we will take the 50's any day over freezing temps.  We stayed at Skidaway for a week and enjoyed our time there.  The park is on an island over a causeway, and the only other things on the island are a small Univ of GA marine school, a Publix and some other small businesses in a concentrated area.   The rest is gated communities of what I can only guess are some of the well to do of the Savannah area.  This made for a peaceful stay.  The park itself has nice spacious sites, not alot of underbrush for privacy but the space helps there.  The one thing we were really enamored with was the big, beautiful live oaks dripping spanish moss.  DId you know that spanish moss is part of the pineapple family and is an air plant???  There are some nice trails that take you through the unique vegetation and shoreline.  We kept looking for a gator but none were to be found.  Since the area is only about 40 feet above sea level,  everything is wet and you can only imagine the bugs and muggy air in the summer.  Well getting a good bit of rain does not help the situation and we had some of that one night.  Some of the sites and roads in the park got pretty swampy and took a bit to dry out. Temps stayed in the low 50's during the day.

Since we have been to Savannah before, we did not spend alot of time in the historic district.  We did take a trolley tour which allowed us to hear more about the history of Savannah as they drove through all of the squares, city market, historic houses and the river area.  We would have never been able to see all of that walking because the squares are really spread out, there is soo much to see and the roads really are not friendly to a big dually truck! It was also a cool day and the plastic window sides of the trolley were down, which was appreciated but also made it hard to take decent pictures.  That will explains some of the fuzzy pictures below, but they are too pretty not to share anyway.

We also visited Tybee Island and our first of many historic forts in the area, Fort Pulaski on a cold, windy day .  Since Fort Pulaski is a National Monument, we were able to use our America The Beautiful pass to get in free.  Now, if we could just remember to use that everywhere we go!

​Tybee Island

Fort Pulaski

The next fort we visited was Fort McAllister, just south of Savannah.  This was an unusual fort as it was more of an earthen built fort than a traditional brick, above ground fort.  It was also the most active Confederate fort on the Georgia coast.  The self guided tour of the fort was very interesting and we saw some "wildlife" inside one of the rooms.  See if you can find the bats hanging in the Powder Magazine room picture.  We did not see these little guys just above our heads until we turned around.  Yikes! 

Finally we toured Wormsloe State Historic Site, which is a 1736 Colonial Estate.  Owner Noble Jones was one of the first 114 English colonists who came to Georgia with James Oglethorpe in 1733.  A couple years later he leased these 500 acres from the Isle of Hope trustees and began to develop Wormsloe estate.  He built a modest compound out of tabby, which is a mixture of lime, sand, oyster shells and water.  If you look closely throughout the coastal GA area, alot of things were built from this same mixture.  One of the most notable things that the site is known for is the beautiful live oak entrance and avenue to the house.  These trees were planted by a future owner, Wymberley Jones De Renne, in the early 1890's to commemorate the birth of his first son.  He then built the entrance arch to commemorate the coming of age of his son.

We couldn't leave Savannah happenings without talking about some of the great food we had there.  We found a gem in Rocky's NY Deli.  The sandwiches there were soo amazing, we stopped in twice.  Sorry no pictures though because we were so focused on eating them!  You'll have to take our word for it.  We also had lunch down on River Street at Huey's which is a Southern Cafe featuring New Orleans food with a nice view of the river. Finally we had some wonderful BBQ, not to mention award winning sauces at Wiley's Championship BBQ.  Wonderful food!  Almost forgot to take a picture because we were ready to devour it all!

Our week here went by too fast and we packed up to move further south on the coast to Crooked River State Park in St. Mary's, GA, right on the GA/FL border.  The weather continued to get a little better and there were days here we could actually go with short sleeves for most of the day.  We really liked this state park that was situated next to Kings Bay Naval Base, on the coast with views of the rivers and low land from our site.  The campground had just received some updates and the sites were well kept.  In talking to the volunteers, which there were 5 couples with another one coming in soon (WOW!!), they really took pride in their work.  We would consider being a camp host here too in the off season.  I think the summers would just be waaayyyy too hot and humid!  We had a newer bath house on our loop with a laundry room that had newer machines for 75 cents to wash and to dry!  I think I washed just about everything in the RV while we were here!  They also had a cute little Nature Center that was very active for the holiday season with activities that were well attended by the local residents as well as campground guests and they even had a baby alligator.  Check out our neighbors rig!  He put it all together himself and it caused quite a gapers block in front of the site.  We felt pretty secure with the base next door and were amused with their buried sub out front, but they really caught us off guard when they decided to detonate some old ammunition and shook the whole camper on a very windy day.  We thought for sure a tree came down on the camper!
One terrific thing about staying in GA State Parks is that they have a rewards program and you can earn free camping nights.  Since all three of the places we stayed in Georgia were state parks, we were able to rack up enough points to get 2 nights free at Crooked River State Park, which was the most expensive since we stayed in a full hook up site.  We got $84 credited back to us.  Bonus!!!

While in St. Mary's we also visited another fort at Fort Clinch State Park, this one just across the border on Florida's northernmost barrier island.  Fort Clinch served as a military post in the Civil War, Spanish-American War and World War II.  It was very interesting to see the history of the park and how it was used and updated for each war.  It was a beautiful bright blue sky, sunny day, but it was windy.  The warm sun made up for that though and we took a walk on the beach and discovered some cool shells and a bunch of jelly fish.

On one of my laundry days, RIck went into St. Mary's and took a tour of their sub museum.  Lots of sub models and some interesting history. 

One cooler day, we took a driving tour of Jekyll Island and ate at Tortuga Jacks on the water.  To be honest, we were underwhelmed with Jekyll Island and the food.  I think it would be better visited in the summer when the resorts are hopping, but then, that's not our thing, so we will just check the box that we came, we saw.

When we found out my Aunt and Uncle, who just bought a house in The Villages in FL, and extended family would be down at The Villages, we made a road trip down to see them for the day.  I made some Christmas cookies to share with the group and we had a great day catching up and playing hand and foot.

Again, we cannot leave the area without sharing one of or favorite local stops for delicious food.  We really make a conscious effort at each of our stops to live like the locals do and eat where they eat.  Well we really scored on this local joint that has a long history and some of the best food and friendliest staff around.  You really need to check it out Steffens if traveling down 95 into Florida.  Miss Helen's biscuits are handmade every day by the 80 some year young Miss Helen and the rest of the food is all made fresh daily.  We had the country fried steak and were in foodie heaven!!  

Whew!!!  That was a long one but now our GA trip is in the books.  Next on to the ups and downs of FL.  Thanks for following along and I will leave you with a couple pictures of our first Christmas in the RV.

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​Do it from our Amazon link above!  We participate in the Amazon affiliate program and we appreciate you using our Amazon link above to make your Amazon purchases.  It does not cost you anything additional, you get the same great prices and helps us to support our blog.  You can even save our link as a favorite and use it whenever you search Amazon and make a purchase.  Thank you!!!​​​​​​​SHOP AMAZON HERE
Have any Amazon shopping to do for the holidays??  Who doesn't!
​Do it from our Amazon link above!  We participate in the Amazon affiliate program and we appreciate you using our Amazon link above to make your Amazon purchases.  It does not cost you anything additional, you get the same great prices and helps us to support our blog.  You can even save our link as a favorite and use it whenever you search Amazon and make a purchase.  Thank you!!!​​​​​