And so...we drive!

Earlier in the summer my husband and son and I spet a long weekend on the coast of southern Georgia for my dad's family's annual reunion. It takes over six hours to get there by car. We left early on Friday morning. Less than two hours into the trip my son wanted to know how much longer it would be. And then proceeded to ask about every hour after that. One thing that kept his attention was the anticipation of seeing the "Welcome to Georgia" sign when we crossed the state line.

We got to the hotel in Brunswick where everyone but my parents were staying, and the first thing Devin did was discover the sliding door overlooking the pool. He had found his ultiamte destination for this vacation. Later we met up with everyone else by the pool for a picnic, and all of the kids went swimming.

All of them except my sister, who forgot her suit, and was forced to sit with the grown ups and be subjected to "adult conversation" for the duration. The hotel eventually closed the pool down, and everyone packed up and moved the party to their respective rooms for the night.

Everyone was going to do their own thing on Saturday morning, and then meet at my dad's cousin's rental house on St. Simons Island later in the afternoon. Since there wasn't a lot of time to tour all of the isalnds, we decided that St. Simons had the most to do, and we decided to start with the lighthouse. The first thing to know about driving on St. Simons Island, which we soon discovered, was that the streets are not well marked. And the ones that are suddenly turn into - or just become - other streets with little to no warning. It's not like we didn't have maps. We had numerous, conusing, unhelpful maps. And I'm the worst navigator in the history of road trips. I'm so used to numbered streets on a grid that makes sense, that when presented with a map full of named streets that seems to have been laid out by someone without any sense of the cardinal directions. We got lost a lot. But we eventually found the lighthouse.

The lighthouse we visited was actually the second built on the island. The original St. Simons lighthouse was constructed in the early 1800s, but was destroyed by retreating Confederate troops in 1862. The second lighthouse, which is the one still standing today, was completed in 1872, a year after the architect died of malaria. It has 193 cast iron steps winding their way up a spiral staircase to the top of the 104 foot tower. It is a very narrow and steep climb, and we had to stop on the landings to let people who were coming down (or climbing up faster than we were) pass us. We walked up all 193 steps to the top, and my husband took one look at the view to the tiny landing crowded with people, and we were walking right back down those 193 steps. I was feeling it for days, let me tell you.

The lighthouse keeper's little Victorian-style house contains a small museum, and the rooms have all been set up to replicate what the conditions would have been like during one of the time periods when the house was occupied, between when it was built in 1872 and early 1950s, when it became fully automated and the last full time keeper retired. Even though it is automated, the lighhouse is still operational and is used to light the channel every night.

The head keeper and the assistant would have shared the living space, and the quarters would have been tight. One story goes that on a Sunday morning in March 1880 there was an argument between the head keeper and his assistant. The argument left the keeper dead of a gunshot wound. Supposedly wives of alter keepers have claimed to have heard his footsteps in the tower. The lighthouse has recently been added to the late night St. Simons ghost tours and is touted as the third most famous haunted lighthouse in the nation.

From the lighthouse we decided to drive across the island to see Christ Church. The church was still closed when we got there, and we were the only people around since there was a storm moving in.

The current structure was built in 1884 as a memorial to the builder's wife, and is still used for Sunday worship services. The grounds contain the graves of many of the area's oldest settler families. Walking along the plots you notice many names that are very familiar to different landmarks on the island, including the names of many of the roads (the roads that have signs, anyway...). The oldest gravestone that has been discovered on the grounds dates from 1803.

The whole experience, with the thunder in the distance and the moss draped oak and pecan trees, was very Southern Gothic.

I had to explain to Devin at one point why he should be careful where he was stepping, which made him stop in his tracks and look down at the ground. After that he seemed a little nervous, and the weather was getting closer, so we decided to walk the little gravel trail across the street and be on our way. In the park at the center of the trees we found a large Celtic cross.

The 18 ft. tall cross and two acres of surrounding gardens memorialize Reverends John and Charles Wesley - the Anglican priests who began the movement that led to the establishing of the Methodist Church.


We decided to drive off-island to have lunch (if you're ever in the viscinity of Brunswick, GA, we recommend Jinrights restaurant for some good seafood at a great price) and made it back the hotel just before the sky opened up and the deluge started. We sat and watched fuzzy cable for a little while before deciding to head back out to St. Simons for the reunion meet-up.

The house that my dad's cousin and his family rented near the coast was very pretty and in a quiet little neighborhood. The best part, according to the kids, was the pool in the backyard - which occupied them for hours while the grown-ups sat around and talked.

Devin with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma

We had shrimp & grits and grilled okra for dinner (we were in the true South, after all). After dinner, everyone gathered around for the traditional "White Elephant" auction. Everyone brings at least one swap item - normally something not brand new, and often at least one family heirloom makes an appearance - and then tickets are sold. This year we used red cups to hold the tickets, and had the winner of each item do the drawing for the next. The bidding got a little heated for a few things, especially the home theater system that my grandfather eventually won.

Later, after it had gotten dark, the kids went swimming some more. They had to practically be dragged out of the pool as the gathering broke up and everyone said their goodbyes.


Sunday was the day that everyone would be going their separate ways and heading home. We packed up in the morning before breakfast and visited St. Simons one last time before beginning the six hour drive back home.