It has been a whole week since we were in a location to have good wireless access. I haven't been able to boog, check email, or read my friends' blogs. We are finally in a place where I can get access, although it's a strange location to be sitting to blog! I am sitting 20 feet away from a climbing wall in the outdoor recreation center at Charleston Air Force Base. The RV sites are just down the road, and the nice young man said this building was wireless, so we were welcome to come up here.
Since our tour of Saint Augustine we have been to Kennedy Space Center, Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, Jekyll Island, Hunter Army Airfield and Savannah, Georgia. We are now in Charleston, South Carolina. I want to post some pictures of some of those visits, starting with Jekyll Island.
Jekyll Island was the original playground of the rich and famous. In the late 1800's, a group of wealthy businessmen formed the Jekyll Island Club as a winter retreat for America's most elite families. The club rolls included such names as Morgan, Astor, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Pulitzer, and others. On this small barrier island off the coast of southern Georgia, they built what they called "cottages" around a large Queen Anne style clubhouse. The men wanted a secluded place of isolation to hunt, fish and relax, and the women could carry on with their teas and such with others of their status. This famed Jekyll Island club featured stained glass, indoor plumbing, phone service, hardwood floors, and gas lighting at a time when very few people enjoyed such luxury. The first condo in the USA was built here in 1896 and featured 6 apartments to be sold.
This is the original small island church, and I believe is the one where John Kennedy Jr. was married.
This is the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, now transformed into a hotel. The club property boasted indoor tennis courts, the first in the nation. This is the view of the club as seen from the William Rockefeller 14,000 square foot cottage. John Rockefeller had put his name on the list as a partner to begin with, but when he saw his brother's name on the list, John decided to take his name off the list. Why pay for a membership when he could visit his brother and partake of everything for free!
I don't remember who built this cottage, but I like it very much. It kind of looked like an Italian villa. It looks like it would have been a nice house to raise my seven kids in!
We recently had lunch at two really neat places. The first was in Savannah, Georgia, at an Irish Pub, pictured here with the two women in the doorway. I haven't a clue who they are, but they just kept standing there, discussing if they were going to eat there or not, so I snapped their picture. The restaurant was just a small, dark, almost hole in the wall place along the revitalized riverfront in Savannah. I imagine it used to serve as a warehouse for cotton or something, and it has been redone, using the original buildings for something other than what they were intended for. It had atmosphere - a low ceiling, stone walls, and bare wood plank floors.
We ordered the special for the day: a cup of Irish Stew and a half a corned beef sandwich. Both were absolutely delicious, and reasonably priced. The view out the door, had we been sitting where we could have seen out the door, was a riverboat waiting for passengers for the afternoon cruise along the riverfront. We walked the cobblestone streets instead.
The second lunch was at the Middleton Plantation Restaurant. The low brick building was nestled under the huge oak trees, heavily hung with Spanish moss. We were right by the window and I took a shot through the window to show you the view. There we had a choice of several specials for the day, and we each picked something different. I had okra soup, pulled pork with corn pudding and hoppin' john (seasoned rice and blackeyed peas) and a very interesting, thin, crusty, plain, but delicious, torte. Hubby had a salad with grilled shrimp, and a gumbo that had shrimp and beef and vegetables in it. He also had the torte. We don't make it a practice to eat out very often, but when we do we like t try something new and different. We seldom eat at the chain restaurants.
More Tiffany windows in the dining room. Some of the chairs in this room are the original from the hotel, some are copies. If a student breaks one they are charged what the chair is worth, $1200. The windows are valued at 36 million, and have bullet proof glass on the outside, but nothing protecting them on the inside! I'm guessing the students don't toss footballs in there!
These are the steps leading up to the women's dorm, with another beautiful Tiffany window. The women are housed in the original hotel along with the administrative offices and the dining room. Men are housed in a separate building, and there is no visiting rooms allowed by the opposite sex. Some of the rooms have their own private bath, and other rooms are in a group of eight which share four bathrooms.
