Trip Report Part Two

As much as we enjoyed it, it was time to leave Stephen Foster behind.  After all, even the park literature admits Foster probably never saw the Suwannee River  made famous in his song.

In the deltas just southeast of Savannah, GA lies Skidaway Island, home to huge, moss covered oaks, subdivisions full of huge, expensive homes, Georgia University’s Institute of Oceanography, and Skidaway Island State Park.

We had seen great reviews of Skidaway SP, but were still surprised.  Our campsite was a full hook-up pull-through site that was easily 100 feet long – we could (and did) park our truck in front or in back of our trailer with plenty of room to spare.  It is the first state park we’ve ever seen where full hook-up includes cable TV, and the quality of the signal was better than most commercial RV parks that offer cable.

We did a lot of sight-seeing while we were here, and we took one day off.  If you haven’t taken an extended vacation, you may not realize that – no matter how much fun you’re having – after a couple of weeks you will need some down time. 

From our base at Skidaway, we visited Wormsloe Historical Park,

This is the site of one of Georgia’s first plantations, founded by Noble Jones, who came over with James Oglethorpe in the early 1700s.  There are Jones descendants still living on the property, but most of the plantation is now an historical landmark open for tours.

The “Tabby Ruins” is the site of the original homestead.  Settlers kiln- baked oyster shell to get lime, which they mixed with sand, water and unbaked oyster shell  to make concrete blocks they called tabby.  It worked pretty well, because after floods, hurricanes and 300 years of wear, much of the foundation and walls are still standing.

 You can’t tell from the picture, but our tour guide – the young lady inside the blacksmith shed – did the entire two-mile trip through the woods barefoot.  She explained that she was being historically accurate because shoes of the day were expensive, very uncomfortable and only worn on special occasions.

That’s just part of what we did in the area, but I’ll pick up again here tomorrow.

Trip Part Three

Although most of our trip was carefully planned, we had three delightful surprises while staying at the Skidaway Island State Park. 

The first came when we learned that our daughter, Cheryl, had bought us a Mother’s Day dinner at the Driftaway Cafe.  Located just a couple miles from our campsite on Skidaway Road, the Driftaway features what they call “Casual Coastal Cuisine.”  The service and the food were excellent – their house salad, mixed greens with a home made balsamic reduction vinaigrette, was enough to make you come back again.

The second surprise came during our trip to Tybee Island.  We went there for the day for more great seafood and a dolphin-watching cruise – the surprise came later.

  After the cruise, we went to Stingray’s

We had been there in 2007, and had the best seafood we had ever tasted.  It was so good in our memories that I was almost afraid to go back, but the food this time was just as good. The surprise came when we learned that we came to Tybee on the day of the Annual Beach Bum Parade.  Residents and visitors line the street with trash cans and pickup trucks full of water, then the people on the floats and the people on the sidewalks shoot each other with an amazing variety of huge water-guns.

We took off early, before the festivities got into full swing, but still managed to get squirted a few times before we got off the island.

The third surprise was a place called Pinpoint, but I think it is worth a post all its own.

The Great Experiment

Our daughter Cheryl has come up with some pretty amazing presents over the years - often having to do with food, like the time she sent us a free meal at Driftaway Cafe while we were camping in Skidaway Island, Georgia, just in time for Mother's Day. This year for my birthday, she sent me something that should turn out to be wonderful, but has the potential to crash and burn. 

The Boston Burger Company has won Rachel Ray's competition for the best burger, and has been featured on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive Ins and Dives.  We won't have to travel to Boston to try them, because they have a subsidiary called BurgaBox.com that ships their signature burgers all over the country.

Sounds fantastic, right?  Who doesn't love a good burger? 

The monkey-wrench is that they ship INGREDIENTS - I have to use those ingredients to make the burgers myself!

I just got an email saying that the delivery is on the FedEx truck for delivery today.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Trip Report Part Four

Almost everywhere we went while staying at Skidaway State Park required us to drive on Highway 204, and every time we did we passed a small unobtrusive sign that read Pinpoint Heritage Museum.  Our curiosity finally got the best of us, and we decided to go see what it was all about.  The sign for the entrance to the museum is even more well hidden than the sign on 204, so we actually saw all of the town of Pinpoint before we found the museum.

Shortly after the Civil War, a group of recently freed black men bought the town site and founded the town  of Pinpoint.  Their descendants still live there today in a small close-knit community with one cemetery and one church, the Glory of Eden Baptist Church.

They are all of Gulla-Geechee heritage.  When they speak to visitors they use excellent English, with a typical Georgia accent, but among themselves they speak Gulla, a dialect so incomprehensible to outsiders that it might as well be its own language.  If you ever read Pat Conroy’s book, The Water Is Wide, about his years teaching in a Gulla school, you’ll know what I mean.

The one industry in Pin Point was the A. S. Varn & Son Crab and Oyster Factory.  That business closed in 1985, and its buildings now house the museum.

The tour starts with a well-produced 20 minute video  that provides insight into the history and culture of Pinpoint.  They are proud of the fact that they are so close – If someone gets into financial trouble, neighbors will join together to pay their mortgage, and all adults can and do exercise the right to discipline anybody’s kids.

Their approach does seem to work; everyone we met seemed to be friendly, healthy and well educated.

You can’t take the tour without them bragging a little about their favorite son.  Pinpoint is where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was born and raised.