Recapping TWO WEEKS of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life, while we were on vacation in Georgia. (See here for more info.)
- Weather
The weather at home was warmish the first week we were away and pretty seasonable the second week. Overall, the average high was 31.1°F, with a range from 51.8°F to 13.1°F, and the average low was 14.4°F, with low temps ranging from -.02F to 28°F. We got about 0.6 inches of rain or mixed precip the first week and 5 inches of snow on Tuesday, 23 Dec.
Meanwhile, in Savannah and on Jekyll Island, high temps were in the 60°Fs the first week and the 70°Fs (to 78°F) the second week. And we had virtually no rain, just a very light misty rain one morning in Savannah. There were cloudy skies from time to time on a couple of days but mostly the sky was blue and sunny.
- Beginnings/Firsts
This was our longest trip in six years and our first trip to Savannah/Jekyll Island since Dec. 2019. While travelling, we mostly did things we’ve done before, but we did eat in new places in Boston, Savannah, and on Jekyll, and we walked in a new (to us) preserve on St. Simon’s Island. We also saw our first armadillos — two different ones — on Jekyll, ever, since visiting starting in the mid-1990s. We stayed in a different cottage on Jekyll, too, though the hotel in Savannah is always the same. While in Savannah we visited the Christmas Market …
… and the JW Marriott Hotel — with its natural history museum of geodes and crystals in the lobby, the collection of Richard Kessler, Chairman & CEO of The Kessler Collection, “a visionary hospitality brand” — both in the newly redeveloped Plant Riverside. More on Kessler’s collection below.
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
So many wild things! Here is a sampling — I hope to write separate posts on this trip to Savannah and Jekyll in the nearish future.
Birds
Insects/Arachnids/Invertebrates
Reptiles & Fish
Mammals
Plant Life
Camellias were in bloom in Savannah and on Jekyll.
Mistletoe in Colonial Cemetery, Savannah
- Wandering
We wandered south, taking the bus to Boston on Monday 15th Dec. (to spend the night near the train station and avoid a 3:30 a.m. wakeup the next day to catch the early bus to catch the 9:20 train), the train from Boston to NYC (business class) on the morning of Tuesday 16th, the train from NYC to Savannah (sleeper) on the afternoon of Tuesday 16th into Wed. morning 17th, visiting Savannah, GA, from Wed. morning 17th to Friday mid-day 19th, driving a rental to Jekyll Island, GA, on Friday 19th and staying there in a rented cottage until the morning of Sat. the 27th, when we drove back to Savannah, returned the rental car by 1 p.m., checked into the hotel again for a night, and got back on the train early on Sunday morning 28th to start the journey home.
I may write a separate blog post about the trip at some point. For now, here are some of the train photos (and one bus photo); the first six are on the way south, the rest are on the way north:
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Our non-travel days in broad outline looked like this (photos in order by number):
17 Dec Wed.: Arrive Savannah early. Check in to hotel (at 8 a.m.!) Breakfast, as tradition demands, at Hueys by the River (1). Riverwalk. Forsyth Park (2). Park squares (side walks! 3). Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (nativity) (4). Colonial Cemetery (5). Gryphon for tea and tea sandwiches (6&7). Christmas Market/geodes/Plant Riverside. Dinner at Arches bar (Olde Pink House) (8).
18 Dec Thurs. Savannah: Breakfast (included) in hotel. Bus ride to and guided walking tour of Bonaventure Cemetery 10-1 (photos 1-4). Lunch at District Seafood. Christmas Market. Forsyth Park (5) and Colonial Cemetery again. Just lots of walking the park squares (6). Dinner at Arches bar again.
19 Dec. Fri: Breakfast at Quinn’s in Savannah (see Local Resources below for more). Check out at 11. Cab to Savannah airport (1) for car rental pickup. On the road to Jekyll by 12:15. Stop at Golden Isles Welcome Center just before Brunswick. Pick up supplies at Publix in Brunswick. Stop at Jekyll Welcome Center at tolls (photos 2-3; postcards/ornament, observation deck over marsh). Arrive at Jekyll cottage at 4. Dinner at Pour Tabby bar in Westin. Laundry.
20 Dec. Sat. Jekyll: Bike all day. Swing by Jekyll Realty to meet realtors. Walk on mid-beach. Drop off some post cards at P.O. Gas station pond (1). Beachview bike path (2). Lunch at Tortuga Jack’s outside (photos 3&4; many grackles eating off tables). Explore South Dunes campground area (5), Glory Beach, south end beach (6), St. Andrew’s Beach Park (7-9). Historic District at 5pm for Christmas bagpiper and champagne bottle sabering at Jekyll Island Club (10&11). Dinner at cottage: Love Shack take-out (shrimp, cole slaw) and noodles and peas.
21 Dec. Sun Jekyll: Bike to Horton Pond and walk Tupelo Trail (1-3), Beachview bike path to Clam Creek bike path (4&5). Walk north beach (6&7). Christmas bagpiper at JIC and early dinner at The Wharf (8; outside), with sunset seen through Crane Cottage (9). Holly Jolly Lights tram tour (10-14) in historic district 7:30-8:30 p.m. and walk around afterward.
22 Dec. Mon Drive over to St. Simon’s Island: Walk pier 11-12 (dolphins). Walk Cannon’s Point Preserve (photos 1-5; 5 miles, two armadillos and one opossum). Supplies from Harris Teeter. Lunch/dinner at Coastal Kitchen. Jekyll: St. Andrew’s Beach after dark (sunset: photo 6).
23 Dec. Tues Jekyll: Bike mid-island (1), St. Andrew’s Beach Park (2), unmarked mid-island trails (3). Snacks at Founders Social. Riverview (north and south; 4-6). Amphitheatre pond (birding; woodstorks in flight, 7). Dinner at 80 Ocean (fireplace mural – 8). Walk Beach Village and historic district (palm/stars – 9, Wharf – 10).
24 Dec. Wed. Jekyll: Husband to campground feeders in morning (while I write postcards at cottage). Pick up Christmas dinner from Love Shack 12 noon. Walk around Beach Village (sign – 1). Amphitheatre pond. Snacks at Founders Social (2). Bike to Glory Beach (boardwalk – 3) and walk to south beach (4) from there, then back to cottage via Beachview bike path (5). Dinner at Tribruzio. Laundry.
25 Dec. Thurs. Christmas 🎄 Jekyll: Solitary walk on mid-beach in morning (1). Bike to Villas, amphitheatre pond, Driftwood Beach (photos 2&3; actually very peopled at Christmas noontime but I tend not to include people in most photos) and Clam Creek (4&5). Bike Beachview bike path (6) and walk mid-beach and beach south of Beach Village. Gas station pond (7). Amphitheatre pond again in late afternoon (photos 8-10). Takeout from Love Shack for dinner at cottage.
26 Dec. Fri Jekyll: Bike to amphitheatre (1) early morning. Bike historic district (2&3), marina trail (4), hummock trails mid-island (photos photos 5-7). Snacks at Founders Social. Gas station pond. Ranger Walk from historic district to gas station pond (8) from 2:30-3:30. St. Andrew’s Beach Park all the way to south beach (photos 9-11) late afternoon. Dropped off foods and products we had left over with Roze, one street over from us. Laundry. Jekyll Market for food for dinner at cottage.
27 Dec Sat. Jekyll: Check out at 10, walk on mid-beach (1), drive around island, walk in historic district (2&3) and Beach Village. Drop off car at Savannah airport, cab to hotel (and arrange pickup with our cab driver for train early tomorrow morning), leave luggage, lunch at District Seafood outside (4). Check in to hotel. Walk all over town, again (5-8). Every restaurant is packed so we pick up dinner of takeout veggies from Cafe Neo Brasserie to augment random snack items brought from Jekyll and eat in hotel room.
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- Curiosity & Discoveries
Well, Kessler’s collection of geodes, crystals, fossils, skeletons, and so on in the Plant Riverside JW Marriott Hotel lobby in Savannah was certainly a discovery, and one we probably would have missed had not the Holiday Inn Express hotel concierge put us onto it (Sandra was a gem herself.). As one article notes, “The cavernous lobby doubles as a natural science museum, with a 135-foot-long, chrome-plated dinosaur skeleton [commissioned by Kessler] as its centerpiece , and fine artworks dot Plant Riverside’s many public spaces.” We visited it three times and surely didn’t see all of it. Here’s a little glimpse:
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This was a funny license plate near Clam Creek on Jekyll.
- Creating
Memories and stories! Quads? A resentful cat? A boatload of stuff to do when we get home? (yes)
- Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars
Human: No working out for me but lots of walking most days; I got over 10,000 steps on 12 of the 14 days (the two lower than 10K were train days), over 14,000 steps on 10 days, and over 20,000 steps on 3 days, with a high step count on Sat., 27 Dec., of 25,544. We also rode bikes for at least 10 miles most of each day from 20-26 Dec., which doesn’t affect the step count. There was a lot to see and do!
Cat: He stayed home and was visited by the catsitter three times every day for a total of about two hours per day together.
- Nesting
This was part of our nest (at Jekyll) while away, including some food and our Christmas morning tableau:
Cleaning/Maintenance: Not much, but on the Monday we left home I watered the houseplants and vacuumed the family room. We did laundry a few times while away (laundry in unit). We swept and tidied up the place on Jekyll and did all our dishes before we left. While we were away, we hired someone to plow the driveway when it snowed and to sand it when there was ice.
Food: So much good food! And very little of it did I cook! I tried to get grits every day (and bought instant packs for breakast as a fallback) — I was mostly successful, and sometimes had 2 or 3 servings in a day!
A few highlights/interesting meals:
Top row: Train food (mine was vegetarian pasta, his was salmon and veggie rice) in the sleeper, delivery and plating! / Row 2: cafe au lait, beignets AND Parmesan grits and eggs Sardou at Huey’s in Savannah / Row 3: Shrimp & grits at The Wharf (JI) AND South Georgia redfish, smoked gouda grits, & braised greens at Coastal Kitchen (SSI) / Row 4: Seafood fettucine AND grilled redfish with cauliflower purée at 80 Ocean (JI) / Row 5: Noble negroni and Winter’s Bloom cocktails at 80 Ocean (JI) AND pretzel bites & Founders’ 75 cocktail at Founders Social (JI) / Row 6: our Christmas meal in the cottage of fried shrimp and cole slaw from The Love Shack (JI) + peas and leftover fries AND hush puppies at District Seafood (Savanah) / Row 7: Shrimp & grits, low country corn, and blackened shrimp with Old Bay fries at District Seafood (Savannah)
Special shout-out to French Quarter restaurant in Boston for getting our trip off to a great culinary start: drinks, decor & ambiance, cheese grits & fried shrimp, and jambalaya.
Financial/Admin: While we were away I called the propane company to pay for the delivery they made (5% off for paying within 10 days).
- Sleeping & Dreaming
I didn’t get as much sleep as I’d like to have; my average for the two weeks was 6 hours 54 mins per night. And actually, the tracker only recorded sleep on 13 of the 14 nights: The night we were in the train sleeping car it recorded no sleep for either of us, yet I think I actually slept pretty well on the cozy top bunk (though I did keep looking out the window to see the stars and some of the train stations, all that magic). I’m guessing that the constant bounciness of the train led the tracker to believe we were active when we were really asleep.
Most of the time we were gone I had sleep scores in the 90s and 80s, but on the edges — Mon 15th, Fri. 26th, and Sun. 28th — I got between 5-1/2 hours of sleep and 6 hours per night and sleep scores of 59 (!?), 80, and 78. My average sleep score overall was 85.4. The REM and deep sleep counts are off because of the night on the train when no sleep was recorded, but even missing that night they weren’t bad, 21-1/2 hours of REM overall (or 10 hours 45 mins per week) and a little more than 14 hours of deep sleep overall (or a little more than 7 hours per week). Considering the circumstances of travel’s departures and arrivals, not to mention the various beds and pillows and too-loud and too-light environments that were our lot, I’ll take it.
A few of the beds:
Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
I read part of the first in a 5-book series set on Jekyll Island (Sandy Malone’s Escape to Jekyll Island, 2024) while we were at the cottage but didn’t finish it and couldn’t bring it home as it was the homeowners’.
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Articles that interested me:
When Does a Divorce Begin? Most people think of it as failure. For me it was an achievement, by Anahid Nersessian in The Yale Review. I like the way she’s written this, the format, and also things like this:
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An ode to the old-fashioned publishing holiday party, in photos, by Brittany Allen at Literary Hub. We have a friend who attended these parties as a lowly publishing house staffer in the ’60s and I can so imagine it.
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Becoming a Centenarian Like The New Yorker: I was born in 1925. Somewhat to my surprise, I decided to keep a journal of my hundredth year, by Calvin Tomkins in the New Yorker. Probably behind a paywall. Took me 45 minutes to read it and I enjoyed every minute.
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I Had to be Rescued off the Hayduke Trail Today in Arches National Park After Getting Stuck in Quicksand, by Cop 10-8 on r/backpacking. Scary stuff.
Listening
Some Shazam’d songs these two weeks. (“Christmas All Over Again” has got to be one of the laziest Christmas songs ever. I cringed every time I heard it in yet another public place.)
- Connections & Community
Local Support: We ate at almost all local places on this trip, other than a few eggnog or caramel brûlée lattes at one of several Starbucks, a dinner at the bar in a Westin on Jekyll Island, and a scrounged dinner at a Pret a Manger in DC’s Union Station on a 3-hour evening layover on the train trip home. We didn’t buy anything anywhere but food/supplies, postcards, and two ornaments. We happily supported the local cab drivers in Savannah.
One of the ornaments we bought memorialises a cat, Marty Jekyll, who lived “wild” in the historic district of Jekyll (with a little help from some residents), and is a fundraiser for a pet rescue. I’ve been wanting one for a while (he died in May 2025).
A front desk clerk at the hotel in Savannah recommended a small local place for breakfast, so we went there on the Friday we checked out (the first time) to head to Jekyll. We really enjoyed eating at Quinn’s! One of the best fruit cups I’ve had when eating out.
Relationships: Our friends (ED&SD) drove us to and picked us up from the bus station so we didn’t have to park a car in the snowy undersized lot. Yay! Other friends (RL, SC, LM) were ready and willing to do it if we needed, which we really appreciated. While we were away, I ordered a few Christmas presents to be delivered to friends. A close friend (JN) had a huge poinsettia basket sent to us at the cottage on Monday 22nd, which we enjoyed while there and gave to the realtors when we left. We gave the food and cleaning products, etc., that we had left over after our 8 days on Jekyll (can’t bring back much on the train!) to a woman I’ve known for 20+ years on FB and we’ve met her in person a few times in past years while visiting (RH), for her to distribute to whomever can use them. I spent an hour or two on a few days writing postcards (in lieu of Christmas cards this year) to friends and family so we could mail them from Jekyll. Though we both missed Bumble much, my husband and I were glad to have to have some time away together by ourselves.
- Endings
Well, the trip came to an end the day after this, on Monday 29th Dec, when we arrived home around 2pm, happy to reunite with the cat, who didn’t seem mad at all. We, though, were sad to come home to no electricity, ice everywhere, and temps 50°F or more below what we’d been experiencing, not to mention no beach or ocean, no flat and safe bike paths through fascinating terrain and habitat, and no flowers, butterflies, herons, gulls, terns, or armadillos!
- All This Useless Beauty
A tad hard to choose here … It’s almost all so uselessly beautiful, isn’t it?
this little nut, a victorious female boat-tailed grackle dazzling us with her spoils, a small French fry, The Wharf restaurant, Jekyll
‘driftwood’ beach, as it’s called (on the north end of Jekyll), is not a spot that enthralls me as it seems to do many but on Christmas mid-day I found this ornament hanging off a bare branch enchanting
the light on Villa Marianna (part of the Jekyll Island Club)
this snowy egret, rushing, Jekyll
Almost all of the park squares in Savannah are very pretty but this tree and the camellias, ooh la la
illuminated entrance to mid-island bike paths from Riverview, Jekyll
a little seafoam at the golden hour at St. Andrew’s Beach, Jekyll
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