Savannah and Jekyll Island

We arrived at Jim's brother's house in Savannah in time for Friday happy hour and a wonderful dinner of Coq au Vin (au Riesling) and salad from their garden.  Denise is a fabulous, inventive cook.  Rick and Denise live in a lovely golf community, The Landings, on Skidaway Island in Savannah.  Their house is absolutely gorgeous and very comfortable.  The two of them practically run their community:  Denise as Vice President of the golf association and Rick as President of the Board for the neighborhood.  They took time out of their busy schedules to entertain us for the weekend.

Enjoying the beautiful deck at their house

We did some shopping and
went to the art fair in downtown Savannah
one day.  

We just love roaming the streets of Savannah.
The downtown is full of antebellum mansions,
beautiful flowers, magnolia and oak trees and
lots of spanish moss.

One day, Rick took Boo for a walk while Jim and I enjoyed the Aquarium right in the Landings.

I can't remember the names of these amazing fish-lion fish?

Horseshoe crab

Jellies-beautiful beings for being so annoying

My favorite:  a burrfish with the most
beautiful bright blue eyes.

These guys had us laughing out loud.  They
loved getting up front and personal.

Good looking brothers

I couldn't decide which of these pictures I liked best.

   

Rick was helping me with lighting and cropping.

Loved this big old oak tree with hanging moss.  The picture doesn't do it justice.
We wandered through the woods along the Jay Wolf Nature Trail.

We found the marshes fascinating. Apparently
this area has amazing, regular high tides.

 Rick took a couple of cute pictures of us on the boardwalk.

We left Monday morning to see friends from San Carlos but plans changed at the last minute, so we headed down to Jekyll Island, one of the Golden Islands, a place we had always wanted to see.  It has a rich history beginning with the establishment of a settlement of Muskogian native americans from the Creek tribe, who fished, grew pumpkins, corn and beans and harvested local nuts and berries.  The Europeans came in the early 1500s and in the 1700s established plantations and a military post.  It became famous as a playground for the rich and famous in the 1800s and many of the fancy mansions and clubs are now part of a well-preserved historic district.

The entrance to the island is breathtaking.
The sides of the road are lined with beautiful
saltbush and pines and welcoming birds.  

The island is a 7 mile wonderland of oak forests, dunes,
white sand beaches tidal marshes, moss, pines, and abundant wildlife.

We got all excited about eating at Latitude 31 because it was dog friendly and supposedly had a fantastic "rah" bar.  Our luck - it was closed on Mondays!

We were somewhat compensated with thoughts of eating here.

Athena had told us of a wonderful place on the north end of the island, called Driftwood Beach.  We had a grand time walking this beautiful work of art!

Boo did his typical running and barking at the waves.

Ft. Benning with Athena and Josh, Plains and Andersonville, GA

We drove through the blue highways of eastern Alabama to Ft. Benning to spend the week with the Hubbard clan.

 Leo and Kramer, Athena and Josh

It's all about the dogs!!  And Boo loved having some pals to run around and bark with.  They were a wonderful entertainment for us all.

We had a full day visiting the National Infantry Museum which is on base.  Ft. Benning is like a huge city.  It has a population of 120,000.  Most importantly to us, is that it is home to the 75th Ranger Brigade.  Athena and Josh live in a lovely neighborhood of single family homes.

The Infantry Museum is an amazing complex of displays, exhibits, interactive areas, IMAX, etc.
There is a room for each war from the Revolutionary to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  There is simply not enough time to do justice to this place in a day.  We were just fascinated.

Jim and Athena outside the Museum

The main entrance inside

Statue to the Infantryman

These were all the Medal of Honor winners

Airborne exhibit

This was Benning, a Confederate soldier

Our favorite, of course, was a section
devoted to the Rangers

We drove up north of Columbus with Athena to Warm Springs, GA, where FDR had a cottage, where he relaxed and treated his polio in the healing waters of this mountain community.  The grounds are just beautiful and the museum was very interesting-amazing all that this man did for this country in a very difficult time.

He loved tooling around in this grand car

The Little White House
FDR's  cute, very small cottage in the woods on Pine Mountain

His chair and table

Most states, maybe all, had their flag and
their motto and an example of their
well known rock, exhibited here on this
beautiful pathway

Never knew this motto

FDR died as he posed for this portrait.

We were sad to leave our kids, but onward we must go!  Next was a quick trip to Savannah, to see Rick and Denise.  On the way, we went through Plains, GA where we learned alot about our 39th President, his wife and peanut farming.

Such a cute picture of the two of them

This is the church where he still teaches Sunday School.
Everyone in town seems to know him and love him.

This was his brother, Billy's gas station, where the
press hung out during the campaigns.

This was a fascinating store, where
we could have spent many hours
looking through all the political books,
badges, pins and all things political

Some of the really old ones, worth quite a bit now

Since Andersonville was on our way, we decided to see that hallowed ground and were not sorry that we did so.  Andersonville was a Confederate prisoner of war camp during the Civil War.  It is now a National Historic Site and pays homage to all POWs and MIAs from all the wars.  The U.S. Army rendered thousands of grave numbers to names and wooden boards to stone markers in cemeteries throughout the South.

An open area, the size of several football fields was overpopulated with
prisoners, who were underfed, had inadequate water supplies and no
protection from the elements.  Of the 45,000 prisoners, 13,000 died.

Many of the states with prisoners interred here
erected plaques or memorials to prisoners
from their state who died here. 

Some had the names of their dead inscribed
on the memorials.  Others just indicated
 how many of their men had died here.
In 1865, Clara Barton assisted with
documenting the site, and raising the first
U.S. flag over the cemetery here.

This is the field where the prison camp once stood.

This was an amazing exhibit, showing the stockade fence
and the small pup tents that the prisoners made of old blankets
or pieces of their clothing to protect themselves from the
elements.

The prison was finally liberated in May of 1865.  The Commandant was tried, convicted and hanged - the only Confederate official convicted of war crimes during the Civil War.  It seemed that his hands were tied, in that the Confederacy did not have the means to take care of this many prisoners.  It turns out that the Union prisons were almost as bad.  No one was prepared for this.  Very sad!

We arrived that evening in Savannah to reports that France had just been attacked by terrorists!  It never ends.  We are surrounded by reminders of how atrocious a toll any war wages on good people of the world.