Day #10 – A Day of Fun

Saturday December 5, 2009 – Day #10
Saint Mary’s Island GA

We awoke to a gray drizzlie day.  Kelly went off to the laundry room with a load of darks and a load of lights – just about all the clothes we own – and I worked on general tasks.  One of these days, I’ll blog about what it takes to keep this trailer clean and tidy.  You’d think that a small space would practically take care of itself, but it’s been the opposite so far.

We drove into the town of Saint Mary’s and visited the “shore-side” visitors’ center for the Cumberland Island National Seashore (http://www.nps.gov/cuis/index.htm).  Even though it was once the summer playground for the Carnegies (who knew?!), I was more interested in birds and maritime forests.  Since we managed to miss the last ferry of the day (that’ll teach us to start the day with laundry), we watched the video, examined the exhibits, and walked along the shore on the land-side.

The town was throwing a holiday party for themselves that morning, down by the docks.  Santa was there with his wife and elves, plus a couple reindeer.  There were all kinds of fun games for the kids to play.  Elves were painting any tiny face that would sit for a couple minutes.  There was live music and free cookies.  Even the homeless folks seemed to be welcome.

Next, we drove off in search of Ft. Frederica National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/fofr/index.htm) on Saint Simons Island.  This is mainly an archeological site, but we had lots of fun trying to find it.

Our next stop was the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation Historic Site (http://georgiaparks.org/info/hofwyl/), where we hoped to learn how rice was grown in the 19th century.  As is our pattern, we arrived a couple minutes before the stated closing time.  Since we’d driven all afternoon and really wanted to learn about rice, we decided to be bold.  It wasn’t necessary.  They were getting ready for an evening Christmas program and we were just in time!  They turned on the movies for us so we could learn about rice production before the Civil War.

In the 1700s, the plantation was built.  Slaves from western Africa were used because they had grown rice in Africa and because they were genetically immune to Yellow Fever.  Swamps were drained and fields were built.  Rice was grown through the end of the slavery period in this area.  After emancipation, it was no longer economically possible for the rice plantations to survive.  Growing rice required more people and harder labor than other types of farming.  We found it interesting that, until the link between mosquitoes and Yellow Fever was made, the white families left the plantations in the summer months.  I’ve wondered whether this independence from the slave masters helped build and sustain the Gullah culture.

There were quite a lot of holiday festivities at the plantation that night.  A choir sang in the visitors’ center auditorium.  The parking attendant was in period dress, but spoke modern English.  Hundreds of luminaries lined a path across a large field, leading from the visitors’ center to the main house.  Once at the house, we found docents in period dress, explaining the contents and purpose of each room.

There was lots going on outside the main house as well.  We were treated to wassail and a sneak peak at Santa in the back yard.  In the front yard, we visited a Confederate encampment and watched the Good ‘Ole Boys shoot their muskets and cannon.  The cannon was very loud and scared everybody, including the Boys.  On our way back to the parking lot, the Milky Way was so big and so bright we could hardly pick out constellations.

We stopped for dinner at a BBQ joint on the way home.  Easily the worst BBQ I’d ever had in my life.  They had their TV going in the dining room – a Medium rerun.  Both of us were plastered to that set like flies on bad BBQ.

We arrived home to find our furnace wouldn’t work.  Lows in the 30s were expected.  So, we fired up the electric heater and cuddled under all our blankets.