March 24-25, 2012

We had a lazy day. In the afternoon we went to Orange Hall. A historic mansion in St Marys built in the 1800’s. We basically took the tour. The house was lovely, the tour guide was not so good.

Orange Hall. It was named orange hall because it had orange trees around it. The hall was built as a wedding present for their daughter. The husband was a minister in the church across the street. The wife died of yellow fever before the house was built. The husband remarried the nanny. The house passed thru many hands before the historic society bought it.  Rainbow in the evening over the crooked river.

Sunday we took this boat, the Cumberland Lady to Cumberland Island. It is a park. You can only get there by boat. The island at one time was owned by the Carnegies who had a huge mansion Dungeness built in 1880 and many smaller ‘cottages’ built for their children to use as vacation homes. They donated the land, the buildings and $50,000 to the park service in the 1950’s. Only a few park service employees live there now and the only cars are the park services.

We rent bikes. Cruiser bikes-no gears, no toe clips, no shocks. The road was sand, with washboard on most of it. We rode 6.2 miles to Plum Orchard- one of the cottages built for George Carnegie as a vacation home. It was built in 1898 for the cost of $60,000.

Plum orchard. Bigger than any vacation cottage I have ever seen. It has been restored by the park service. We got there just a a tour arrived and we went inside to look. We ended up getting a private tour by Jean who is the volunteer who lives at the house. It is very, very nice. Then we had a picnic lunch on the front porch

This plant is Tread Softly. All parts of it are poisonous. It has little hairs on it that are like nettles. It grows to be 3 feet tall, but it was in the lawn, I think it had been mowed. I had been wanting to see one, so I would know what to avoid! The entry hall of Plum Orchard. All oak with a tiffany lamp.

John and jean our guide. One of the 12 bathrooms. When most of the country did not have indoor plumbing, this house had twelve bathrooms. Even had heated towel bars and a claw foot tub.

The kitchen and a detail of the molding on the outside above the front door.

Wild turkeys on the road back. John ahead of me on the road

resurrection ferns growing on the oaks. The second photo is some back packers. You bring your gear over on the boat, they have wheeled  carts at the dock, you load up your gear and wheel it to your camp site. Camping is the only way you can spend the night on the island.

John behind Dungeness. It burnt down in the 50’s. Here is a picture of what it looked like before it burnt down.

John riding to the beach. I loved those oak trees. And Sue riding on the main road.

John at the low point in Georgia. The Atlantic ocean. My foot by a huge horse shoe crab.

Wild horse on the beach at Cumberland Island. John with wild birds. . .

More wild horse shots

Cumberland Island from the boat. It is 18 miles long, has 14 miles of pristine beaches. Really a pretty island. John resting on the boat on the way back.