Jekyll Island - Day 1
40 miles
Today, we made the rather short hop from McIntosh Manor (in Townsend, GA) over to Jekyll Island. Ok, let's be more clear. While McIntosh Manor may have a USPS address via Townsend, GA, it's actually located in the very nice and very little town of Eulonia, GA.
Actually, one last thing we had to do before leaving Eulonia, was to do a selfie with The Pig, outside of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store!
With all of our duties fulfilled, we left Eulonia for points south.
We decided that since the checkout time at McIntosh Manor was noon, and the checkin time at Jekyll Island is 2pm, we would have more than enough time to drive 40 miles and even take in a hike along the way. So, as we were about to cross over the East River, south of Brunswick, we stopped at the little nature walk known as "Earth Day Nature Trail". We were able to park the trailer under the highway 17 bridge, so it would be in the shade (and, of course, we could monitor the trailer temperature over the net!)
So, with the kitty safely stored away in the trailer, we walked over to the nature trail.
Right next to the nature trail entrance was an interesting sign:
We thought, "OK, this is a recycling center sponsored by Shell Oil. How cool!" Um, not quite. Here's what we saw a bit later:
Oyster shells are used to build reefs and water breaks, wildlife habitats, roads, and a concrete-like substance called tabby.
We had high hopes for the nature trail, but alas, all the critters were taking a siesta except for a few:
These fiddler crabs were marching en masse across a mud flat. It was rather hypnotizing. Even though we didn't see a lot of fauna, we did see some beautiful marsh vistas and flora:
After the walk, we continued across the bridge and over to Jekyll Island, to the campground.
There are fun but serious signs along the causeway out to the island:
Unfortunately, automobile collisions are a large cause of terrapin mortality.
Per usual, after setting up camp, we took a walk, this time over to Driftwood Beach.
This is a gulf fritillary, the same sort of butterfly that comes to our passionfruit vine in San Diego!
Note how short this bunny's ears are. All the bunnies we saw on the barrier islands had these short ears.
The campground has a "bird sanctuary," which is just fancy-talk for feeders and bird baths, but it was well worth visiting, and we finally saw the ever-wary painted bunting, as well as woodpeckers, and the more common doves, finches, and sparrows.
The plan is to actually get up (far too) early tomorrow morning and watch the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, from Driftwood Beach.