Southern Georgia and Northern Florida

Welcome to our blog. We thought this might make it easier for you to share in our adventure and keep track of where we are and where we've been. The most recent pictures are at the top so if you want to start at the beginning, you will need to scroll down to the bottom and work your way up to the top.

We will try to update the blog regularly, but no promises!!

We are currently in Clermont, Florida waiting impatiently for our kids to arrive on December 10th. They will be with us until the 19th so the next entry should include lots of family pictures. In case we don't get a chance to update before Christmas, we wish you a very merry Christmas and all the very best in 2008!

. . . and the highlight of the month is . . . The Roughriders won the Grey Cup!!!!! It's been 18 years since the last win, but we Saskatchewanians are a patient, loyal bunch! We love our Roughies!

November 28 - We made another day trip into Florida, this time to Fernadina Beach on Amelia Island. It was an overcast and blustery day, but that didn't seem to bother this wind surfer. This stately mansion was built by one of the millionaire members of the Jekyll Island Club at the turn of the century. The trees on Driftwood Beach on the north end of the island reminded us of those in Newfoundland - bent over by the wind and damaged by salt water. The highlight of the day . . . dolphins! I know it's not a great picture, but they weren't cooperating. We met a family from Rimbey, AB in our campground and they were lucky enough to have dolphins beaching themselves on the shore right in front of them the day before. We saw the dolphins swimming up onto the beach, too, but they were always too far away to get a good picture.

Wow, we had the whole beach to ourselves except for a few species of aquatic life. We loved the beaches here. You can see the bridge behind us. Welcome to Jekyll Island, an exclusive refuge for millionaires in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is a 4000 year old barrier island with 10 miles of beaches, 20 miles of bike paths, 4 golf courses, 13 tennis courts and lots of legendary Wild Georgia shrimp.

This is the view of Jekyll Island as we came off the bridge. November 27 - This amazing bridge took us from Brunswick, GA to Jekyll Island. On the way home, we drove through Jacksonville. It is the second largest city by area (840 square miles) in the US. The largest is Anchorage, Alaska. Three rivers meander through Jacksonville, including the St. Johns River, the only river in the world besides the Nile that flows south to north. I'm just full of trivia, aren't I? It's been 40 days since my last lighthouse so Ted was gracious enough to allow me to visit the St. Augustine Lighthouse on Anastasia Island, just across the Bridge of Lions (over the Intracoastal Waterway) from St. Augustine. I got my lighthouse fix, but I think it will be a long time before I see a grain elevator (my other obsession). This is downtown St. Augustine - 400+ year-old buildings, monuments and narrow laneways.

St. Augustine is filled with history. It's the oldest continuous European settlement in the USA, founded by the Spanish in 1565. Ponce de Leon came ashore here in 1513 looking for the Fountain of Youth. Ted refused to pay $5.75 to drink a plastic cupful of the legendary sulfur water when he could drink it out of the tap for free. It's true - the water here tastes and smells awful!!

November 26 - From our campground in Woodbine, GA, we took a day trip down the A1A coastal highway to St. Augustine. We stopped at South Ponte Verde Beach to give the dogs a salt water bath. They weren't too impressed (but we thought it was hilarious)!!! They've invented a new sport called doggy surfing.