During my trip South this past March, Kate and I took a long anticipated trip to Jekyll Island. The Island is about an hour and a half easy and lazy drive from Savannah. The 240 Acre Island has an interesting story that spans about two centuries of American History. Jekyll was first settled by Native Americans followed by Brit, Henry Horton and more prominently Charles duBignon who became sole owner of Jekyll in 1800. Most notably in the late 1800's the Island became the winter home for prominent American families, the Rockefellers, Morgans, Pulitzers and Vanderbilts.
We took the Historic District Trolley Tour. The tour was fun and definitely worth the $12. It's factually offbeat and eccentric and runs about an hour give or take. Although anyone under 70 could walk the tour (which maybe covers a 1 mile around) faster than ride it on the trolley, the ride is fun and lends itself to the spirit of the historical inhabitants of Jekyll. After the tour we rented bikes, $15 for a half day or you canbring your own. It is very easy to bike around the island and to get the bikes down onto the beach. The beach on Jekyll is beautiful, refreshing, quiet, hearty and serene feeling. The section we stopped at was covered with whole trees that had turned to driftwood, and as you can see long stretches of rock. I enjoyed riding the trail which in many places is paved and cuts through the woods, in other parts it runs through the Historic District, past some really neat villa styled hotels and through regular residential neighborhoods. There are a few historical markers along the way. The Horton-duBignon house is most notable. It is a Southern tabby style house, which is defined by its construction from lime, water, sand, oyster shells, and ash that are mixed together to form the entire structure. The best way to describe the feeling of this house is to compare it to standing inside of a sunbeam at sunset.
This trip was one of the most fun and best days that I have had in a long time. By the end of the day I was even able to ride my cruiser bike no handed!
JekyllIsland.com
1 comments:
Hell Yeah it was the best day! Not only is it beautiful and relaxing out there, but the company couldn't be beat. Next time we need to park at the beach and leave a picnic and our bathing suits in the car, ride around the island and come back to do some swimming. The only thing that sucks about this place is that we weren't born into the original families that were members of the Jekyll Club and had the island to ourselves while living in the lap of luxury.
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