Forts & Fish

Another day at the beach ... are you bored with my daily updates yet?? Matt brought his laptop and the condo place has free wi-fi so my nightly ritual has been sitting on the balcony, listening to the lapping waves, typing away. Life is sweet... at least this week is.

St. Simon's island has a lot of history dating back to the early 1700's -- pre-dating the Revolutionary War. James Oglethorpe, a british soldier who founded Georgia, built a Fort on the Island (Fort Frederica) to stave off the Spanish who were in St. Augustine, FL. Everywhere on this island is something with the name Oglethorpe. I told Matt, "This man's really milking it, isn't he?"

Fort Frederica is now a National Park and an archeological site. The Fort attracted many settlers who turned it into a town -- the remains of which are layed out and marked. You can walk the "streets" and see the remains of all the homes and learn about the people who lived there; it was one of the most interesting historical sites I've seen. The town/fort was only occupied for about 20 years so everything found at the site dates from 1730's-1740's.

Our next stop was Christ Church, one of the oldest Episcopal churches in the nation and, I believe, the birthplace of the Episcopal Church in the US. The church was closed but the massive burial grounds surrounding it were open. Tombs from as early as the early 1800's were there, and I found myself getting sad as I saw so many tombstones of little children. I can't imagine what a hard life it must have been.

This evening, we all went out to dinner to Georgia Sea Grill in the Village (the closest area of shops and restaurants) where we had a wonderful fish dinner. I had the snapper picata, Matt & his dad had grouper with horsradish, and Matt's mom had scallops & oysters. We had fried oysters for appetizers and for dessert a coconut chocolate pie. We couldn't get over how good and fresh the food was.

Tomorrow we're off to Savannah to visit and stay with Matt's mom's cousin. I may not have internet access there.

Until tomorrow.