Skidaway Island, GA

March 9-10, 2014

Now we’re at Skidaway Island.  When we got there we ate lunch, and then biked to the interpretation center.  It was really cool.  We saw a replica of a giant, prehistoric sloth.  It was around 15 ft. tall!  We looked around for a while and then my parents figured out how to get to a tower.  We biked on a trail through the woods.  It was a pretty bumpy ride, going over all the roots.  It wasn’t too far from our RV.  That was good because my Mom and I were definitely going there for the sunset.  We were disappointed that we couldn’t go on top of the roof, but it was probably for a good reason.  The area looked like the savannah, with the tall grass, few trees, but it was surrounded by a forest and is a muddy wetland.  My Mom and I came back later for the sunset, and there were two people from Chicago up there taking pictures.  It turned out they were ghost hunters.  My Mom and they shared tips on photography as I biked around.  When my Mom shot the good stuff, we headed back.  The next day, we were going to do some geocaching.  We didn’t get the coordinates at all.  It said it was near some boardwalk, so we searched them all.  No luck.  We went back to take a break.  Tyler didn’t want to go, and my Dad’s feet hurt.  I kept urging my Mom to hurry up.  We finally set of and let my Mom’s GPS take over.  It led through private property, and I don’t think either of us wanted to be prosecuted, so we turned back.  At least it made for a nice bike ride.  That night we had a fire.  The bugs weren’t bad that night.  Tyler came in, so I came in too, to keep him company.  After a while, our parents came in, we watched Brain Games in bed, and went to sleep.

~Jack

Located near historic Savannah, this park borders Skidaway narrows, a part of Georgia’s intracoastal waterway.  Inside the park’s interpretive center, birders will find binoculars, reference books and a window where they can look for migrating species such as Painted Buntings. The kids especially enjoyed seeing the towering, 20-foot Giant Ground Sloth replica and reptile room. 

I know, I know....what about Savannah? We have to take a pass on that. Scott and I spent some time there before we were married.  We don't feel like renting a car and it's just a bit too complicated to get the RV into town...and then we have the dog, and it's warm...for now, we will just enjoy being outdoors and exploring the state parks.  

Trails wind through maritime forest filled with live oaks draped in Spanish moss and past salt marsh, leading to a boardwalk and observation tower. Lots of wildlife can be found here like deer, fiddler crabs, raccoon, egrets among others.

Daylight savings was last night so Jack and I hit the sunset for 7:30pm!  While at the observation tower, we met a couple of Ghost Hunters from the Chicago area who had come to Savannah to shoot some video footage at the haunted places known around town.  They were taking a time lapse video of the sunset for the ending of the video. Pretty cool....

March 10

The time change really messed us up & the guys were up really, really late the night before so we all slept in today.  After a big breakfast, we headed out on our bikes to go geocaching  We haven't done this before, so I downloaded an app on my phone and the first one we were directed to was up and over a really steep, well traveled bridge, with construction and barriers along the side.  We decided that wouldn't be the safest, especially if some inexperienced RV'er passed us!

The next clue was for a letterbox and it did not have GPS coordinates.  The clue had to do with a boardwalk. We biked all over the trails, found every boardwalk and still could not find it.  At one point, I gave up my camera to Scott to hold in his backpack and my mountain biking improved immensely without that expensive gear weighing me down.  

We returned back to the RV in complete and utter failure.  I went back online and found some GPS coordinates and Jack and I decided to give it another try.  The letterbox was so close to our RV, but we could not access it from the park.  We had to bike outside of the park and into an affluent area.  We hit a gated entry less than a mile from our treasure and had to turn back.

Oh well, maybe our next stop will have some more buried treasures we can search for.  We had fun trying and had a perfect 75 degree day!  We ended the evening under the stars with a nice fire outside. 

~Linda