Visit to St. Mary's, Georgia

Hi Blog.  This morning Dave and Kathy woke up for the first time at the Country Oaks Campground in Kingsland, Georgia. The past couple campgrounds we stayed at were part of the KOA chain.  This campground is a family run operation, like our home campground (Oak Grove) and the rug rat campground (WT Family Campground).  We like the family owned and operated parks.  They have a lot more character (or is that characters?) than the corporate parks.  Here is Kathy conversing with one of our neighhhhbors.

The campground owner is a country boy who loves his horses, both big and small.  He is a real Roy Rogers fan and has Roy memorabilia in the camp office.  The fishing pond that Eddie and George visited this morning is actually inside the horse pasture.  We had to pay a small bribe to this little guy to let us in.

Today, we were hoping to ride our bikes into St. Mary's, but it was raw and cold this morning.  We ended up driving into St. Mary's.  The brochure for St. Mary's said it was historic, with white picket fences, charming Victorian inns, majestic magnolias, stately live oaks, fragrant salt air, alluring waters, quaint shops, captivating cafes and gentle people who welcome you.  We tried to get it all in one photo.

Can you see the pelicans on the pier posts?

Finally, the sun came out and warmed things up a bit.  Kathy didn't waste any time sucking it up.

St. Mary's is the jumping off point for visits to the Cumberland Island National Seashore. We are scheduled to do a little primitive camping later in the week.  We stopped by the Visitor's Center and got the lowdown on where to park the truck, when to arrive, where to board the ferry, etc.  We also found out there are Park Ranger guided tours of the historic sites on the island, including one of the mansions left over from the days when the Carnegies owned Cumberland Island. We never pass up a good ranger talk, since we might end up being one someday.

Tomorrow, we are heading to the Okefenokee Swamp.  If there are no further blog entries, then you will know that we either got abducted by aliens or eaten by hungry alligators.