I’ve been mentally planning this trip since fall 2019. Then…CoVid. My Great Ameriican SE Roadtrip disappeared like smoke in the wind. We all had a year. A hard year. Our Roadtrip seemed unattainable; but as we passed thru last Christmas, then a couple more months…seemed doable. When I set my Top 3 Homeschool Intentions over a year ago, they were Heart Connection, Hands-On Experience, Love of Learning. Through fall and winter of 2020, we were doing a lot of local things, but mostly a lot of play. Nothing wrong with that, but I really wanted to incorporate true, hands on learning. Nora and I headed off on just such a trip this past spring.

Jekyll Island, Driftwood Beach

We left home in the Panhandle of Florida the second week of May and headed to Georgia’s Barrier Islands as our first stop. Mainly b/c it was an easy day trip. Day 1 of our Great American SE Roadtrip was Jekyll & St. Simon’s Islands. We stopped off at a bike rental place to leave the car and hop on bikes to circle the island…a bit of a longer ride than I thought, especially in 95 degrees and 400 percent humidity. Our neighbor had told us we absolutely had to visit Driftwood Beach. She was correct! Driftwood Beach was in Nora’s Top Two of our entire, 7 week trip!!! In hindsight, we should have packed lunch, beach towels, and an umbrella to spend hours. As it was, Nora got about an hour to climb around the trees. Driftwood Beach is not just some beach with driftwood on it…

Jekyll Island, Georgia Sea Turtle Center

After too little time climbing around, we jumped on the bikes to head to lunch a mile up the bike path…restaurant closed. This was early May, and we found many things along our journey closed or limited once we left our very free and open life in Florida. Unfortunately, I’d not planned for a closed restaurant, and we’d packed no snacks on the bikes, with miles to go before we hit businesses. It was a hot, sweaty ride, but once we reached the north end of the island, we passed many historic sites to stop and enjoy the water views and imagining life on Jekyll Island 200 years ago. End goal was Georgia’s Sea Turtle Center, the only one in GA. And well worth the visit! After exploring the hands on exhibits, where we learned about the most common threats and diseases of turtles, we headed into the Turtle Hospital. Several there at that time were adorably named after coffee drinks because they came to the Center after getting Cold Shock up in the Long Island Sound when they didn’t make it out of the Sound before winter. While we would have loved to then bike around the Historic Village surrounding the Sea Turtle Center, we were so tired and hungry. Food options were limited once again, so we decided to ride for our car, where I had a trunk full of snacks and sandwich fixings. Unfortunately, I led Nora on a wrong turn, thinking the bike path paralleled our road back to the car…it did not. At all. We got hopelessly lost, and then one of the South’s infamous, out of nowhere, thunderous storms hit. We huddled up under a tree overhang to wait for it to pass, and eventually found the Bike Center to return the bikes and collapsed into a car with the A/C on blast and shoving snacks into our mouths. Nora was a trooper.

Jekyll Island State Park

We drove along the coast down to the southern end of this tiny island to visit the State Park, and more importantly, walk the Memory Trail of the Wanderer. The Wanderer was the last slave ship to land on GA’s shores, in 1858, illegally, as the importation of slaves had been illegal for 40 years. This is an easily walked, short trail, but incredibly well done with signage and hands on experiences. We began with the imagined story of a young boy on the Wanderer, beginning at his home in Africa and progressing through several experiences. It was a moving experience that we took time to slow down and sink it all in.

St. Simons Island

With not a lot of time left in our day and reservations the next day in Charleston, I was still determined for us to get up to St. Simons Island. The Tree Spirits were calling! First stop was the Visitor Center to pick up a map of the Tree Spirits. We were not leaving the island without a visit to each of them! We quickly walked through town as well, doing a little honey sampling (and buying!) at the Savannah Bee store. Then back into the car to check out all the Tree Spirits. One took us into Redfern Village, a charming area of shops and restaurants as well.

We finished up our first day with a delicious dinner (and a cocktail for Mom!) at Reid’s Apothecary in Brunswick. While St. Simons has no shortage of delicious looking restaurants, we were again running into many restaurants still closed. I saw quite a few that looked great with outside seating only, but rain was threatening, so we headed off the island and inland.

Four of Georgia’s 15 barrier islands are car accessible, and I wish we could have spent several days exploring all of them.

Quick Picks:

• Stay: We stayed at a Comfort Inn just off I95. This was a budgetary decision. We had 2 nights and one very busy day, so we didn’t need amenities, just a safe, clean place to lay our heads for a few hours!
• Eat: Reid’s Apothecary in Brunswick was fabulous.
• Play on Jekyll Island: Driftwood Beach, Georgia Sea Turtle Center, Jekyll Island Historic Village, Jekyll Island State Park Wanderer Memory Trail. We missed the Pier, but it looks well worth a visit.
• Play on St. Simons Island: Tree Spirit Scavenger Hunt, St. Simons Lighthouse, with more time, St. Simons has much more to offer!