Travel

Great Harbour Cay, Berry Islands, Bahamas

The surreal ride in:

If you zoom in, you can see an aerial shot of the ruins of the Sugar Beach Resort & Golf Club:

Our home base was the Carriearl Boutique Hotel, the former home of Earl Blackwell (founder of Celebrity Service, see: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/04/obituaries/earl-blackwell-85-a-promoter-of-celebrities-and-their-events.html), which could not have been more pleasant. Angie and Marty are gracious hosts and we loved our getaway.

One of the songs I always hear when I am traveling is Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” I have it on my phone, and it is one of a few songs that I use as triggers to switch my mind into relax mode. It came over the Sirius XM station twice while we were at the Carriearl and I took that to be very appropriate for our venue – both the hotel itself and the island. I guess what I mean by that is the song always invokes a sense of timelessness. Read: “I have momentarily stepped away from my desk right now into Carriearl Land.”

What am I always saying I want? To be somewhere else, of course. And for a moment, I was.

There is a James Altucher quote that I thoroughly believe in and it is: “Only free time, imagination, creativity, and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever delivered before in the history of mankind.” You can disappear here. There will be Wi-Fi if you want it, but you can disappear otherwise. There are only 3 rooms for rent at the Carriearl, so you will be enjoying all of the amenities (including a golf cart you can take out to the caves and the ruins for two hours) with very few other people.

Partial shot of bar/restaurant for all your drinking and (blue crab ravioli with vodka cream sauce) eating needs:

Pool views, view from the beach, and the beach in front of the Carriearl:

Note the hammock:

Exploring the ruins of the Sugar Beach Resort and Golf Club:

When I first heard there were ruins here, of course I was fixated on it until I was able to wander through. If you zoom in on the aerial photo linked above, you can tell just how sprawling these grounds are. We were only able to access just a small part of the remains, because we went in bathing suits and sandals.

To gain entry, we shimmied across this wall on the left. One foot in front of the other, and don’t look down or think about it too much (these are good rules for life, by the way).

Haint blue ceiling:

Surveying the land:

View of the ruins from the beach:

Exploring the Caves at Sugar Beach:

High tide, looking down from a rock we climbed:

Low tide, preparing to make a swim for it:

Besides exploring the ruins, enjoying the peaceful luxury of the Carriearl and the beach, I have two other favorite memories from the island. Those are going to the marina and watching locals make conch fritters right on the dock, and discarding the shells:

and meeting two sweet ladies who worked at the small deli at the airport. There was a small thunderstorm we were waiting out before we could takeoff. The younger lady engaged me in conversation by asking me where I was from. She said: “Oh, I just love Atlanta. I love Golden Corral.” The older lady, perhaps even her grandmother, chimed in on that one. “Oh yes, I love Golden Corral. I always get so mad when I fill up on soup and salad.”

I looked at them and raised my left hand. They could tell I was about to testify and impart some great piece of wisdom, perhaps something that had been passed down to me from my ancestors. They were absolutely correct. Like my father told me, and his mother who went before him told him, I gave them everything I had. “Ladies, when you go to the Golden Corral, you have to start at the hot bar.”

They howled at me. And I joined in, three of us shaking with laughter, united in our venture to come out ahead when partaking in a buffet.

Be sure to keep an analog version of all of your travel adventures too! We like “Play,” the indexed book journal from Stealth Journals that should be used to record all of your good times!

Further reading:
http://www.carriearl.com/
http://www.greatharbourcay.com/WebPages/history.htm

July 30, 2014 0

Investigating Lost Things: Midway Church and Cemetery – Midway, GA

On our way home from St. Simons Island yesterday, we took a detour through Midway, Georgia. The first time I had ever heard of this place was from Chris Wangler’s 2006 book, Ghost Stories of Georgia. By complete happenstance, we met the last tour group of the day at the Midway Museum and were able to join in.

I loved the original civil war-era clothes that were on display upstairs.

Also, check out the original key to the 1792 Midway Church:

You can’t tell by looking at this photo, but the key is huge! The tour guide used one that was very similar to let us in the church later.

Midway Church

According to the museum’s brochure, the exterior of the church was painted red in 1792, and the floors were painted in black and white diamond patterns. The present day appearance of the church dates to 1849. For six weeks during the Civil War, General Judson Kilpatrick used the church as a slaughterhouse and the church was abandoned after this.

The pews have their own little swinging doors for entry, and we were told that they used to be sectioned off for subscribers.

View from balcony of pulpit:

Upstairs view of right side of balcony area:

I expected the church to have some sort of feeling or smell to it, but instead the place just felt empty. Not cheerful or peaceful or even sad, or anything whatsoever. Completely devoid of emotion.

Midway Cemetery

Mr. Wangler recounts two haunting tales about the Midway Cemetery in his book. The first story involves two young people who allegedly involved themselves in an illicit affair and had a habit of meeting in secret in the cemetery. Sylvia Brown was a blond seventeen year old, and Anthony was one of her father’s slaves. When Sylvia’s father got news of the affair, he had Anthony murdered. The story is that Sylvia found his body hanging from the tree in the cemetery where they used to rendezvous and slit her own throat right there at the scene. Visitors report shadow figures underneath the tree.

View of the church from inside the cemetery:

The second legend is that of the crack in the north wall of the cemetery. The wall was built in 1813 by slave labor. Two of the men had been arguing all day and had fallen behind with the day’s construction. The master made the two stay late and finish the job and one wound up murdering the other and hiding him beneath the wall. The next day he claimed his partner had run away. The wall that remained covering his crime was reported to crumble at an unexplainably fast pace. One day, the master ordered the wall torn down so it could be rebuilt from scratch. The remains were discovered, and the wall was rebuilt. But the crack continues to this day even though the wall was rebuilt.

Info display inside the cemetery:

My photo of the wall:

The cemetery felt to me exactly as the church felt – empty. It could be that the harsh south Georgia heat is stifling my radar. But, Bonaventure in Savannah has always felt very peaceful and serene to me, and I have made plenty of summer visits inside the walls of Bonaventure (I don’t mean to imply that Bonaventure is haunted, just that it does make me feel a positive energy at least).

I look forward to a visit in October, to hear some legends on the Halloween tour. The story about the crack in the brick wall is well-embraced in Midway.

Be sure to keep an analog version of your travel adventures logged and indexed inside your very own “Play” Journal, by Stealth Journals. “Play” is an indexed book journal that should be used to record all of your good times!

Further reading:
http://coastalcourier.com/archives/61008/

http://coastalcourier.com/archives/37420/

http://coastalcourier.com/archives/3526/

http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/midwaycemetery.html

http://www.themidwaymuseum.org/index.html

June 29, 2014 5

Night Landing. Savannah International. Gorgeous.

June 10, 2014 0

Kicking off a Saturday – Tybee Island, GA

On the way to Tybee Island, there is a great multipurpose trail close to Fort Pulaski. The McQueen Island Rails to Trails park area gives a good six miles worth of exercise options. We took advantage of it early one Saturday and saw more wildlife than people. Once again, I saw a great raccoon that eluded my photography skills. He was waddling (much like me after eating redneck nachos at Wiley’s), and by all accounts appeared to be living quite lavishly out on the island. This is what the trail looks like to the west of Pulaski.

I hear that the trail used to go on past what is now a witch’s curse sign:

I was going to cross it, but Bob said he didn’t think we should test the witches in the heart of voodoo country. I agreed.

Bicycle parking:

When you get to the end, there is nothing to do. You just rest a minute and breathe and take in the scenery. It’s funny, because, before I lived here I used to think that the salt marshes smelled funny (or even sort of bad). Now I love that smell.

You just stand out here and look at nature and think maybe this is the type of place where maybe the worst thing that could happen is somebody in the Deen family burns dinner or when Comcast lets their cable go out in a storm. This is the type of place where you stand in front of a witch’s curse sign and watch the ships roll out of port.

And you just stand there until they pass you.

They didn’t come out in the picture, but there were several dolphins out there. They were close enough that we could hear them exhaling. I did capture a magnificent turtle and a crab.

Tybee Island and Wilmington Island. Places for people who don’t really want to have real problems. And I mean that in a good way.

June 7, 2014 0

One Perfect Day – Biking Jekyll Island, GA

On our last Do What You Want Saturday, we found ourselves in the car headed for Jekyll Island. We were purely interested in taking advantage of the twenty miles or so of bike paths. This is my favorite place to ride so far!

You will see everything – marshland, beaches, shaded forests, the golf course, and even Millionaire’s Row, the Historic Village, and the Jekyll Island Club Hotel.

The Jekyll Island Club Hotel is quite the place. From their website: “Our historic Georgia Club was described in the February 1904 issue of Munsey’s Magazine as “the richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible club in the world.” Its impressive members included such luminaries as J.P. Morgan, William Rockefeller, Vincent Astor, Joseph Pulitzer, William K. Vanderbilt, and other recognizable names on the roster were Macy, Goodyear, and Gould.” The reason this stuck out to me is because I was reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon last weekend and on page 16 he describes one of his main characters as “He knew them all – Gould, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Astor – and he said there wasn’t one he’d care to meet again in the hereafter.” That line just killed me.

Moving on…

I had not seen the island in twenty-five years, when my grandparents took me and my cousin to stay in a condo at Villas by the Sea. I am pleased to report that it was just as I remembered it (in a good way). Driftwood Beach is not as good as Cabretta on Sapelo. But, the Villas did have a nice private boardwalk to rest awhile, and I got to see a wrinkly, swirly, old (assumingly) tree. Not pictured was a set of stairs leading directly into the sea. It was high tide, and of course the stairs normally just lead onto the beach, but when I saw them it was a stairway leading down into the sea. We stood as far down as we could until a wave pummeled us. One day I will write a great American novel and the characters will be: God as a child who is scared of the rain, people who decide to disappear from this terrible world by walking down stairs into the sea (they aren’t suicides – der, this is a gateway), and the princess who has been reincarnated and trapped in a middle class working life as penance for her previous sins. But I digress.

On the way back from the beach through the property at the Villas, walking in the great shade cast over me by giant and looming oak trees covered in Spanish moss, there was a slight change in the wind. The whisper wasn’t audible, it was more of a heart sound. It came to me in the form of my eight-year gone grandfather’s voice. The sound told me I was going to be okay, and it caused instant joyful and peaceful tears.

We passed the airport and stopped to watch a family load themselves into a 1966 Cessna 310 that was painted eggshell blue and looked like it should be set on a permanent loop of “Wouldn’t it be Nice,” and if you were flying it, you wouldn’t even care if it was. I tried to get an ice cream in one of the fancy shops close to the hotel. The lady lured me in because she was so audacious she put a sign outside her shop that read “Ice cream.” After I walked all the way in there, I found that the woman was nothing but a damned liar. She was selling frozen novelty items, NOT ice cream, and if you don’t know the difference there’s nothing I can do to help you. Four miles back up the road to the Dairy Queen where at least they actually sell ice cream, and I was happy.

Eating ice cream under the sun. Listening to the heart sound.

Be sure to keep your travels logged and indexed inside your very own “Play” journal, by Stealth Journals. “Play” is an indexed book journal by Stealth Journals that should be used to record all of your good times!

May 21, 2014 3

One Perfect Day – Omaha

Omaha was a cool little city. The day began with a walk across the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in Heartland of America Park into Iowa.

At the bottom of the hill, we stumbled upon a bike rental kiosk. I wish they had these everywhere! Why is this the first time I have ever seen this?!

Challenge accepted, and we saw a good four miles of Iowa on our rented bikes. After a coffee fuel up, we strolled through the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, which was featuring Mary Mattingly’s Flock House Project: Omaha, as shown below:

According to her brochure, she is using the center as an active research lab for the “future of urban space.” It very well could be that I just don’t get it, but what this looked like to me was the glorification of tent living and homeless/transient communes. I’m not a fan of that. I don’t believe that we as a society should accept the idea that an alternative healthy living arrangement is to give up our normal-sized homes and downgrade to 300 square foot apartments or tents. Recently, there has been some sort of weird trend that it is somehow cool to live in a shed in a random parking lot. I am here to tell you that that is NOT cool.

Another thing I didn’t get was Miki Baird’s The Chronicles:

It’s a pile of shredded paper that she compiled from the junk mail sent to her father. This is supposed to be some kind of statement about waste. Maybe I am desensitized to the vast amounts of paper waste since I have worked in litigation for so long. Now, to be fair, I did look up her website, and I do like what she is doing with the zippers: http://www.mikibaird.com/zip/zip01.html

After taking in all this controversial art I was in need of something that I could stare at without having to wonder what it meant about the state of the world.

Luckily, the Joslyn Art Museum had a Chihuly installation, so I was able to vegetate for a few minutes. I smiled and soothed myself, muttering “You’re pretty,” to the installation:

The Gene Leahy Pedestrian Mall is a beautiful urban space. Who doesn’t love a pair of giant slides smack dab in the middle of the park? The best thing about the slides is that I happened upon them by surprise. I walked up a short set of stairs, thinking I was entering a small bridge or something to take me down the hill. When lo and behold, there was an impromptu chance at some free fun. By this time, I’m thinking to myself that Omaha is some sort of heaven as far as parks go, with little golden nuggets popping up all over the place. Bicycles and slides for all!

I loved the Old Market area downtown. The city has done a fantastic job with preserving the old railroad warehouses, and this was a bustling center of galleries, shops, and restaurants. Omaha, Nebraska. Who knew you were so awesome?

Our trip is indexed within our “Play” journal from Stealth Journals. The relevant page is pictured below:

http://www.visitomaha.com/things-to-do/attractions/#.U1qkemdOXIU

April 25, 2014 0

Where Sick Folks Get Well

I have a special place in my heart for The 1886 Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I have started researching a chapter to be included in America’s Most Haunted Hotels. When Norman Baker (who was NOT a doctor) turned the old hotel into a cancer hospital, he allegedly used the “Where Sick Folks Get Well” pamphlet to lure unsuspecting patients to the hospital so he could “reap one million dollars out of the suckers in the state.” The pamphlet is said to be the key piece of evidence of mail fraud that led to his 1941 – 1944 sentence in Leavenworth.

It is a fascinating piece of marketing literature, and I got hold of a copy. It is attached for your reading pleasure.

Where Sick Folks Get Well Pamphlet

April 14, 2014 0

Death Valley National Park

Faced with all that Las Vegas had to offer (insert sarcasm), Bob and I decided we preferred the desert. The morning was spent in the car heading out of Vegas to Death Valley National Park. This is the only park I’ve ever visited where an entire page of the Visitor’s Paper is devoted to a section entitled “Survive!” We were perhaps not exactly equipped for an entire day in Death Valley. We had a nice drive and Bob got some great photos of the park. We walked across Badwater Salt Flat, the lowest place in the western hemisphere, and called it a day.

I knew the famous Amargosa Opera House and Hotel was in nearby Death Valley Junction, and that they had a café that I was looking forward to patronizing.

Amargosa Opera House and Hotel

The café was about what you would expect it to be out in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to go take a peek back in the kitchen to see if I could spot Odd Thomas (who is both my favorite short order cook and Deen Koontz character). Our waitress was an interesting character herself. For one thing, she had her right arm all slinged up because of carpal tunnel that had manifested itself after much griddle cooking. In addition to being a mother of three small children and working at the café, she is also the town’s Fire Chief.

We tried to stay overnight, but the young lady working the front desk assured us that there were no vacancies. An older gentleman passed us on the dirt driveway and inquired about our current state of affairs. We assured him we were doing just fine and posed the question back at him. He said he was “Tolerable. Now, tolerable covers a multitude of sins.” We thought this was just about the best response to a “How are you?” that we had ever heard. Before I could ask him just what sins, exactly, he was guilty of, he was gone.

There has been quite a bit of media attention addressing “Spooky Hollow” over in the old section of the hotel that hasn’t been refurbished. I understand that Pacific Borax built the town for its miners in the early 1920’s, and the hotel housed them. The building also contained a hospital and morgue. Since we weren’t officially investigating or spending the night, I don’t have any paranormal tales of my own to share.

The stop was more interesting to me because of Marta Becket’s story. In 1967, a flat tire brought her here. While the tire was being repaired, she wondered around the complex and peered into the old abandoned theatre. Marta was a dancer from New York City and she was immediately moved by the building and knew she would spend her life here. I am fascinated by her story of being pulled to a place that was so drastically different from the place she knew before as home.

It was her dream. This place, out in the middle of nowhere. She chose her life and by all accounts loved it. Maybe it doesn’t look like a picture of success for you, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to. Each individual striving to live their life in their own way is what success is. That’s it. To focus on anything else is to be distracted from the purpose and will keep you from staying on the right path.

That’s my thought from the desert. Oh, and Bob said to mention how quiet it was. He was sitting outside the opera house on one of those benches while I strolled around snapping pictures. He said he could hear the gravel crunch under my feet from a hundred yards away. Sweet sounds of isolation.

As always, we log and index our adventures inside our “Play” Journal, by Stealth Journals. “Play” is an indexed book journal that should be used to record all of your good times.

Floating

A quick budget weekend getaway close to our hometown of Savannah, Georgia was in order. We settled on Sapelo Island, one of Georgia’s barrier islands. We knew it would be a peaceful retreat because the island has a population of just seventy.

I had just left my day job when my boyfriend Bob suggested that maybe we should head out of town. My mental state was generally stable, although some moments of sheer panic and a sense of being lost floating around aimlessly in the world were starting to creep in whenever I sat still for too long.

We arrived at the Meridian Dock on a Friday morning around 7:15 a.m. We were early enough to watch the island schoolchildren disembark from the ferry. I watched a handful of them bounce off the boat and onto the awaiting school bus, laughing at God only knows what but having the best time. Fresh and shiny and hopeful for the new day. It was a priceless peek into what innocent human lives look like. I began to remember who I was. For the longest time, I had defined myself by my job and the income I generated. A friend once asked me who I would be without my job and I couldn’t answer.

The waiting area to board the ferry is a small building with concrete floors and some benches. We passed the time with one other passenger – a farmer from north Georgia whose ties to the island stemmed from his mother being born there. He shared a story about his grandfather quitting his job as Island Manager after a few short weeks of working for Mr. R.J. Reynolds, the great tobacco heir, who had recently purchased the island in 1934 from Mr. Howard Coffin. The grandfather was on board a barge that he claimed R.J. had paid some goons to sink for the insurance company. Unbeknownst to him of course, and he stayed on board that ship for two days with the other two crew members and worked to keep that barge afloat. His reward? R.J. cussed him out for saving the barge, so he quit on the spot. Then my new friend cracked wise with a lawyer joke and further endeared himself to me.

We paid our $5.00 round trip ferry fee and were on our way. We rented realtor Lucy Lea’s upstairs apartment and she had left The Beast for us at the dock. The old hunter green Jeep Cherokee had the key in its ignition and though somewhat muddy and a little rusted, seemed perfectly willing to haul us around. She would later prove her worth when I braced myself in a Spiderman stance inside the car as Bob navigated a very muddy and pothole filled road to Cabretta Beach. We did not tip and we did not get stuck. The Beast never faltered.

Lucy’s apartment had a very handy way of getting luggage upstairs:

I wish I had a pulley system at my apartment.

Cabretta Beach was the wild and out of control cousin. Cabretta was desolate and intriguing, with interesting features, but not exactly what you would call pretty.

Cabretta Beach - Sapelo Island — ***Cabretta Beach – Sapelo Island***

It certainly was the most isolated beach I have ever visited. We did not see a soul and we went on both days we were on the island. We were okay with being alone in the world.

The last time, on our way back, I noticed what appeared to be drawings in the sand of trees. I don’t know what could have made them, but there was a section of beach that was covered with the drawings.

The Hog Hammock community on Sapelo is comprised of many descendants of slaves that stayed on the island after the Civil War to preserve their Gullah-Geechee culture. Today, there are a few old home places still standing, complete with peeling Haint Blue paint. The color was believed to have spiritual properties in many African cultures, such as the ability to ward off evil spirits.

At the end of the first day we caught a sunset by the lighthouse. We had not been so relaxed since last fall when we escaped to the north Georgia mountains for a weekend.

The next day at Nanny Goat Beach, we had to contend with the crowds. We saw a whopping seven more people. I was coming back to life. Full of hope and not worried about much. Freedom was my new favorite drug and I was starting to learn what it felt like to be a person and not a job. I listed off all of the things I was without a job: girlfriend, daughter, friend, sister, aunt, cousin, published author, traveler, and healthy human being. I also decided that sometimes when you are in transition, it is okay to float.

Nanny Goat Beach - Sapelo Island — ***Nanny Goat Beach – Sapelo Island***

As we were leaving, I asked Lucy Lea about her Sapelo story. She came to the island by chance. She had a clothing store in Peachtree City, Georgia and was actually in search of Cumberland Island. Greyfield was booked so she found herself in a grocery store buying a meal for the night when she found a book sitting on top of the green beans. The book was about Georgia’s islands. She visited Sapelo and knew she wanted to live there immediately. Some things are just meant to be I guess.

People have asked her what she does with all her time on the island. “I don’t know,” she said. “I do yoga. I go walking. All I know is I never have enough time.” I know what she means.

The last night of our stay, Lucy’s daughter-in-law rode the ferry at 2:30 a.m. to the mainland and a new baby girl bounced in to our world. I prayed that she would live a good life with enough adversity mixed in to make her strong enough to fight when she has to.

I watched some dolphins playing while I waited on the ferry. And when our time came to go, we floated right on home.

As always, our adventures are logged and indexed inside our “Play” Journal by Stealth Journals. A sample entry page is pictured below:

Ferry Home - Sapelo Island — ***Ferry Home – Sapelo Island***

March 14, 2014 2

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