March 30, 2014 at Jekyll Island

Yesterday when we were getting ready to bike, our neighbor across the camp road asked if he could ride with us today. So we were ready to go around 9 AM: Dick, Doris and Fred on the tandem, Tom and our neighbor Gilles (from near Montreal). I took the photo this time, as Bill was too sick to come out.

It was fun riding with Gilles. He gave us some pointers on our upcoming trip to the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. He lives near there and had ridden that route many times. We rode to the Jekyll Island Club hotel where we had coffee at their cafe. By the time we were ready to leave Carolyn and Pat were there, so Dick stayed with them to eat breakfast at the hotel while the rest of us finished our loop of the island. We had lunch back at camp and then Fred, Gilles, Tom and I went out for another ride. Tom and I decided right at the beginning that we would let Fred and Gilles duke it out for leader. They went on ahead to see who was tougher and Tom and I had a nice ride. We stayed on the roads this time, and stopped to take a few photos along the way. Below is the church we attended last night--the building is shared by the Episcopal Church, the Methodist Church and the Catholic Church. What a great idea!

There is a water park on the island. It is not open for the season yet, but there was an open gate so Tom and I explored it.

We stopped at the beach too. It was nearly deserted and the tide was out.

When we got back to camp I went back out on the bike again. (It's been a long winter in Michigan).I rode over to the Horton House, the oldest building on the island. It was built in the 1730's by William Horton, the first English resident of Jekyll Island. There is also a burial ground nearby, and the remnants of a cotton warehouse from the time when this was a cotton plantation.

I rode on the bike path this time--it is lovely with the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the Spanish moss.

After dinner (spaghetti at Tom and Pat's trailer) several of us drove to the beach to take a walk.  The tide was coming in and there were few others on the beach.

we drove to a second beach where there were a lot of jelly fish washing in on the tide, and we saw a dead ray and many live sand dollars. Unfortunately we did not find any dead (white) sand dollars that we could take home.

We then drove down a nondescript dirt road and hiked up to the amphitheater, a huge, apparently long abandoned, entertainment complex.

On the same trail past the amphitheater is a bird sanctuary. We saw many egrets, a wood stork, and trees filled with resting cormorants.

We drove to yet another beach to watch the sunset, and then our day was done.