11 May 2014
Jekyll Island, GA

If Jekyll Island were to have nothing else going for it, at least it has a Dairy Queen. Add one more to the previously declining Blizzard count and while you’re doing that, you better add one more pound to the scale since I’m eating this after having done virtually nothing today, unless strolling and typing count, and if that’s the case then I’ve done a tremendous amount and should have ordered the next size up.

While I was taking time to hold down one of the hotel chairs, Gina and Terri were braving another historical trolley tour around the grounds of the Jekyll Island Club. For this Terri earned the Gold Star of the trip, because after St. Augustine, getting on another trolley with Gina was definitely a risky move. Luckily, the post-trip trolley reports were all good and Terri seemed none the worse for wear. That or she hides PTSD well.

With our departure from Jekyll Island imminent, a few thoughts:

This is a place lost in time. Jekyll Island is one of those places that after wandering about, you feel like something’s not quite right and not in any sinister kind of way but more in a “Hmmm” kind of way yet you can’t quite figure out what it is that makes you think things are a little … different. The bike trails are great, the hotel is lovely with the staff quite nice and helpful, the hospitality folks at the local establishments are mostly hospitable, the Jekyll Island Club is elegantly historic, and the sandy beaches are full of families enjoying the sun. And yet there’s something slightly peculiar. The more you ponder it the more you understand that the feeling starts with the brown water and ends with the houses that haven’t been updated ever. I mean not ever. Not one single modern home on an island that’s all about leisure and, back in the last century, dripped with the riches of men like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. This doesn’t add up. It’s as though sometime in the 1970s, the whole island was dropped into a stainless steel cylinder and cryogenically preserved.

There’s an explanation for everything. Ok, so you’ve now pinpointed where the problem stems from but you can’t figure out why until it’s explained to you one night while dining on denture-free grits and shrimp and chatting with the restaurant owner. Turns out that when the island was bought by the State of Georgia in the 1970s, it was declared that 65% of the land had to remain undeveloped (so we all can come play, including deer and pelicans and turtles). So basically whatever had been built by that time was all that could be built. Anything new comes at the expense of tearing down the old and rebuilding in place. But since the State merely leases the land to you, it’s a risky business to invest in any updates given that you have no guarantee of getting anything back should the state decide to revoke your lease. Hence the time capsule vibe of Jekyll Island.

Beaches don’t have to be blue. But it helps. Wading in shallow, warm, brown water is fine, particularly on such extensively peaceful beaches, but wading out deep enough to swim in it? Not for cowardly lions like me. We’ll leave that to the Gina’s of the world.