Monday into Tuesday 11-28th and 29th Brunswick GA

pics are of :Ian and France and our view leaving Brunswick


We all spent most of Monday avoiding the rain. Brittany did laundry along with Terri , and spent alot of time in the club house watching TV Land and making a puzzle. I rode my bike to the Winn Dixie for groceries while Terri and Rob walked the 3 miles. The first day we arrived here in Brunswick Brittany and Leona walked to Winn Dixie , in front of them JM and France were walking, and I was riding my bike. I went up to NewCastle street and took a left on Gloucester. Two main roads. When I got to MLK road I took a left , looking for a short cut. Within seconds I started passing ramshackle houses, broken down deserted cars, dogs lazily emerging out from under the front porch and people sitting out side. A guy at one house started yelling at me "get out of our neighborhood, you don't belong here, go on git ,"he said. I ignored him and kept going. I turned around and got back on the main drag. When we got back Jean Marc worked on his maserator pump for a while, and Rob offered to help. Around 4 o'clock I started inviting people to our dock for a farewell get together for Veritas. France and Ian are having the boat taken out of the water while he travels one way with his work ( he has worked with the Blue Man Group in a production capacity I believe) and she goes another. That will be hard for them, like Gary and I they like each others company and spend alot of time together, they will be apart for 3 weeks , I think she said. We said our goodbye's and made promises to get together in the spring.

Tuesday morning we helped JM off the dock and started geting ready to leave. We were on the "road" by 8:30 and got to Cumberland Island by like 3:15. Its a beautiful Island and we have seen some wild horses on the beach.

After getting settled in I took a nap. The cat is beating us all up pretty bad with the sleep deprivation. I had to nap. Brittany and Gary took "the stupid dog" for a walk and visited with Leona and Bill for a bit. They came back and picked me up for a walk around the park. Turned out to be a wonderful 4 mile walk around this particular part of the Island called The Dungeness Trail. The Cumberland Island National Seashore puts out a pamphlet with lots of info regarding the history of the island, which is rich and interesting. Most of the following info is excerpts from that pamphlet.

We started off at the Ice House Museum. The Ice House and all the wood structures we encountered were part of the Thomas and Lucy Coleman Carnegie estate. The trail meanders through a quiet forest with a forest canopy made up of live oak, cabbage palm, magnolia, American holly, red cedar and pine. Live Oak dominates because of its tolerance to sea spray. Muscadine vines and saw palmetto give the forest the feeling of a jungle. For those of us who saw the original Disney version of Snow White, remember when she ran from the woodsman and the trees seemed to be reaching out after her? That was this forest. My camera wasn't cooperating but Terri is gonna help out and email me some great pics that she got. Pics like Brittany and Rob within feet of a family unit of wild horses grazing, white tail deer, or an Armadillo in its wild habitat rumaging through the forest floor(more like Rob chasing it through the bushes with the camera), or wild turkeys strutting and resting in the "yard" of a mansion long ago abandoned. Just an amazing way to spend the evening. There was also alot of Spanish Moss which I found out is not a moss at all but a member of the pineapple family and depend on trees for mechanical support only deriving their moisture and nutrients from rain and airborne dust.

Dungeness is the site of two magnificent estates, separated in time by 100 years, yet they share the same name. The ruins that we saware all that remains of the Dungeness built by Thomas and Lucy Carnegie in the late 1880's. Younger brother of financier Andres Carnegie, Thomas was a talented businessman during the nation's Guilded Age. The couple came to the Island in the first place because Lucy read an article in a magazine about the Island and under her encouragement they retired to the Island with their nine children. Thomas died before Dungeness was completed, leaving poor Lucy with nine children. Mrs. Carnegie was a dominant figure on the island and expanded her husbands aquisitions, eventually owning 90% of the Island. She initiated the renovaiton of Dungeness and construction of the four additional mansions built as island homes for her children. The 1920's saw the passing of the Guilded Age and a decline in the use of the Dungeness. When the Dungeness burned in 1959, it had not been occupied for many years.

Indians inhabited Cumberland for over (supposedly) 3000 years, a period longer than the combined occupations of all who have come since. The shells beneath your feet , part of an extensive midden, are the remains of countless oyster feasts and Indian encampments on the island. These people were hunters and gatherers, and the island supplied them with shellfish, game and edible plants in abundance. Tacatocoru, a Timucuan Indian village, is believed to have existed in the Dungeness area in the mid 1500's.

For lots more interesting facts visit this website:

http://www.nps.gov/cuis/

The place is gorgeous.


Your in our prayers, keep us in yours
XXOO
Victoria's Perspective

PS my camera is acting up grrrrrrrrrrrrrr