Georgia on My Mind or How To Cure March Madness

Okay… everyone thinks that March Madness is supposed to look like this

photo from ibtimes.com

No offense meant to those Americans and Canadians (including my husband) who are glued to their televisions watching basketball. And yes, Andrew Wiggins IS a phenom, and he IS Canadian.

But the real March Madness looks like this

and this

The “view” over the river from my sun room this morning. Yep. That’s not my camera malfunctioning. That white stuff is, well, the frozen white stuff. Falling sideways and accumulating on our lawn to add to the stuff that is already there, having not melted one bit while we were down south for three whole weeks.

It’s enough to make one mad.

Well, my cure for that is to pour myself a nice cup of tea and scroll through my pictures of our trip to Georgia  (in the U.S.A. not to be confused with the country) a couple of weeks ago.

This is the beach on Jekyll Island where we stayed with friends for a week. It was gorgeous and, while not summer weather, it most definitely was spring.

Jekyll Island is a beautiful little place. Very historic. The original grand old buildings, including the Jekyll Island Club Hotel and the so-called “cottages,” were built by the American elite, people like Morgan, Pulitzer and Vanderbilt,  in the late 1800’s as a winter retreat. According to the website www.jekyllisland.com “Jekyll Island with its cottage colony and clubhouse, was viewed as a little paradise, where members and guests pursued a ‘life of elegant leisure.'”

Now that was just what the doctor ordered … a small dose of paradise.

This is me on the beach on our first morning on Jekyll. Hubby has gone off to play golf with our hosts … and I have magnanimously (small snicker here) agreed to amuse myself.

I pedaled off in the sunshine on our friend’s bike …there are cycling paths everywhere on the island… to the Jekyll Island Club Hotel to take tea on the veranda…and read my book. Sigh.

We loved the huge live oaks that were everywhere.

Not all of our activities involved sipping tea and pedaling lazily down tree shaded paths. One night we drove down the highway to a place called Woodbine for dinner in a restaurant that could never exist here in Ontario… more’s the pity.

The restaurant is called Captain Stan’s Smokehouse. Our friends told us we were in for an experience…and they were right. The restaurant consists of a small in-door part…but mostly it is outside. An open central area consists of a huge fire pit, dirt floor and scattered picnic tables. Around this, on three sides are other tables and a bar under a tin roof. The forth side is a bandstand, also under a tin roof.

Woo hoo … girl you’re not in Ottawa anymore! We drank wine from plastic cups, ate wonderful ribs and the best cole slaw I had eaten since my mum’s when I was a kid. There was even a live band. Great food, laughter, wood smoke from an open fire. My little down-eastern heart was warmed by this place.

We didn’t spend all of our trip on Jekyll Island. We also stayed for several days in Savannah. Wonderful. And headed down to Florida … stopping for a few days in Key West. Wonderful. (Read about that adventure here)  Then we had five days with friends in Naples. Can you spell “outlet shopping” ???? Wonderful. But I’ll regale you with these wonderful experiences in further posts. 

And now children as the sun sets lazily in the west … I’m pouring myself another cup of tea and thinking of a beach somewhere. Oh… and a new pair of black strappy sandals.