Jeanie and I had a lovely day trip to St. Simons Island yesterday.
When we started the drive, the weather was a bit "iffy," but as the day progressed, the weather improved.
We started out going to our island to have breakfast, but unfortunately, the restaurant we had in mind (Miss Carolynn's) was closed for the holiday. So, we stopped by the Kofe Haus and grabbed cups of their delicious coffee and a pastry to take the edge off while we headed off towards St. Simons. We ended up eating breakfast at the Cracker Barrel at Exit 3 and then proceeded north.
Our first stop was at the Visitor's Center which is near the southern end of the island near Neptune Park. The Visitor's Center was clean and attractive with friendly attentive staff.
We then headed up to the north end of the island to visit Christ Church, Frederica and walked around the grave yard (one of Jeanie's favorite pastimes). Unfortunately, the church itself wasn't open to visitors (it is only open 2pm - 5pm) so we didn't get to see the inside. Also unfortunately, I wasn't feeling too well, suffering from a bit of stomach upset and a moderate headache.
We then headed back down to the south end of the island (note, this is all of a twelve mile drive from one end to the other) to see what else there was to see. We went to the light house and walked around and read the signs, but decided to defer the guided tour and climb up the lighthouse till another day.
We then went to the downtown area and walked around, partially just to tour and partially to find a place to eat and have a drink. We didn't find any place that suit our fancy, and I remembered seeing a few other restaurants farther down Ocean Drive, so we headed off. Those restaurants turned out to not be what we had in mind either, so we headed back toward downtown. I dropped Jeanie off at a restaurant named Mullet Bay and I headed over to the quick stop to buy myself some Excedrin. I have found that nothing is as effective in relieving the symptoms of a headache for me as Excedrin. It turned out that the Menu at Mullet Bay had some interesting possibilities, so we decided to eat there. What Jeanie had really wanted was a fried shrimp appetizer with remoulade sauce. What got her in the mood for this was a sample we had tasted at one of the restaurants downtown. Unfortunately, when we had gone into that restaurant, it looked a bit sleazy, the service was slow, and the only offered the shrimp as a full meal. While Mullet Bay had some shrimp appetizers, they didn't have a fried shrimp appetizer on the menu. Usually, I am the shy one who doesn't make special requests and Jeanie is the one who isn't hesitant. For some reason, on this particular day, we switched roles. I told the waitress that what Jeanie really wanted was a fried shrimp appetizer. The waitress informed us that while there wasn't one on the menu, they did in fact offer one, although not with a remoulade sauce. I wasn't that hungry, so we ended up ordering the shrimp and a Vidalia onion rings appetizer, which came with a spicy horseradish dipping sauce for us to share. Jeanie had also asked for some ranch dressing as a dip. When the food arrived, I had another inspiration - I suggested trying to mix the horseradish dipping sauce with the ranch dressing. It turned out to be very similar to the remoulade sauce at the other place and was quite tasty!
I should mention that there was one other thing that Jeanie was in the mood for - a fruity tropical frozen adult beverage. What Jeanie really wanted was a banana daiquiri like we had on our honeymoon in Jamaica - one made with real bananas and ice cream. Unfortunately, all the restaurant could offer was either a peach or banana drink made with Island Breeze mix. I lobbied for the banana and Jeanie demurred. Sadly, Jeanie wasn't too crazy about the drink, but happily, I was. Between the Excedrin, the food and the drink, by the end of lunch I was feeling much better.
After lunch, with Jeanie at the wheel, we headed off to visit the local airport - Malcolm Mc Kinnon Airport (KSSI). I had been to the airport once on a recent night cross country, but had never been in the terminal/FBO building. It is a very nice facility with both a Hertz and Avis rental counter, a pilot briefing room, a pilot rest lounge, clean bathrooms and even a small pilot store.
After I got my fill of the airport, we realized that it was now after 2:00pm so we headed back up to Christ Church. Not only did we get to see the inside of the church, but we got a wonderful tour / history from the docent.
After leaving the church, we decided to go visit neighboring Sea Island, but we didn't get very far as we didn't realize until we got there that visitors and sightseers are not permitted as the entire island is accessible only to homeowners, club members and guests of the resort.
By this time we were both ready to head home, so we did.
Overall, we had a lovely day.
I was very taken with St. Simons. I found it to be much more of what I think Fernandina should be. I found the downtown area to be more inviting than downtown Fernandina and found the island itself to be more accessible, attractive and interesting. St. Simons appears to embrace visitors, yet doesn't seem "tacky" like some tourist destinations can be. Fernandina on the other hand seems to resent visitors (and airplanes) and seems determined to hold on to its blue collar mill town heritage - even if it kills it. Jeanie felt that downtown Fernandina was more quaint, cleaner and had a better selection of interesting / good restaurants and bars, although she did agree that the island was lovely and hospitable.
PS. As a note, I had trouble deciding which site to use for the main St. Simons link at the top of the entry, as none of them were exactly what I was looking for. Other sites that also seemed interesting included http://www.gacoast.com/ssi.html which I think is the best of the general sites, http://www.saintsimons.com/ which is not very pretty, but seems to have good content, http://www.explorestsimonsisland.com/ and http://www.stsimonsguide.com/ which both seem like they may be a bit ad biased, and http://www.world66.com/northamerica/unitedstates/georgia/stsimonsisland which is has good short summary information, but a bit light on detailed content.
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Posted by David at September 04, 2007 10:00 AM