Kayaking in a Salt Marsh

We spent one of our afternoons in Jekyll,  kayaking in a salt marsh. The 4-H Tidelands Nature Center offered 3 hour guided kayak tours which appealed to everyone in the family.

There was a little nature center at the Tidelands which we had visited the day before when we stopped by to make our kayak reservations. Here is a picture of the kids at the touch tank. 

Here's Hannah on dry land, all ready to kayak.  We had never kayaked before, so we chose to have 2 tandem kayaks rather than single ones.  There was one other family in our group. There kids were a bit older, so they all had single boats.

James & Chris listening to instructions. 

And they're off!

After we had kayaked for a while, our guide had us gather together so she could talk to us about the marsh ecology a bit. 

Our guide had us get some mud from the bottom of the river/marsh and put it on our faces.  The mud was likened to mud used in spa facials. Or so she told us.

Chris didn't put as much mud on his face. 

Hannah loves a good facial!  James refused to put any of the mud on his face.

There were tons of little creeks off of the river. Some where very narrow.  At one point, our guide split up the group by family and had us each take a different creek. Our creek became so narrow, we couldn't turn around, so we had to paddle backwards.

Here is one of the more narrow creeks.  At this point, we were still able to turn around.

 We stopped for a cool-down break. We were able to wash off the mud, too. Most of the adults stayed in the kayaks because we weren't sure how easy it would be to get back in the kayaks!

 Chris & James taking a paddle break. In our kayaks, the kids were in front and adults in the back.

We had a blast! Although we carefully sun screened before going, my thighs were sunburned.  There was a lot more room on the kayak than I thought there would be. Chris is already looking into more kayaking trips for us.

One Last Vacation Before School Starts

Chris & I had a wonderful anniversary trip to California in early June and the kids had a week at various Grandparents' houses, but we hadn't gone on any family vacations this summer. We didn't want to spend a whole lot of money, so we ruled out destinations that required flying. We narrowed it even further by deciding to go somewhere in our home state of Georgia. We then decided that it had to be someplace we had never been to before. I spent some time searching online and came up with Jekyll Island.

Jekyll Island is one of the Georgia barrier islands. It was a 5 1/2 hour drive from Powder Springs. It's not at all touristy like some vacation spots. The beaches were the most beautiful I had ever seen on the Atlantic side. My own experiences are a limited to Georgia and Florida on the Eastern coast. The sand was nice and soft, not made up of broken shells.

We arrived on Jekyll Island mid afternoon on Wednesday. We went directly to our hotel. We stayed at the Days Inn which is on the South Beach. There are just a handful of hotels on Jekyll Island. The Days Inn was pretty basic, but it met our needs. We are used to staying in beautiful condos that we get through my parents' timeshare, so the kids were a bit disappointed with our accommodations. We had 2 double beds, a deluxe continental breakfast, and a beach front location, so we were satisfied. 

Here is a picture of the hotel taken from the beach. For most of our vacation, it was never very crowded. It only got crowded on Saturday. The line of cars to get on the island that day was never ending!

One of the first things we did after checking into the hotel was to explore the beach. The kids have been to many different beaches, but this was the first time we had been to one in the summer. Usually we go around Thanksgiving time. The weather was hot, mid 90's, but there was always a nice breeze out on the beach.

Here's a different view of the hotel taken from one of the pools. 

After exploring our hotel and beach, we drove around the island for a little bit and found a beach front restaurant for dinner. We had a lovely dinner out on the deck overlooking the ocean.

We stayed on Jekyll for 4 nights. Since breakfast was included with our hotel, we went out for lunch and dinner each day. If we had stayed more than one more night, we would have had to repeat restaurants. There was only one chain restaurant and that was a Dairy Queen. We (Chris and I) ate lots of  "Wild Georgia Shrimp".  We had grilled shrimp, blackened shrimp, a Low Country boil, shrimp and grits, and much more.

Overall, we had a fantastic time on Jekyll Island. I will be posting separate blogs about some of the activities we did on our trip. We did too much to include in one entry!