July 10 - Trek to the Lighthouse

AAt the top of Tybee Lighthouse

– Ah, the joy of sleeping in! I made grits for me and eggs for Bill and we had our fruit, turkey bacon and juice to get the day rolling. Once we showered we headed to Tybee Island to visit the lighthouse. We stopped at a gas/mart for a Sunday paper since we wouldn’t be making our normal Sunday trip to McDonald’s. My tooth didn’t hurt all night but I had put 2 aspirin on it before bed so was glad to get a decent night’s sleep.

Lighthouse and Keeper's
House

When I told the lighthouse people that we were volunteers at Ft. Pulaski they let us in for free. It’s not one of the places on the passes we have from the fort so that was a nice perk. Bill had not planned to go up in it with me, but I asked if he’d go to the second level and just look out. He ended up going to the top, all 178 steps but he didn’t spend much time at the top outside. He’s really not good with heights and lasted long enough for someone to take our pictures, so hope it at least turned out good. He was chatting with the guy on duty when I finally got back down. I took lots of video and photos and took my time. When I came down we toured the lighthouse keeper’s house and then spent some time in the gift shop cooling off. The keeper’s house was really nice. It’s a 2-story with two huge bedrooms upstairs and another one downstairs. They did a nice job with restoring it all.

House built on the bunker

Across the street from the lighthouse is their museum in the bunkers of Ft. Screvens that was built for the Spanish American War. The museum covered the use of the fort as well as the history of Tybee Island. It was pretty interesting. The really strange thing is the entire fort was sold to the city of Savannah Beach who sold it to various people and/or companies who continued to break it into smaller parcels. Savannah Beach later became Tybee Island. A lot of the bunkers were not torn down but now have condos built right up to them and some have been turned into houses and one had a second floor added and is now owned by the Shriners. By the time we finished there and went up and down those stairs, I had jelly legs for sure.

We went home to have lunch, rest and cool off so around 4 we headed in the other direction. We went to Wal-mart so I could get some water shoes since the ones I had and didn’t use for 3-4 years dry rotted and fell apart the first time I used them. We plan to kayak to the lighthouse and will need them then. Then we picked up more photos I had printed at Walgreens and Bill dropped me at Kroger while he took the truck and vacuumed it. It was after 6 when we got home and I did some pasta and chicken simmered in seasoned diced tomatoes and we had a squash medley again.

After dinner we walked Xena then did a 3+ miles bike ride. The deer count tonight was 25. I made a small peach crisp and Bill cleaned up the kitchen and we settled in to watch tv, journal and read some before bed.