Georgia - Day 1 - to St. Marys

Jacksonville North/St. Marys KOA, St. Marys

Wednesday, 1 March 2023

today's route

Google said it would only take me an hour and twelve minutes to drive from Starke, FL, to St. Marys. GA, so I didn't bother to get on the road until 9:00.

Just as well I was awake because I was the only one on the road that obeyed the speed limit.

For some reason I couldn't figure out, there was a long line of semis parked beside the road on US-301 just before it joined I-10.

We drove straight on through Jacksonville, this time on I-95, and in 30 miles we got to the Georgia border.  On the Florida side, there was an agriculture inspection station with another long line of semis waiting.

Then:  Welcome to Georgia.

       We're Glad That Georgia's On Your Mind!

Just as a side note: The song Georgia On My Mind was adopted as the official state song in 1979.  Six weeks before adoption, Ray Charles (born in Georgia) performed the song before a joint session of the Georgia Legislature.  (As a side side note: It was written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell, friends at University of Indiana.  After hearing Carmichael play a new tune he'd written, Gorrell stayed up all night to write lyrics for it, then went on to become a banker, with this as his first and only time writing song lyrics.  Apparently neither of them had a connection with Georgia then.)

Georgia - my 46th state

The Georgia Welcome Center was at the first exit, so we stopped for a break and so I could look at tourist information.

I was pleased to see that Georgia bucked the trend to put all information about state parks online.  Apparently in this state, at least, they understand that internet signals aren't always available in the remote areas where state parks are located.  So I picked up that pamphlet and several others about various places and events.

One of those was a self-guided tour of St. Marys historic trees.  By the way, the town is named St. Marys without an apostrophe; it's named after the St. Marys River, also without an apostophe.  Wikipedia says it's because "the US Board on Geographic Names discourages the use of apostrophes in place names."  I guess we've all got our quirks. 

St. Marys River, as another by the way, begins at the Okefenokee Swamp, becomes the border between GA and FL as it heads straight south, then back north again and empties into the Atlantic Ocean between the town of St. Marys, GA, and Fernandina Beach, FL. 

There was a road going directly to town from the welcome center's parking lot, so that's what we took.  On the way we passed a turn labeled for Kings Bay Submarine Base.  I don't equate submarines with Georgia so I looked it up and learned how wrong I was.  Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay (it's located in Kings Bay) is the home port for the US Navy's ballistic missile submarines that are capable of firing Trident nuclear weapons.  So there.

Our first stop was a dog park I found online; finding it in person was harder to do, but we did it.  Dext followed his current pattern of showing great interest in any available dogs - for the first 20 seconds - and then wandering around sniffing things.  But I'm glad to give him the chance to do both those things off the leash.

From there it was a short drive to the heart of the town: St Marys Waterfront Park.

The "waterfront park" is correctly named.  The city has nice swings
along the waterfront, and several people were using them.
That sailboat you can just see was docking when I took this.

This is the view facing the other way - a 
combination of fishing boats and pleasure boats.

Photo taken with my back to the waterfront.
A close-up of the fountain is below.

A contingent of crows was taking a bath when
we walked up, but they didn't pose for a picture.

It was a pleasant park but not very large, so Dext and I ran out of places to walk before we were ready to stop.  Nearby we found something unusual.

This is a tide clock - see plaque below.

I was sorry this didn't explain how the
clock worked.

That tide clock is 7' or 8' tall, and I couldn't quite figure out how it worked or what it was telling me, except that it was nearer high tide than low tide.  But what's that small white hand for?  Anyway, online it says that they track the moon's path around the earth, so high tide's based on the moon's strongest position of pull.

I'd planned to park in the lot for visitor parking for Cumberland Island National Seashore, expecting to learn something about this place that's so extolled as a tourist destination.  Actually, I couldn't fit in the spaces so we parked on the street nearby.  And unfortunately, I hadn't armed myself with enough information to even find the visitor center - I was looking for it 2 blocks from where it is.  

What I've learned since is that Cumberland Island is accessible only by ferry, which leaves from St. Marys not far from where we stopped looking for it.  The only vehicles allowed on the island are bicycles, so of course the campground there doesn't accommodate RVs.  A shame, but nice to know we still have a few unspoiled places like that.

From there I drove around town a bit, trying to follow the map shown in the brochure for historic trees.  It was amazing how long it took me to figure out where we were in relation to that map, and then I was amazed that the historic trees didn't look any more impressive than the ones that were in my momma's back yard in Austin.  Almost all the trees on their list were oaks; the exceptions were some old pecan trees from the mid- or late 1800s, some sour orange trees that had been planted on an estate established in the 1830s; and a cedar that they called "elderly" without specifying how old.  All we could find easily were the oaks, many of which they say are "centenarian" trees.  Lots of trees in the town.

Our campground was about 8 miles from the center of town, and we were in our site at 2:40.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find any way to park that would make the RV sit level.  I called the office to see if there was an alternative, but they said they're completely booked for the night.  It seems odd for a Wednesday, but that's what they said.