Travel: Ft. McAllister SP; Tybee Island; Savannah

For Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Georgia to meet up with a group of friends from Florida.  Originally planning to camp at Crooked River SP, we ended up going to Ft. McAllister SP, about 35min south of Savannah. The park is similar to most of Florida/Georgia coastal parks in that it's near a marshy area, is covered with palms and pines, and the campsites are mostly wooded with oak trees.

On Friday we spent time with A. and J. around the campfire, catching up and relaxing.

Saturday morning, E. and K. arrived with magazines and more things to catch up.  After a very short hike and consuming mass amounts of water (it was so hot!), we enjoyed BBQ chicken and pineapple with baked beans for dinner.  Yum!

Sunday morning we all headed to Tybee Island for a day at the beach.  Me, being me, did not check any weather reports before we left.  My mom, aka Dick Fletcher, texted me so I'd know what was up.

Mom: R u on the beach
Mom: There is a subtropical storm headed for the coastline of sc ga and florida bad winds and rain
Me: Yeah we're by savannah

Mom: R u camping  the winds r up to 50 mph and rain 5 to 8 inches  rain flash floods warnings and rip tides
Mom: Tropical storm warning center of storm expected to hit sunday dangerous surf from florida to nc with high tides

Right before leaving for the beach, E. checked her news report and the day before 14 people had to be rescued on Tybee Island due to rip currents pulling them far from shore.

Whatevs, we got this.

So we went to Tybee Island and it was actually quite beautiful out -- full sun, in the 70s.  Once we got to the other side of the sand dunes it was another story. Not sure how high the wind gusts were, but I personally have never been at the beach in winds so high. We moved closer to the shore so the sting of the sand flying at us wouldn't hurt so bad.  For four hours we watched the lifeguards patrol up and down the beach telling everyone to get out the water. The surf was crazy and at times was moving parallel to shore instead of away from it.  After three hours, we darted in up to our knees to play in the water. It was fun wrestling the waves! (We are idiots.)

After cleaning up, we headed into Savannah to walk about Forsyth Park and eat dinner at Crystal Beer Parlor. I so love Savannah and it's wonderful to see others learn to love it, too.












The subtropical storm finally caught up with us and that night we tried to stay dry in the tent (E. and K. were the unlucky ones).  It's not often that I wake up around 6:00am on a day off, but sure enough I did Monday.  We cleaned up the site, had a breakfast buffet at Sunshine Restaurant in Richmond Hill, and said our goodbyes.

On our way home, J. and I stopped at Tanger Outlets for some unplanned shopping.  It was actually pretty fun considering neither of us particularly enjoy shopping, especially clothes shopping.  We had our traditional Monday meal at Moe's, and it was while there that the subtropical storm again caught up with us.  We ran back to our cars, unpacked, and showered. Fully medicated with ibuprofen and slathered with equal parts aloe and hydrocortisone, we settled back in our comfy couches and consumed pineapple-strawberry-almond milk smoothies while watching our nightly episode of SVU.

How was your Memorial Day weekend?