I'm baaaack
All this weekend, I've been in South Georgia.
Saturday, I visited Cumberland Island. For those of you who don't know where that is, it's teh southernmost island on the Georgia Coast. With the exception of a few houses that were built before it became a park and public buildings on there for hikers and campers, it's undeveloped. It was saved from being another Hilton Head by three little old ladies, who turned it into national seashore. So, my family rented some bikes and we went up and up the main road. I had a very bad bike (the chain kept snapping off and I felt every bump on the road). We had lunch at an old house called Plum Orchard, which actually had a bunch of live oaks in its yard. From what I could see inside, it had a deep walk-in swimming pool and a nice big welcoming room. It was lovely, to say the least. We biked up further, then decided to bike down the beach (we thought we'd miss the ferry if we didn't). We crossed over the dunes and looked back. The dunes are humoungous on Cumberland. They were beautiful, and there was no one for miles, literally. Call me a goddamned longhair hippie pinko commie, but I absolutely hate what South Carolina has done to its barrier islands. We ran into a pelting-rain tree-splitting thunderstorm right as we got back to where we came from, so we didn't hesitate to take the earlier ferry.
The next day, we went to the Okefenokee. There were waterlillies everywhere, alligators, an otter I think I saw, and little yellow and purple flowers that might have been in the orchid family floating on pieces of floating mud, I suppose I could call it. We got lost and took a wrong turn down a boat path. We had intended to go down a paddling only trail that went through the big stretch of open we were trying to get to, but we saw said stretch anyway. I got a good arm workout, and it was absolutely gorgeous (dragonflies take care of the mosquitos, wouldn't you know?).
The final day (and this morning, for that matter) were spent in Savannah. Call my parents elitists, but they hate Myrtle Beach (not Pawleys Island by any stretch of the imagination, they love that, Hamilton!) and everything it stands for (so this is what it's like having activist anti-sprawl, semi-anti-corporate hippie envrionmentalists for parents). This is why they avoided River Street. However, all the squares were quite lovely. We tried to go to a tapas bar for dinner, but on my mum's birthday (July 1st), they had enacted a stupid law that said that no one under 18 was allowed in a restaurant that allowed smoking, even with parental consent and guidance and accompaniment. I felt kind of bad because I was the one who made them not be able to eat there...
Anyway, we had a nice run this morning. I had two cups of lovely tea, and then we got going. It was nice.
Here we go into the rant...be prepped.
I suppose I was born into the anti-sprawl movement with an environmentalist city-lover for a father and a british greenbelt-supporter for a mother. I guess it also has to do with the fact that I was raised in (and have a loving relationship with the woods of) the boondocks. I don't mean to offend anyone who lives in the suburbs, but I absolutely cannot stand the idea of living in them. Give me the city or give me the country, not a non-compromise between the two that's gradually becoming more and more cancerous to everything around it. My father's envrionmentalism rubbed off on me. If we keep on expanding suburbs, then our nation will be one of concrete and identical cookie-cutter houses and fat people in cars. I feel really worried. No one knows what a town is supposed to be anymore. I hate the 1950s now more than ever. That decade started it all. If we still had main streets and not malls and big boxes, we might not have as big a problem with the environment and ourselves as we do now. We fucked ourselves over when we all moved out of cities and spread ourselves out between towns until we didn't know where to say we lived and needed the government to tell us what city to put on our return address stamps. It's depressing. Sorry to sound misanthropic. If I did offend anyone, I'm very sorry.
Saturday, I visited Cumberland Island. For those of you who don't know where that is, it's teh southernmost island on the Georgia Coast. With the exception of a few houses that were built before it became a park and public buildings on there for hikers and campers, it's undeveloped. It was saved from being another Hilton Head by three little old ladies, who turned it into national seashore. So, my family rented some bikes and we went up and up the main road. I had a very bad bike (the chain kept snapping off and I felt every bump on the road). We had lunch at an old house called Plum Orchard, which actually had a bunch of live oaks in its yard. From what I could see inside, it had a deep walk-in swimming pool and a nice big welcoming room. It was lovely, to say the least. We biked up further, then decided to bike down the beach (we thought we'd miss the ferry if we didn't). We crossed over the dunes and looked back. The dunes are humoungous on Cumberland. They were beautiful, and there was no one for miles, literally. Call me a goddamned longhair hippie pinko commie, but I absolutely hate what South Carolina has done to its barrier islands. We ran into a pelting-rain tree-splitting thunderstorm right as we got back to where we came from, so we didn't hesitate to take the earlier ferry.
The next day, we went to the Okefenokee. There were waterlillies everywhere, alligators, an otter I think I saw, and little yellow and purple flowers that might have been in the orchid family floating on pieces of floating mud, I suppose I could call it. We got lost and took a wrong turn down a boat path. We had intended to go down a paddling only trail that went through the big stretch of open we were trying to get to, but we saw said stretch anyway. I got a good arm workout, and it was absolutely gorgeous (dragonflies take care of the mosquitos, wouldn't you know?).
The final day (and this morning, for that matter) were spent in Savannah. Call my parents elitists, but they hate Myrtle Beach (not Pawleys Island by any stretch of the imagination, they love that, Hamilton!) and everything it stands for (so this is what it's like having activist anti-sprawl, semi-anti-corporate hippie envrionmentalists for parents). This is why they avoided River Street. However, all the squares were quite lovely. We tried to go to a tapas bar for dinner, but on my mum's birthday (July 1st), they had enacted a stupid law that said that no one under 18 was allowed in a restaurant that allowed smoking, even with parental consent and guidance and accompaniment. I felt kind of bad because I was the one who made them not be able to eat there...
Anyway, we had a nice run this morning. I had two cups of lovely tea, and then we got going. It was nice.
Here we go into the rant...be prepped.
I suppose I was born into the anti-sprawl movement with an environmentalist city-lover for a father and a british greenbelt-supporter for a mother. I guess it also has to do with the fact that I was raised in (and have a loving relationship with the woods of) the boondocks. I don't mean to offend anyone who lives in the suburbs, but I absolutely cannot stand the idea of living in them. Give me the city or give me the country, not a non-compromise between the two that's gradually becoming more and more cancerous to everything around it. My father's envrionmentalism rubbed off on me. If we keep on expanding suburbs, then our nation will be one of concrete and identical cookie-cutter houses and fat people in cars. I feel really worried. No one knows what a town is supposed to be anymore. I hate the 1950s now more than ever. That decade started it all. If we still had main streets and not malls and big boxes, we might not have as big a problem with the environment and ourselves as we do now. We fucked ourselves over when we all moved out of cities and spread ourselves out between towns until we didn't know where to say we lived and needed the government to tell us what city to put on our return address stamps. It's depressing. Sorry to sound misanthropic. If I did offend anyone, I'm very sorry.