It feels good to be traveling again. We headed north from St. Simons back to Athens, Georgia, where our son and daughter-in-law live. We picked up our generator and some other things we had stashed there, ate like kings (or pigs, depending on your point-of-view), and then turned around and headed back to the Georgia coast. This time, our destination was Skidaway Island State Park, just southeast of Savannah.
Skidaway takes reservations, but not for specific sites, just the category of site—full-hookups or water and electric only. There were no full-hookup reservations available when we made ours, but we arrived early and snagged a full-hook up site that had just opened up. I believe we had the best site in the park. Enormous, level, relatively private–it was one of our favorite campsites of the trip.
Although Skidaway is an island, the state park is in the coastal forest bordering the marsh and there is no beach. Most of the campground sites are large, overhung by live oaks, bordered by palmettos, and alive with birds. 
It has a series of trails, from a half-mile to three miles, which made for lovely daily exercise. 
Lots of birds, not too many people, campfires at night, a full moon rising through the trees—as I said, it felt good to be in our little trailer world again.
The park has a small interpretative center with information on the area’s history—natural and otherwise. As I walked through it, trying to quiet the thwack-thwack of my flip-flips so as not to interrupt the Ranger’s talk on poisonous snakes from the room next door, I heard her say, “Whatever you do, don’t walk the trails with sandals or flip-flops.” No problem, I headed out on the trails fully shod, ankles sprayed with bug dope, so that no snakes or ticks would get near me. 
The interpretative center had a bird feeder out back.
This cardinal kept attacking its reflection in the interpretative center’s window
We headed into Savannah one day, but it was too cold and windy to even get out of the car for more than a few minutes. 
We parked and tried to walk around but didn’t get much past the parking lot with the hearse ghost tours. Still, even a drive around Savannah is interesting. Its historic district is a maze of beautiful old homes and shaded squares, with some grittiness interspersed and around the edges. 
The river waterfront’s warehouses have been converted to restaurants and tourist shops. It gave me the deja-vu-ish feeling that I have had in several gorgeous old waterfront towns that now have look alike tourist businesses–Lahaina, Provincetown, Savannah, Wilmington–as if I’ve been on these streets before, but with a slight shift in light, background, and smell. They are becoming too much the same.
We did not have any expectations for Skidaway. We changed our travel plans in Athens, deciding that we wanted to head back to the coast in hopes of warmer weather. So, we booked Skidaway at the last minute, knowing little about it. It was a good decision. Despite the one cold day, the weather was pretty nice. And the campground, which seems like a serene, woodsy oasis, is only about fifteen minutes from Savannah. We loved it.
