Adventures in Amelia

Hello again everyone!

Welcome to another exciting installment of Risé's adventures where this time I'll be telling you all about my recent trip to Atlanta, GA (brief as it was) and sunny Amelia Island, FL (woo hoo for Amelia!). I have to apologize for getting this one going so late... but as the time for me to go back to PA approaches, I find myself not sitting in front of my computer as often and rather spending time in front of the computer with my parents and sister right beside me (but that's another story).

Where do I begin? I arrived in Atlanta on August 3rd and Julie came in the following day after much strife involving US Airways and Delta. Thanks again to Delta to getting my friend there safe and sound, although it was a rather late hour when she arrived. I wish now I would have taken a picture of her as she came up the escalator, but I bet she wouldn't have appreciated it given the night she had trying to actually get to Atlanta. We actually left for Amelia on that following Saturday (that's the 6th to those of you who are numerically and date-oriented).

Julie and I laugh about how long it actually took us to get there... but perhaps that's because there were stops like these involving ice cream cones (DQ rocks!) and boiled "p-nuts" (not my spelling, but what many of the signs on the side of the road said. Although, if you look at the picture on this one... you will notice that I think this one was actually spelled as most people know it.

Anyhoo... we did eventually make it to "sunny" Florida (which didn't seem all that accurate given that it rained the whole drive down there!) and I even managed to get a picture under the "Welcome to Florida" sign! (Thanks again to Mary Guill's outstanding photographer skills on that one!) Even though the weather was a little uncooperative, I still managed to get what I think are really beautiful pics of the beach, and really-- can you complain about the weather on your first day when you really aren't ready to lay out and become a beach bum? Although the forecast called for rain for most of our week, we were still very fortunate that the weather cooperated with us and allowed us to almost all become very very tan (which you will see in later pics)!

Although laying out at the beach was a lot of fun, that's not all we managed to do there! We took in a day at Fernandina Beach and then thanks to Natalie's brilliant tourist-activity-finding-skills, we were able to spend an entire day at Cumberland Island!

There was lots to see an we had a great and LONG visit there. Turns out that this island was home to Gen. Robert E. Lee's family (his father Henry was originally buried there before being moved to Arlington's National Cemetary which I found out was also Robert's former plantation before the Union decided to take it over as a cemetary out of spite), a lot of the Carnegie's (yes, that would be THE famous Carnegie and his family), and that apparently JFK Jr. was married on this island as well. So, obviously... there is a lot of history and old ghosts probably wandering around sites such as these. Another interesting part of this island is that there are tons of wild animals running around! Apparently, the Carnegie's used to own a bunch of horses... which were all set free upon the last owner's death. So, here are some of the animals that we saw on Cumberland Island: wild horses, wild turkeys, some horseshoe crabs, gulls, other little birds and A SNAKE. Now granted, it was probably no more than a little garden snake... but, Natalie and I still screamed like we thought it was a major rattler! (lol) I know I know, I'm such a girl. There was also some excellent plant life... magnificent trees and the like. In fact, we(me, Natalie and Warren) liked the trees so much... we ended up hanging out in one for a while!

The week passed by super quick and before we knew it, it was time for the dinner out... which took place this year at B.A. Pig. It was lots of fun and the shrimp was actually pretty good! I know there must be many many more elements of this trip that took place that I am forgetting to recall, I know there was a ton of time spent on the beach getting sun and then of course we spent a little time in Fernandina Beach and hit a surf shop or two. Once we got back into Atlanta, it was pretty much recovery time... as I had to leave back for Lubbock on Monday.

All in all... it was truly a wonderful Amelia Island vacation!