The Strangest Thing Happened this Morning...

...On the way to breakfast.

I came upstairs this morning, and Waz said..."Let's go out to Breakfast on the Island".  The Island is St Simon's Island where we had found a restaurant that serves Eggs Benedict. Well, not just any Eggs Bene, but CRAB CAKES Eggs Bene! woohoo!

One small problem. We never got there...to the restaurant, that is. By the time we got out the door, it was going on 10am! Yes, well, time flies when you are retired! We have so much to do, don't you know!!:)...like get up, have coffee, get dressed, open the fly deck windows to let what little airflow there is, to flow inside...water the plants (which, by the way, are going great guns since I started using a bucket to water them...they need MORE water! in this heat)..so...

We made the trip to The Island. It took a bit longer to get where we intended...well, as we never got there...but I digress yet again!...

...because I took the left hand turn instead of going straight head, which would have meant we ended up in the Historic District  half an hour early.

Instead we took that half hour to look at things we had missed last time we visited....mainly the trees overhanging the road...gorgeous, and so grateful for the shade and cooler temps underneath them.

Finally, we arrived at the Del Sur bakery and coffee shop. This wasn't our intention, but somehow we came back???? We ordered two of their lovely lattes and he had a ham and cheese croissant and I ordered a blueberry bagel with plain cream cheese. Delish, and probably the best bagel I have ever eaten. It didn't sit like a rock in the pit of my stomach! We still felt a little hungry, but decided to wait for lunch, whenever that might be. Breakfast was relatively inexpensive, so we felt ok about ordering lunch somewhere.
In the meantime, we decided to go local. This meant looking for a beach and the ocean.
The water was too deep and not enough beach were available to walk along at the first place we found, but we did go to the top of the step and take in the view. Those are granite boulders that have been placed there by the county to curb the receding beach in front of the houses along the bay.

We wondered how this white convolvulus survived the extreme heat on the hot white sand??

 Left the car in the small parking space before climbing over the hot white sand dunes to the long Atlantic beach.

 We had to literally run across the sand without our shoes on. Ok,,we could have put our shoes ON, and we did on the return, but I hate wearing wet and sandy shoes/sandals.

 The distortion in this photo is indicative of the extreme heat, yesterday. We were told this morning, that it was 97F at noon! it sure felt like it out of the onshore breeze and if we stood still for too long.

 This little egret was being very successful in his fishing in the warm (hot really) shallow pools.

 Waz made it to the shore line long before me!

 Colorful child's play just abandoned. No kids in sight!

We had driven past the huge public parking lot, some beach exits back, and this is obviously where all those folks were.

Otherwise, the beach was empty of souls. We were glad to walk for a mile or more up and back, and enjoyed walking in the shallows to keep cool. Next time we will plan better and have our swim suits in the car at the ready.

If we lived here, we would be out there every morning having a swim, I think...around 6am, tho!

Of course we found a Realty book with lots of homes for sale and set the GPS to the different addresses and did lots of discovering on the island by way of the homes for sale. We went places most people wouldn't know exist.

This lovely beach-side home was literally a stones throw from where we parked the car. There is a golf cart sized lane in front of the house that runs along between the front row and second tier homes

These luxury condos are right behind the shops in Historic St Simons

We went ot of our way to find this home for sale. It looked like mother nature had taken over, rather, but the huge trees were necessary, in the heat.

 This place we came across by accident...mostly because I couldn't turn around, so we just went around the road a bit to find a turn around place. She is empty and I was brave enough (or stupid) to go and read what the paper attached to the front door said. Waz just tried phoning the realtor! lol.

 The home has a large swimming pool out back, which looked very inviting to us.


This scene is typical for the Island. These HUGE Live Oaks grow everywhere and shade everything. Because the place is so tropical, plants and trees grow huge. Mother nature appeared to have taken back what was hers, in places, so overgrown was the foliage.

I don't normally like blousy pink in this kind of profusion, but this crepe Myrtle is stunning. Such huge heads!

 Fabulous!

By 12.30 we were hungry again, so we stopped off at Del Sur, the Restaurant. These eateries are owned by the same folks, who are Argentinian. We were not impressed by the food, in particular. The service, while friendly and smiling, was lacking any kind of professionalism. The food was put together by a Grill Cook (she says disparagingly!)...I know this because the tomatoes still had their cores in (salad) and the lemons still had pips in them. I ordered the Calamari appetizer, which was ok, but the pomodoro sauce was way too spicy. You don't want to drown the delicate flavor of the calamari, in my opinion.
Waz ordered the chicken sandwich (which he usually does) with Steak Fries. Chunky fries served with ketchup.:( They might have been a bit more original , for the price.

We wont be back! We tried the Crab Shack down the road first, but they were closed until 5pm, so it looks like we will need to go back there towards dinner time:)

More house hunting after lunch, and then we just got plain tired of driving around the island, and came back to the boat. Waz got the idea that we should go out to see a house he likes the idea of, north of here, so we did that after a dinner of Cauliflower /mushroom risotto with Tonkatsu (pork in panko and shallow fried).

So, as the sun  was about 20 degrees above the horizon, we took off with the GPS telling us where to go. We found the home, and lo and behold, someone had turned the hose on in the pool, and now it was overflowing. We called the realtor and volunteered to turn it off. ...how convenient! This meant we had to park and go take a look around....as you do! We weren't sorry. We now have an appointment with the realtor to take a look at the INSIDE of the house, at 2pm. :) We cant buy just now, but we can look.

The home fronts onto the gorgeous marshes and has HUGE potential on the outside with 1.77 acres with HUGE trees and a 25 x 25 ft workshop, and separate two car garage.  The only drawback to the house is...well, one of the many drawbacks to the house....is that there is over 4,000 sq. ft! aiee! Who needs that kind of acreage in a home?? not I!

Nothing like talking to the neighbors to get the scuttlebutt! They are usually very forthcoming, when it comes to gossiping about the neighbors, and the folks we spoke to last night gave us the history of the house as they know it! Interesting!

Well, that wasn't the end of the house hunting for the day. While we were out, Waz decided we needed to go and find another one he had on THE LIST. We finally found it down some rabbit hole near the local airport. This is a place you would not know existed...we twisted and turned around old growth trees on an unpaved road. Pretty place, if it wasn't so sinister looking in the near dark. I had full lights on, by this time:) We decided that was too much money for our liking, and wayyyy too far out in the wops.

Well, at least the rest of the evening was uneventful!

We had sat up top on the fly deck to have our dinner, and out back in the comfy chairs to have the dessert of mango and fresh berries..yum! before Waz wanted to go house hunting in the near dark. That end of the day cooling off is lovely, until the insects start their feasts.

Today is hot...we have been told to expect temps in the 100's. It is hard to know what to do with the self when it is that hot. Stay inside in the airconditioing? bah! Too confining! Now you know why we go out and about in the car...it is COOOOOOL!

Anyway...I am off to get some lunch and prepare a shopping list. We are almost out of fresh produce and the farmers market is on all day, across the way.

Ciao for now.