Jekyll Island (from A's Perspective)

From A:

I know that J also has a Jekyll Island post planned, so here's my version of the trip.  Hopefully it will sound like we were on the same trip together, because we really were!  Here's photo evidence to prove it:

In my opinion, Jekyll Island is the way an island should be.  Only about 30% of the island has been built on, and even when buildings have been constructed, the beach areas have remained as intact as possible.  Take our hotel, for example.  The hotel was on the beach, but not right on it.  The buffer of natural vegetation on the beach dunes is still there (we saw some deer in the buffer one night - the first time I've seen deer on a beach), and the hotel built a long boardwalk for access to the water:
 

So we couldn't see the ocean from our balcony, but we could hear it... which was a wonderful thing to wake up to, and made for some beautiful natural scenery:

Of course, the island hasn't been protected from overbuilding just because people like it that way.  It's owned by Georgia and run by its state park system, which bought the area for $675,000 following World War II.  By then, Florida had become the new fashionable vacation spot for America's wealthiest families.  The families who had previously vacationed on Jekyll Island included those of such familiar names as J.P. Morgan, William Rockefeller, Vincent Astor, Joseph Pulitzer, William K. Vanderbilt.  The families were part of the Jekyll Island Club, which is still open as a hotel... an incredibly beautiful one (and one where people still play croquet on the front lawn - really!):

Many of the families also built their own cottages surrounding the club area.  We were able to tour a couple of the cottages, which have been fully restored and furnished:

So back to the beach.  Being the pale people we are, we went to the beach in the evenings as the sun was going down.  There were a few people on the beach near our hotel's boardwalk, but it was never very crowded:

The rest of the island wasn't overcrowded either.  We always found parking wherever we wanted to go, we saw familiar faces around the island, and there really wasn't much traffic on the roads.  Talk about a relaxing vacation!  We even found some "good eats" on the island.  I know J will include details in his blog post which should be sometime soon!