JULIETTE, GEORGIA

Going up to Atlanta to have stitches taken out of my eye, we stopped by Juliette.

No, not as in Romeo and Juliet. The town Juliette. You know! The place where they filmed Fried Green Tomatoes.

I must confess I never saw the entire movie, but the town--more like a wide place in the road--seems to still be a draw. Even though we were there on a Thursday, a few tourists hung around looking at the stores (all 6-8- of them!) of which only one gift shop was open.

The restaurant was also open. In fact, the Whistle Stop Cafe was busy despite it being two thirty in the afternoon.

One booth was open and I slid in. While my guy was off taking photographs*, I ate...What else? Fried green tomatoes!

In front of the stores, we came upon some guinea hens, pecking away at their food. They weren't skittish but didn't let us get too close.

There were other buildings that my guy took pix of: a smokehouse, an outhouse, the old bank building, the old mill...Here's the Opry House.

And as we were leaving, guess what came rumbling right by the parking lot of the cafe! A train!

The perfect end to our visit!

*Please don't mistake this photos for any my guy took! These were taken with my phone and he assures me they look like they were taken with a phone!

LOCAL SCENE

We've been under the weather a few days. Ventured out today but didn't walk down to the Village. Instead, we drove down, sat in the sun, and walked around the lighthouse before driving back.

When we got there, the new tour trolley was sitting waiting for customers.

For years, there was only one tour on the island. It's been around for years. In fact, there's a quote on its side from Eugenia Price: "I highly recommend the ... Trolley tour." And she's been dead forever!

Well, a year or so ago, it got some competition. Now there's one you can call and reserve, that a lot of wedding parties use. And just recently, we got another one. The Colonial Island Trolley tour. This one bills itself as the only air conditioned, wheel-chair accessible trolley tour on the island.

The thing is, this latest one comes into the Village right before the old trolley. We got there after ten, when the new one is supposed to leave. It was still waiting. Here is is:

Then, we saw the new trolley come wheeling in. Look at the end of the cars on the right and you can see it:

It's supposed to come at ten thirty and leave at eleven. Anyway, it parked in its place and waited for customers:

But the new trolley had scooped up a bunch of people and was off. I bet the old trolley owners are steaming at having business stolen out from under them. Today it wasn't too bad. There were several people who waited especially to go on the old trolley. But I bet some days, people get on the new trolley thinking it's the only one.

Ah, the woes of small business owners.

AFTER THE FOURTH

We hung out on the Fourth of July and mostly stayed in, away from all the people on the island. It's only twelve miles long but it was packed with tourists and other visitors for the weekend.

We had 800 entrants in the annual 5k run/1k walk they hold every year. I thought they started at seven a.m. and would be through by our usual walk time. Nope. We went out, ran into them, had to stand back while men, women, mothers pushing jogging strollers, fathers running with kids, and what looked like a couple of military squads from one of the nearby forts (One had the sergeant running along singing cadence, poor guy!) rushed by.

We finally caught a break, got through them, and walked on down the road. To the park where the finish line was. Naturally, the whole group came up just as we got there so we had to wait again.

But we did finally make it to village and the Sunshine Festival held in conjunction with the other Fourth activities. Here are a few pix of this arts and crafts fair held in the park:

These are some of the sidewalk tents. We got there as they were getting ready to open so not too many people were around, thank goodness.

This artist booth puts it up front on his sign. Buy his paintings now while you can still afford him!

Don't know if you can tell much about them, but the greenish figures are those of a sailor at the wheel and (on the right) the pirate captain peering through his spyglass.  Made me want to cackle and say, "Argggh, my hearties!"

After that, we came home and stayed inside. It was hot and traffic was horrible and there was no way we were going to venture out, not even for the fireworks display. After all, we could hear it from our house!

On the whole, a pretty nice day.

TREE

A friend came to visit and we were out doing touristy stuff. On the way up to Fort King George, we stopped at Hofyl-Broadfield plantation. This was a rice plantation that remained in the same family for five generations though a lot of the land was sold off when rice became too unprofitable. Still they stuck with it until 1913, when the family turned to dairy farming to save their land.  In the 1970's, the youngest daughter of the last family to occupy it (a spinster) died, and she willed it to the state of Georgia. They're making it into a rather nice park, with a walking trail and visitors center added to the main house and outbuildings. The museum has paintings and photographs and a film that tells about its history.

One interesting thing about the place is that the house is filled with eighteenth and nineteenth century things as well as more modern furnishings. All original to the house. Seems the family never threw anything away, just shifted it up to the attic. A guide takes you through and points out things like the chair Miss Ophelia, the last descendent, died in. He also tells stories. Like the chandelier given the family by the noted du Ponts, friends of Miss Ophelia's. (She was evidently a gadabout in her youth who went to Europe and other places as a guest of her wealthier friends.) She disliked the chandelier so much that she only put it up when the du Ponts visited. As soon as they left, she had it taken down and stored till their next visit.

And the grounds are wonderful. The house faces the old rice field--marshes--and is surrounded by large old trees with Spanish moss hanging from them. A lovely place for festivals and other celebrations the Friends of Hofyl-Broadfield put on to raise money for its maintenance and care.

Here's a photo I snapped. It's one of the largest live oaks I've ever seen and it stands near the house. You can kind of see its size by the person standing under it. If you ever travel near Hofyl-Broadfield, be sure and stop in. Wear your walking shoes, because it's a ten minute hide from the visitors center to the house.

MORNING WALK

Took our walk this morning even though the temp was in the fifties!!! Brrr! We were a little late because we waited for it to warm up, so the tour van was parked by the pier waiting for a load of tourists.

Notice the two flags, American and English on it. That's because Oglethorpe, who founded Georgia before the Revolutionary War, used us as an outpost to keep the Spanish away from Savannah. We did the job nicely, fending them off with the Battle of Bloody Marsh in 1742.

The name is rather misleading since only seven Spaniards died during this battle along with one English defender from heatstroke. I always figured it for a massacre!

If you look closely under the blue pavilion left of the middle, you can see a ship anchored in the sound. I have no idea what this ship is doing but it's been here for over a week. Sometimes ships anchor there when their cargo hasn't reached the port; they don't have to pay port/mooring fees except for when they actually receive their loads. Maybe that's what it's doing. Anyway, here's a little better picture of it as it skulks around.

TRAVELS

Took a day off last week and went up to Anna Ruby Falls near Helen. We stopped at the Cleveland McDonald's to grab a biscuit and they have the cutest display of Cabbage Patch Kid dolls! Guess it's 'cause Babyland General, their 'birthing' place is located here. Maybe you can see something from my phone pix.

And then on to the falls! They're gorgeous. Although the photo makes them look like three waterfalls, they're actually twins, separating at the top and falling below into two distinct falls before merging back together.

TOURISTS

On our usual walk down to the Village, we found tourists out and about.

We sat down on the pier to enjoy the breeze and, with the tide out, a beach view. As we watched, several people got down over the rocks put out to discourage swimmers. It took a while for them to get down, but once down, they conferred with others already on the beach. Then three started climbing back up the rocks and disappeared for a few minutes. When they came back, I got my camera out.

As you can see, the last one is still making a careful way down. However, if you look, there are steps not very many yards up the beach. In the same amount of time, they could have walked up and made a much less hazardous descent. And swam with less fear of rip currents.

Maybe they liked the challenge. Or maybe they didn't notice the steps and the NO SWIMMING sign.

Over on Jekyll

We went over to Jekyll Island yesterday and walked Driftwood Beach. Met a couple from Cornwall who had exchanged houses with a family on Jekyll. They were totally delighted with Driftwood Beach and kept saying they'd never seen anything like it. In fact they were totally delighted with everything, from the American breakfasts to even the hot sun (95 degrees with a heat index of 105 yesterday). I hope our American tourists are this pleasant when they're in other countries.

And later, we saw a ship leaving Brunswick port. They come so close to Jekyll Pier, it's almost as if they're about to run over it.

Lovely day.