Trying to maintain a positive attitude, I hoped that the cold (sore throat, body aches, runny nose, all that fun stuff) would be short-lived and I spent all day Friday at work taking zinc tablets, drinking OJ and green tea, anything else I thought might help. I even came home on a two-hour break and took a short nap. Alas, short-lived it was not and by the end of the workday on Friday I was feeling less than sassy and up for a weekend of camping. However, I wanted to give it a shot so we finished packing the car when I returned home from work and set off for Jekyll (about an hour and a half), racing to get there before sunset so that we wouldn't have to set up our campsite in the dark.
We didn't make it before dark (of course, because that's how my luck was working that day) but thanks to the headlights from Gearry's car we were able to at least assemble the tent with a somewhat comfortable level of satisfaction that we had not done so in a nest of baby snakes or something equally as freaky. We hadn't yet bought wood to start a fire, so we just sat around in the lantern light for a little while before deciding to hit the sack. The following hours were some of the longest of my life. Between Gearry's indescribably loud snoring (I had forgotten my earplugs that I usually sleep with) and the fact that I could not breathe and felt, frankly, like a pile of poo, sleeping was nearly impossible. Gearry ended up heading to the car to sleep sometime during the middle of the night, but it didn't help much. I "awoke" with the sun, not sure that I had ever even fallen asleep.
Luckily, even after an awful night and even still feeling crummy, the beauty of the island and the excitement of the camping trip kept me going for most of Saturday. We took the dogs on a hike to Driftwood Beach --
-- and spent a couple of hours letting the dogs play on the beach, reading, and otherwise chilling. Zoey was adorable chasing any bird that dared cross her path. I have never seen her run so fast! The best was when she was concentrating so hard on chasing a flock that she didn't notice they had flown over the water and -- SPLASH! -- she crashed right into an oncoming wave, not even realizing she had run into the water.
After hiking back to the campground, I was absolutely exhausted from the combo of cold and no sleep, so we cooked some veggie hot dogs over the fire for lunch and then the puppies and I settled down for a nap while Gearry took a bike ride to the historic district to check out the Jekyll Island Club Hotel (originally built for the Pulitzers, Rockefellers, etc. and once the most exclusive social club in the U.S.) and the collection of late 1800s/early 1900s "cottages" (actually mansions) around it, built by some of the biggest names in our country's history (the previously listed Pulitzers, Rockefellers, as well as the Vanderbilts, J.P. Morgan, Henry Hyde, etc.). Later, when Gearry decided maybe he too would like a short nap, I took a bike ride as well and checked out some of the sights. Even though I brought three sets of rechargeable batteries for our digital camera, they all turned to be not-charged (duh) and so I only managed to get a few pictures of the trip and none of much else than our campsite and the beach. Next time we go, I'll try to get some of the historic district, as it's simple grandeur is hard to describe and better seen.
I thought the bike ride might help me sweat out some of the nastiness, but that was a big misconception. I felt way worse when I returned. We played it super low-key for the rest of the day, picking up a pizza and taking it, along with a cooler of refreshing beverages (that I am sure did nothing to help me feeling better in the long-term but seemed to help momentarily, if nothing else than to help me sleep) with us to the Clam Creek picnic area to watch the sunset. Afterward it was back to the site to build a fire, which we sat around for a couple of hours, enjoying some more beverages and listening to country music (because I think it's a law that you have to listen to country music while camping).
I slept slightly better on Saturday night. On Sunday morning we took the dogs for a long walk on the beach before coming back to the site to make a quick lunch and hop on the road to home.
All in all, I'm glad we went (the dogs had a blast, the island is amazing), but I'm hopping mad that I had to get sick and couldn't enjoy most of it. Gearry just felt bad for me all weekend and I could tell he was disappointed that I didn't feel up for much. We decided before we even left that we're going to try it again in a couple of weeks, hopefully healthy this time.
It's Monday night now and I'm starting to feel better. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way since this coming weekend is the long-anticipated PIRATE FEST on Tybee! We are so not into dressing up like pirates and stuff, but we are totally into watching other people dress like pirates, concerts on the beach, and a healthy dose of drunken island revelry.
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