CuRVWander

Our volunteer agreement with Fort Frederica National Monument on St Simons Island, GA was for, roughly, November to March, five months.  Our original strategy was to take a winter position that would have more pleasant weather than the record setting cold of Big Bend National Park of last winter.  But by happy coincidence we also learned that we were going to be first-time grandparents around the end of December. Our daughter and son-in-law live in Atlanta so this will put us only a six hour drive away as opposed to a 20 hour drive had we stayed out west again this winter. And being this close to family and friends in the Atlanta area during the season of holidays we spent a great deal of time on the Golden Isle Parkway.  Lunches with friends from our former jobs and holiday weekends with family were great.  But we spent so much of our days off on the road and in Atlanta that we barely got to know our surroundings on St Simons. And then the time came for the gran...

My last post was months ago, just as we arrived at our next Visitor Center Host position at Fort Frederica National Monument on the island of St. Simons, GA.  There were high hopes of island exploration and observing coastal wildlife.  But it did not work out that way. After nearly two years in the remote deserts of Arizona and Texas, with our shortest drive to something that could pass for as a grocery store being 85 miles one way, we went through nearly a month of culture shock.  We could actually leave our job, change out of uniform and be at a full-service grocery or one of dozens of excellent restaurants in 15 minutes.  Amazing. We knew we had been on the far reaches of the grid for too long when we caught ourselves being mesmerized by the tall, shiny buildings of the big city. Gleaming buildings of Atlanta catching the setting sun. Only a few minutes later the same buildings glowing in the night.  While looking across the parking lot and fra...