Cumberland Island Walking Tours (Free!)

There is so much to do on the island. The campground I stayed at was perfect. One day I went north to Plum Orchard and one day I went south to Dungeness Ruins. When we visited before we hiked a 4 mile loop that included the Dungeness ruins, the beach, and a museum. This trip I had the time to do a tour from the dock to the Dungeness ruins.

Turns out there was much more to see than just the big house. There were all sorts of buildings surrounding the mansion like a greenhouse, grape arbor, formal gardens, carriage houses, recreation building with a swimming pool and more. Most are just ruins but you get the feel for the scale.

I heard how advanced the Carnegie’s were to have DC power from their own power house and ice made by their own equipment (picture below) back in the late 1800s. They built roads, power lines, and telephone lines between the mansions on the island. This part I liked. The part where as rich people they felt they had to flaunt their wealth with the biggest mansions, plenty of Tiffany lamps, and 200+ servants while they spent their days eating and drinking was just sad. Makes me glad I was never rich!

The Carnegie’s not only built Dungeness, but built several other large houses and mansions on the island for their children and their families. The Stafford House is still privately owned but I walked past it. It’s big!

The other tour I took was of Plum Orchard which was fascinating.

Can you say opulence? Did you know Tiffany even made wall paper?

The story was that if you visited with children, they would assign a servant to watch them and you never had to see them the whole time.

Of course they had their own swimming pool and squash court and game room. I guess they didn’t just eat and drink.

To top my trip off, it’s an island. There are lots of beaches and few people. I walked for several hours on the beach without seeing anyone. What an amazing place!

Tent Camping!

 I wanted to have a big adventure. I haven’t tent camped in 20 years or so. John has no desire to sleep on the ground but was willing to drive me to the ferry, so I went camping by myself for 3 days on Cumberland Island. I was surprised to learn that many women (including older women like myself) camp here by themselves. It’s a safe environment with only limited campsites and few day visitors. The limit is 300 people a day on the ferry though the ferries were running with much fewer people than last time we visited. An island retreat!

The bad parts of camping were sleeping on the ground (my pad wasn’t thick enough) and bug bites. Given it was dark around 12 hours a day, I either slept or read in the tent during that time. So even if I didn’t get sound sleep, I slept enough to be wide awake the next day. As for the bugs, I didn’t actually feel many bites but after I got home I realized I have quite a few so that will take awhile to heal. At least the sand stickers could be removed from my shoes.

The great parts of camping was the quiet or just the sounds of the forest and beach. The campground was close to the beach so both sounds filled my tent. I was quite proud of camping by myself. I practiced putting up the tent a couple of times at home. However, I still felt accomplished when I actually put it up and took it down without help. I carried my gear and food (25 pounds) the 3.5 miles to the campsite with only minor grumbling and a stop for lunch.

Plus, by camping by myself I got to do what I wanted, as long as I wanted, and whenever I wanted. I enjoyed the Road Scholar trips but hiking was frustrating. We would hike with a good pace for 10-15 minutes or so, then wait until the slower people at the back of the line caught up. None of the hikes were very long. By hiking by myself I got to hike at my speed, pause for pictures when I want, and go as far as I want. I hiked around 5 miles on the first and last (half) days and 11 miles on the 2^nd & 3^rd (full) days. When I got back to the campsite on the long days, I was sore after sitting for a bit. But I did plenty of stretches and was fine by the next morning.

I was surprised at all the animals I saw. The island is famous for the wild horses. They were introduced perhaps as far back as 1500’s with additional horse lines brought through various groups over the years. Most of the ones I saw was on the south part of the island where there are more open areas to see them. However, I had one horse behind my campsite and saw several on the hike out. They tell you not to get close to the horses, but they forgot to tell the horses. While I stayed as far to the side on the road as possible, a couple of them came over to me. I told them to go away but I had to sneak past them instead.

I don’t have any pictures or just fuzzy pictures of some of the animals. I saw 6 deer, 3 wild pigs, lots of squirrels, egret, heron, and a dolphin (on the ferry ride). On the beach, there were dead creatures like sand dollars, jellyfish, and horseshoe crab shells.

And live ghost crabs.

There are lots of armadillos on the island.

At one of the ponds I saw 3 baby alligators. They are only about 2’ long. Pretty good amount of animals for just 3 nights.

Active South Dakota with Road Scholar

This trip was interesting. It included hiking, biking, kayaking, and riding a horse. I went with Angie, a girl friend from college. We were the ‘babies’ of the group (early 60s).

Our first hike was a 2.5 mile hike to Buzzard’s Roost. The elevation change wasn’t much (~450 ft) but it was a bit tough with the elevation in 4500’ versus Florida’s elevation 20 feet above sea level. Plus, the smoke from the Canadian fires was quite apparent and made it look like we were in the Smoky Mountains. I wore a mask for part of this hike and my eyes watered some. Luckily, the smoke was better for the rest of the week.

The 2^nd hike was a bit shorter (2.1 miles) on Prairie Trail in Custer State Park.

Our 3^rd hike was to Cathedral Spires in Custer State Park (4 miles) and our longest. This one had about the same elevation change as the others but was ~7,000 feet above sea level. Wonderful views on this trail plus we had a clear day.

Along the trail was a mine. The tour guide thought is was a tin mine but google seems to think it was a mica mine. I saw plenty of mica on the short trail to the mine so I’ll agree with google this time.

We did a ridiculously easy 9 mile bike ride on Michelson Trail. The first 5 miles was slightly downhill so I was on the brake more than I pedaled. The last few miles I had to pedal but it was mostly flat. The views were excellent, however.

The horseback ride was also very easy. The horses just walked along a trail. The biggest issue was keeping them from eating grass or following too closely to the next horse in line. Crossing the creek and seeing deer along the trail was the highlight. The picture shows me just before the creek. The horse ahead of me decided to spend time drinking and we had to hold them inline. So the challenge wasn’t the creek, it was trying to hold the horse in place for that time.

The kayak trip was the most exciting. It was thundering and sprinkling before we were to start so we had to wait 30 minutes after the thunder. At that point half of us got out on the water but then it started to rain. We continued to kayak the lake for about a half-an-hour with the rain stopping and starting.

The next group went out while we switched to hiking around the lake (just a mile). However, it started to hail after we went half-way so we finished the hike. Luckily the hail stopped fairly soon. I used my rain coat a lot that day. Exciting and the lake was gorgeous.

Road Scholar trips are always educational. We had someone talking about geology and another discuss natural resources. The area is interesting with igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks all within a fairly small area. My favorites were mica and the tourmaline gemstone. I didn’t realize but pink tourmaline is my birthstone (but the tourmaline is black in this area).

One evening, two Native Americans told us about their life and performed a dance.

I plan to do more Road Scholar trips but I’m going to be more careful on the activity level.

Sightseeing in South Dakota with Road Scholar

I took another trip with Road Scholar this month. South Dakota had WAY better weather with 50-70s versus Florida’s 80-90s with high humidity and threatening hurricanes. BTW, Idalia hit our area as a tropical storm less than a week before this trip. So, no issues at home or the airport, it was just a bit worrying as the forecast for the storm was developing.

This trip had some sightseeing which was interesting to compare to our visit 12 years ago (1,2).

Our first stop was Mount Rushmore. We had time to walk the Presidential trail and a nature trail and did a little of the museum. Later we returned for the Lighting Ceremony. Personally, I liked eating the Thomas Jefferson ice cream.

The Badlands was very cool to see. I found the place where I watched sunrise 12 years ago. This whole park is somewhere you can visit multiple times and see more each time.

We hiked two trails in the park and drove through to see the sights. Got to say I liked the last hike the best of the whole week. With Road Scholar with a single activity level, your group has to stay fairly close. That meant all week I'd hike a pretty good pace for awhile, then we had to wait for the group to catch up. Depending on the temperature, I took off a layer to hike then had to put a layer back on to wait. They let us hike at our own pace for the last hike. Given all the morning hikes I used to do by myself, I just hiked alone at a fast pace for the whole time. YEAH!

At far as I could tell, Wall Drug was exactly the same. The jack-o-lope had been painted slightly differently. The dinosaur was the same. I’ve decided it’s a place you should see once in your life...twice was only to sit on the jack-o-lope. The picture of me wearing pink was from 2011.

I was the most surprised at Crazy Horse Monument. In 12 years the only difference was they competed a hand. At the same time they explained how technology was speeding up the work. Personally, I don’t think I’ll live to see the completion. The 1st picture below was from 2011.

BTW, turns out Wind Cave that we visited before was closed due to a broken elevator.

New things for me included walking a historical trail in town (Keystone). This wasn’t part of the formal trip but we walked into town since we had extra time when we arrived. The trail had a very good museum along with old stores and homes. This was a log school house from the 1890s. Somehow they fit 40 students into it!

We drove through Custer State Park to see the bison. Of course, we also saw stupid people including people who would leave their car and get close up to take pictures of the large animals or the guy who drove through on a motorcycle because, hey, that’s the safest way to drive around the bison on the road. The smartest seemed to be the people with sunroofs. They could take good pictures but still be safe inside the car.

We also saw prairie dogs, burros (picture), and stag horn antelope. Later in the week we saw deer and turkey. I was frustrated by the antelope which I don’t remember seeing before. The bus driver didn’t slow enough to see them well even though they were fairly close to the road. We saw a couple more later in the week but again, we drove too quickly for more than a glance.