St. Mary's, Georgia

4 Nov 09--We are at Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Georgia....clearly the name tells us it is a submarine base, specifically for ballistic missile submarines armed with nuclear weapons. I guess that is the reason they won't let us take any pictures of them...we can't even get close enough to see them, never mind take a picture...so these will have to do.

They have a very nice pool and a large lake, but nothing else worth remarking about.

We headed downtown to St Mary's city center, and there really isn't a whole lot to it. Their claim to fame appears to be this church, which they tell us is the oldest continuously used church in Georgia.

After we went to the visitor's center, we decided to walk down to the waterfront area where we could get a tour of the city. This is where we met Ann and her maybe-10 year old daughter, who were filling in for the regular tour giver.

They were very nice, but this was really sort of a joke. Cathy and I were the only ones on the tour, we sat directly behind mother and daughter, and half the time Ann would talk directly to us, while the other half she would talk into her intercom while reading the tour info....that was pretty funny how she kept going back and forth. Ann was also letting her daughter practice her "reading out loud" skills, so the young girl did part of the tour.

So the church is big, as are these houses that now are used as Bed and Breakfast establishments. They are really nice houses, built back in the late 1890s, but I kept wondering who was coming here that they needed 2 of these. Everything you have seen is in about a 3 block span of space.

Ann told us that this house is actually one of the houses sold back around 1900 by Sears and Roebucks right out of their magazine, where you bought it and then they shipped you all the bricks etc., and you had someone put it together.

Ann said this is the headstone of 2 guys who died 6 years apart back in the 1800s...they had the same wife...obviously she is suspected of killing them...so this is still a big thing in St Mary's! haha

Ann told us this house is really nice inside, so we will tour it another day and let you know.

These are just a few pictures I took down at the waterfront...and that is really all there is to see here.

Tomorrow we are going to take a ferry to the Cumberland Island National Seashore, which I heard has wild horses on it, some ruins (I think of houses previously owned by the Carnegies), and I don't know what else. The only thing I heard about it today is that John F. Kennedy Jr got married on this island. So we shall see...I am looking forward to seeing the wild horses.