Jacks' River Falls

Who says you need to leave Georgia (or the U.S. for that matter) to see something beautiful? There is plenty to be explored around here.

A mere two-and-a-half hour drive from Atlanta, and then a 3.5 mile walk in the woods, and you will find yourself here: Jacks' River Falls. The water is freezing cold but you'll need it to cool off after that hike.

Those people on the left (group of four)... that's us.

Left: Alex, in all her "mountain goat-ness glory".

Right: Emily, she's just a badass.

You can call me "whitey."

Thank you Emily for forcing me to the edge of having a heat stroke! :-) I'm glad we did it!

The 11th Annual Beef Party

Celebrating...

BEEF!

Two pounds per person... making it 32 pounds for the whole evening... there was beef to be had. This is a whole day event so not all the meat is cooked at the same time. Only one London Broil (weighing 4lbs. each) was cooked and then we would crowd around the table and eat it as he cut it. Thirty minutes to an hour later, Jay would prep the next hunk of meat and then start cooking it.

For years, I have heard about Jay's annual beef party but since he lived in New Jersey... I never went. But this was something his friends would drive through several states to go to... I could only assume that this had to be damn good.
Our host, Jay, is on the left... and the jolly guy on the right is Jarret. I believe they both went to college together.

Thanks again to Jay and his wife for having us over!

My Hometown

A small introduction to my hometown, St. Marys, Georgia. I'll have to get some more details about these buildings from my parents, as of right now, I'm using my own shoddy memory.


On the left, is the Riverside Hotel. It is 100 years old, easy... unfortunately, the owner does not seem to take good care of it. It looks pretty run down and depressing these days. Still, it is a staple in Downtown St. Marys.

This is the Market on the Square, a small gift shop that sells ice cream and chocolate fudge. Its owned and operated by a girl I used to go to elementary school with. When I pick up Ted from school, we would sometimes stop by here and get ice cream. Those days are now over as he is entering middle school next year... and we all know what happens to kids when they're in middle school--they turn into snotty brats. A phase we have all gone through!



Here is the Spencer House Inn... I honestly thought this was a Bed and Breakfast... I'm not sure when it was upgraded to an Inn. This house was built in 1872. A mere child to all you Europeans out there, but this is a pretty old building for the U.S. (and for the South, since so much of it was burned during the civil war).

This is Orange Hall, named so because of all the Orange Trees that are planted along side it. This house is rumored to have the ghost of a young girl in it. I'm told that there is a window in one of the bedrooms in which she is slowly etching her name. They apparently also have to remake her bed on occasion.

In St. Marys--being the small town that it is-- one can imagine the talk that this billboard started. There was chatter that some man must have gotten caught cheating on his wife --and she was pissed! A few weeks later, it said: "YOUR NEIGHBOR KNOWS TOO!" Oh boy, we all thought that there was some juicy gossip about to explode on the scene. A few weeks later, we were all disappointed to discover that it was an advertisement for a car dealership in Brunswick. So much for all that...

More to come!

Silver Glen Springs

After torturing Flo in St. Marys for a few days, I asked him what he'd like to do. He mentioned going to the Springs in Florida. After waiting an hour and a half for mom and dad to get ready, we finally left St. Marys and headed south...at 3:00pm! My mom told me it was a two hour drive to the springs... it turned out being three and a half hours (yes, yes, I know... it was because we tried to take the ferry across the river [another story]).

Much to my surprise, we arrived. My parents were well-behaved the whole day... it turned out to be a nice day.

So after all that driving, we only stayed in the springs for about thirty minutes. The water is really cold and it wasn't nearly hot enough outside to justify staying in it for very long.















And believe it or not, Flo was complaining that it was too cold... this after he goes swimming in Crozon every year. I think the water is much colder in Crozon!















My mother has a much higher tolerance for cold water than the rest of us... we had to wait for her to get out.

Nice

Le Cote d'Azur

The water is most certainly blue, there is no doubt about that. But is that all you really look for in a beach? I think good sand is necessary too. These beaches are rocky! No sand! and because its the Mediterranean Sea, there is no tide. None! If you look closely at the picture, you'll see all those chairs on the beach... they just stay there.

Somehow, all these crazy colors just work.

I'll tell you this, if anybody tried to paint the town's clocktower pink in the US... they would be sued.

And, as usual, there is no rhyme or reason to which way a road goes.

I read in my little tour book of France that Nice is known for painting buildings a "pompeeian red." I'm just guessing that the color of this building must be that (although, I don't really know).

And oddly enough, they had a Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Believe it or not, these greedy people wanted to charge three euro to see the inside of it! How obsurd for a church to charge an admission fee... the Notre Dame in Paris doesn't even do that, I'm not sure why they think they should be able to get away with it. Danielle and I both agreed that we wouldn't pay money to go to a church. :-)

Monte Carlo

I wasn't supposed to leave France, but come on! Monte-Carlo was a 15 minute train ride from Nice, how could I possibly pass that up?

The prince's palace. It can only be toured when the Prince is out-of-town as he still lives there.











































(Above: Their famouse casino.)



















They also have a small zoo... you can even buy food to feed to the animals. It was kind of odd to see this Hippo begging for cookies. This huge guy just stood next to the wall with his mouth wide open waiting for you to throw him a cookie. Once you threw it in there, its hard to believe that he would actually notice a tiny little cookie.

The Exotic Gardens


While the gardens were definitely exotic, it consisted of mostly cactus plants. Danielle and I found ourselves more interested in the cave that was hidden underneath it.



























Grand Prix

Before you get too jealous, we missed it. And, its not like we could afford to go to it anyway. I think the cheapest ticket was 70 euro.

The Catacombs

Stop! This is the empire of the dead.

Its way cooler looking in French, don't ya think?

Remind me to translate this one later... if you try hard enough, you can probably figure out that it says who ordered the catacombs to be filled with bodies and when and by which department... blah blah blah.
























Just as I was becoming jaded with Paris, Danielle had this brilliant idea of going to the catacombs... it had never even occurred to me... I'm not even sure I was aware that they existed. It was great! A much needed break from all those museums and churches... I recommend everybody visit this place.





























At some point, somebody decided to empty out all the cemetaries in Paris and deposit the bones into underground quarries. Stone was removed from here for centuries. Some of it was used to build Notre Dame.
















After a bit, Danielle and I began to wonder where they put all the other bones. All we saw were skulls and femurs... we would surely recognize a hand or a spine if we saw one. We determined that they simply built a wall of skulls and femurs and just threw everything else behind it. When you looked at the top of the stack in the back, you could see that they weren't very tidy when they were putting stuff back there.
















They would move the bodies at night in horse drawn carriages. Priests would walk beside it while chanting prayers. Could you imagine how creepy it would have been to see that? Just think, you're in your overpriced room...looking out from the balcony, its late, you can't sleep... and then you see these carriages led by priests and torches. Who knows? Maybe it was just a common thing back then?
















Bones and more bones.

















When you leave, they actually check your bags to make sure you didn't steal any bones. But honestly, the check wasn't *that* thorough. So long as you weren't greedy and tried to steal a skull or something, you probably could have gotten away with it.
















This is the ceiling in one of the parts that was about to collapse. They have to monitor the catacombs pretty regularly to make sure cars and other objects don't fall through. This particular area has been reinforced with several types of concrete and is now considered safe.