Skidaway

I was sad to leave Florida but when we arrived at Skidaway Island State Park in Georgia I was very pleasantly surprised.  It was a beautiful park with trees covered in Spanish moss.  It made me think of a drier Dagobah…where Yoda hung out.  We had reservations but you still pick out your spot so we drove around the park and there seemed to only be two options unless we took a handicapped spot which we didn’t want to do.  So we picked one and got settled in.

The weather was perfect that afternoon and evening so after a bit of work, then a dinner outside, we all went on a walk to explore a bit of the campground and the park.  There is something really nice about family walks after supper.  I remember going on walks with my folks…I don’t remember any details or deep, moving conversations…but just being together, outside and getting some exercise felt good I guess.  So it was this evening as we strolled through the forest, playing at the playground, learning about the flora and fauna of the nature trail.  It just felt really good.

The next day we visited Savannah which was about a 20 minute drive away, and the day after that we visited Fort Pulaski and Tybee Island which are about 30 minutes away.  Our last full day there we stayed at the park.  I had a lot of work to get done including finalizing taxes but Steph and the kids went out and explored.  They went to the interpretive center that had all kinds of turtles and snakes and a giant skeleton of a ground sloth!!  The interpretive center had really nice binoculars for the kids to checkout and use which they were pretty stoked about.  Then they took a 3 mile bike ride on the Big Ferry trail where they saw remnants of Civil War battles, old stills from the prohibition era and lots of wildlife.

On arrival to the park the kids had picked up Georgia State Park Jr Ranger booklets.  Florida’s was challenging due to the quantity of work they needed to do.  Georgia’s actually had some challenging content.  But with the goal of a patch (rather than the plastic badge) they were motivated to finish in our short 3 day stay!

Back at the interpretive center the on-site naturalist, Miss Vickie, gave an incredible lesson to the kids about all the different creatures they had at the center.  I was not there myself but I saw the pictures, video and all three kids were excited to tell me about everything they learned and what animals they got to handle!

The park has a very generous checkout time of 1:00 so we utilized it to see and do more on our checkout day!  I dropped everyone off at the interpretive center for them to work on their Jr Ranger stuff some more while I ran to the UPS store to print out my tax voucher doohickeys, buy some envelopes, some stamps and mail off taxes.  WHEW….sure feels good to get that done.  I met back up with the family on a couple of hiking loops through the park.  It was amazing how diverse the habitats were along that 2 mile loop.  And it was slightly overcast which made it just the perfect temperature for walking.

We rolled out of our site at 1:00 on the nose.  I dropped Steph and the kids off at the park entrance to get their badges while I went and dumped the tanks.

Skidaway Island State Park gets 10 thumbs up from the Wach family!  Especially if you can score a full hookup site as there is no additional charge for these.