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I'll take 'Places I Barely Heard Of Before Going There' for a thousand, Alex.
Wife and I just returned from a long weekend at the Golden Isles (please note if you click that link: a video will start playing). Specifically, mostly Jekyll Island.
Hands up, anyone who's actually heard of Jekyll Island before this. (If you've heard of Driftwood Beach at least, that counts.)
Jekyll Island's claims to fame are:
1) Driftwood Beach, which is super pretty (see linked photos), and haunting, and apparently the Walking Dead filmed there in season 7 (?) if you watch the Walking Dead, which I don't.
2) the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, which tracks all the turtles who lay on the island, whether the nests have hatched or not, and helps rehabilitate turtles who have been struck by boats and/or cold (the current patient list has two of the former and one of the latter, plus a straggler hatchling). Also it has a center where people can Learn About The Life Cycle of Sea Turtles, Marine Ecology, and How Not To Be A Jerk And Throw Stuff Into The Ocean That Will Kill Cute Turtles You Bastards.
3) the Jekyll Island Club. Which, Google tells me, has one! only one! murder mystery written about it! What the hell, fellow writers. Get on that.
No, seriously.
- Gilded Age super-rich!
- Northern millionaires, down in the South, starting from Not Very Long After The Civil War (all the race issues, class issues, and regional issues you could possibly want)!
- A stated aesthetic of 'simple!' Sorta. Kinda. On the one hand, exponentially less gilding, and literally a tenth the size of their official mansions. On the other hand, Mrs. Rockefeller was allowed to pave her drive, because she had red velvet carpeting through the entire house and didn't want dust tracked in.
- The Sans Souci apartments (for those who didn't want to build an entire cottage) had strict rules - you couldn't bring your children or your mistress. Well then.
- Only a few acknowledged deaths - a hunting accident, a car accident - but c'mon! See previous comments about northern millionairs! Cover-ups coulda happened!
It lasted until 1942, due to lots of things, including but not limited to the stock market crash of 1929, and World War II starting. The state re-opened the island in 1947, and only one family even came back to get their stuff. The government tried to make the resort a Thing again, and it didn't really work. Then Tallu Fish (her real name) popped up in 1954 and was like HEY THIS COULD BE A MUSEUM. The state said, 'if you want, but you gotta fund it yourself.' So she charged 25 cents to look around Indian Mound cottage (which genuinely has an Indian burial mound next to it - there may or may not still be an Indian burial in the mound, depending on who you ask). Also an additional 25 cents to sit in the 'Chinese Wishing Chair,' which supposedly took a man 25 years to carve, and if you sat in it, your wish would come true. ...well, it successfully funded the museum, anyway.
I will note that the Club building has been taken over and renovated again and is now a fairly high-end hotel. Like, people playing croquet out on the lawn in all-white clothing, high end.
In other news, I read the novel version of GOOD OMENS aloud to Wife. It had been a while since I read it, so the contrast to the series was fascinating. I'd forgotten exactly how much got changed. Yes, there's the big obvious things - the focus on Crowley and Aziraphale (who are So In Love)*, or 'let's give Aziraphale an actual character arc', or the usual pruning and rearranging when you're adapting a book to screen (a moment of silence for the Other Four Horsemen). But there's also things like 'not defaulting everyone, both main characters and background, to White (Preferably British) Male'. Next plans are to re-watch the series, so we can properly appreciate the changes.
*Which was my fannish experience of the book anyway.
Hands up, anyone who's actually heard of Jekyll Island before this. (If you've heard of Driftwood Beach at least, that counts.)
Jekyll Island's claims to fame are:
1) Driftwood Beach, which is super pretty (see linked photos), and haunting, and apparently the Walking Dead filmed there in season 7 (?) if you watch the Walking Dead, which I don't.
2) the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, which tracks all the turtles who lay on the island, whether the nests have hatched or not, and helps rehabilitate turtles who have been struck by boats and/or cold (the current patient list has two of the former and one of the latter, plus a straggler hatchling). Also it has a center where people can Learn About The Life Cycle of Sea Turtles, Marine Ecology, and How Not To Be A Jerk And Throw Stuff Into The Ocean That Will Kill Cute Turtles You Bastards.
3) the Jekyll Island Club. Which, Google tells me, has one! only one! murder mystery written about it! What the hell, fellow writers. Get on that.
No, seriously.
- Gilded Age super-rich!
- Northern millionaires, down in the South, starting from Not Very Long After The Civil War (all the race issues, class issues, and regional issues you could possibly want)!
- A stated aesthetic of 'simple!' Sorta. Kinda. On the one hand, exponentially less gilding, and literally a tenth the size of their official mansions. On the other hand, Mrs. Rockefeller was allowed to pave her drive, because she had red velvet carpeting through the entire house and didn't want dust tracked in.
- The Sans Souci apartments (for those who didn't want to build an entire cottage) had strict rules - you couldn't bring your children or your mistress. Well then.
- Only a few acknowledged deaths - a hunting accident, a car accident - but c'mon! See previous comments about northern millionairs! Cover-ups coulda happened!
It lasted until 1942, due to lots of things, including but not limited to the stock market crash of 1929, and World War II starting. The state re-opened the island in 1947, and only one family even came back to get their stuff. The government tried to make the resort a Thing again, and it didn't really work. Then Tallu Fish (her real name) popped up in 1954 and was like HEY THIS COULD BE A MUSEUM. The state said, 'if you want, but you gotta fund it yourself.' So she charged 25 cents to look around Indian Mound cottage (which genuinely has an Indian burial mound next to it - there may or may not still be an Indian burial in the mound, depending on who you ask). Also an additional 25 cents to sit in the 'Chinese Wishing Chair,' which supposedly took a man 25 years to carve, and if you sat in it, your wish would come true. ...well, it successfully funded the museum, anyway.
I will note that the Club building has been taken over and renovated again and is now a fairly high-end hotel. Like, people playing croquet out on the lawn in all-white clothing, high end.
In other news, I read the novel version of GOOD OMENS aloud to Wife. It had been a while since I read it, so the contrast to the series was fascinating. I'd forgotten exactly how much got changed. Yes, there's the big obvious things - the focus on Crowley and Aziraphale (who are So In Love)*, or 'let's give Aziraphale an actual character arc', or the usual pruning and rearranging when you're adapting a book to screen (a moment of silence for the Other Four Horsemen). But there's also things like 'not defaulting everyone, both main characters and background, to White (Preferably British) Male'. Next plans are to re-watch the series, so we can properly appreciate the changes.
*Which was my fannish experience of the book anyway.