Jekyll Island, Georgia - January 13-15, 2024

Here's another great weekend trip for the bookings.  With a 3 day weekend ahead of us, we headed out super early (about 5:00 a.m.) on Saturday morning.  We had booked the Hampton Inn on Jekyll Island.  We made two charging stops on the way down for a total of 50 minutes which gave us time to eat breakfast at the Waffle House in Auburn and then grab some Starbucks in Tifton.  

As we approached Jekyll Island, the line at the toll booth was quite long.  This should have been our first clue this wasn't going to be a quiet winter weekend on the island.  The entire trip (including stops) took us 8 hours and 18 minutes to go a total of 407 miles.

Our room was not quite ready yet so we snagged an EV spot at the hotel, plugged in our car, and ate a late lunch in the hotel lobby before heading out to hike the Shark Tooth Beach trail.  Immediately across the street from our hotel, I heard the pecking of a woodpecker and to our delight discovered this female Pileated Woodpecker.

The trail took us through some forested areas with moss covered trees, then along a marsh area, and finally to Shark Tooth Beach where a number of people were combing the beach for teeth.  We didn't spend anytime looking ourselves as we were more interested in the birds.

Northern Mockingbird

A flock of Hooded Mergansers

This Snowy Egret (right) appeared to be leading the flock of Hooded Mergansers somewhere.

Hooded Mergansers in flight

As we were headed back from our hike, I received the notification that our room was ready.  The Hampton Inn was a little run down.  And the EV chargers were not marked and in fairly prime parking spots so were often ICE'd.  The parking lot was also dark as trees got in the way of the lights that had been installed.  Next time we return to Jekyll Island, we will likely more seriously consider the Residence Inn/Courtyard just down the street with much better EV charging (that is well marked) and a nicer hotel.

Not wanting to go out for dinner, we went down to the hotel bar hoping they had some food.  They did - chicken nuggets, a burger, and one other thing.  Despite the very limited selection, it wasn't bad and then we spent the evening relaxing.

The next morning, we were up super early to catch sunrise at Driftwood Beach.  We were in for a surprise as we pulled out of the hotel parking lot.  A cone intermittently blocked our lane of traffic all the way to the village and there were so many cars out.  Initially we had no clue why so many people were up before sunrise on a Sunday morning but with some google searching we discovered a marathon started at 7:30 a.m. that morning that circled the island.  We were able to get to Driftwood Beach where unfortunately the clouds never lifted but I still got some photos I really like.

Ruddy Turnstones - there were some waves this morning that kept threatening their perch!

The tide had come in since we first arrived as this tree was not in the water when the morning started.  We had initially set up to get some photos of this tree but a very loud and chatty group of women stood right behind where I was setting up my tripod so we moved on further and then came back later for this photo.

In the pond by the road as we walked back to our car, we discovered a variety of white birds with the light just right and the water still enough for reflections.  They were fishing at the back of this pond.

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Snowy Egret

Great Egret and a Wood Stork

Snowy Egret, Great Egret, Wood Stork, White Ibis

White Ibis

Snowy Egret, White Ibis, Wood Stork

White Ibis, Great Egret, Wood Stork, Snowy Egret

White Ibis, Great Egret, Wood Stork, Snowy Egret (2)

White Ibis, Great Egret, Wood Stork, Snowy Egret (2)

White Ibis

We headed back to the hotel for breakfast and to finish getting ready for our day and then headed out to the Historic District.  Our first stop was the Georgia Sea Turtle Center which included some great exhibits on sea turtles and the dangers they face plus a peek into the rehabilitation work they do.  These next photos are from the rehab building.  Many of these turtles were stunned by cold weather, are being nursed back to health and will be released.

After the Sea Turtle Center we walked to the pier by The Wharf where we spotted a few birds.

Double-crested Cormorant - I don't know if I have ever seen one resting like this.

Double-crested Cormorant

Double-crested Cormorants and a Ring-billed Gull

Male Belted Kingfisher

We then walked the Crane Road Trail to see if we could spot the Bald Eagle's Nest.

Male Downy Woodpecker

Male Downy Woodpecker

Black and White Warbler - quite the acrobat!

Black and White Warbler 

Black and White Warbler 

Eagle's nest although no signs of any eagles

We then returned to our car and headed to Horton House, a historic tabby house originally constructed in 1743 by Major William Horton. Horton traveled from England to Georgia in 1735.  Horton also brewed beer in Georgia's first brewery.  

Snowy Egrets in the marshy area across the street

Our next stop was Clam Creek Fishing Pier where we really enjoyed watching the Double-crested Cormorants dive under the water to fish.

Female Boat-tailed Grackle

Boat-tailed Grackles

By this time we were hungry.  We first stopped at Tortuga Jacks but it was way too busy so we head back towards the hotel and stopped at the Shore Restaurant at the Residence Inn/Courtyard for a salad and a pizza.

We went back to the hotel for a little downtime before our sunset plans.  We made use of this time to top off our car with a some electricity since plenty of EV spots were open.

We watched the sunset at St. Andrew's Beach.

Natural hangers for our bags!

We dealt with some chatty, obnoxious people for sunset just like we did for sunrise.  This is a photo Paul took and next I'll post a Timelapse I created.

We made plans to catch the sunrise at Driftwood Beach the next morning but then started hearing about the State of Emergency our governor had called for about half the state including our county and the coming precipitation Monday afternoon and evening.  So the next morning instead of checking out and heading to watch the sunrise, we checked out and headed off the island towards home.  In the rearview mirror, I caught glimpses of the most beautiful colors and can only imagine how amazing the sunrise had been.  I wish we could have stayed but we wouldn't have been able to enjoy it with the worry about icy roads if we had stayed so I know we made the right choice.

The ride home was uneventful.  We made two charging stops on the way home for a total of 41 minutes which included time to eat lunch and a morning bathroom/snack break.  The drive home took about 8 hours including stops, about 15 minutes shorter than the drive down.  Round-trip, including driving around the island, we drove a total of 858 miles.  Our overall efficiency was 313 Wh/mi.  Cold weather negatively affected efficiency to a certain extent for a portion of the drive.  The vehicle we took for this trip was a 2020 Tesla Model S Long-range Plus.

Here is a summary of our charging:

Date	Location	kWh	Beginning and Ending Percentage	Cost	Approximate Time	How we spent the time
1/13/2024	Home - starting charge		76%	$0.00
1/13/2024	Auburn Tesla Supercharger	43.8 kWh	29% - 84%	$18.72	35 minutes	Breakfast at Waffle House
1/13/2024	Tifton Tesla Supercharger	28.1 kWh	28% - 56%	$9.83	15 minutes	Bathroom break and Starbucks run
1/13/2024- 1/15/2024	Hampton Inn Tesla Destination Charger	~100 kWh	14% - 100%	$0.00	Overnight plus two top offs after driving around	Sleeping, relaxing in hotel
1/15/2024	Albany Tesla Supercharger	40.1 kWh	28% - 69%	$12.82	22 minutes	Bathroom break, bought snacks at Walmart
1/15/2024	Prattville Tesla Supercharger	41 kWh	22% - 63%	$15.54	19 minutes	Lunch at Subway
1/15/2024	Home - ending charge		34%	$0.00

Peachtree City - December 2023

 We had to make a quick trip to Atlanta to drop off our new-to-us used Model S at the Tesla Service Center in Fayetteville.  We originally thought about doing the drive in a day but heavy rain was predicted that Saturday morning and people were warning us about a lot of traffic for the huge Alabama/Georgia game that day in Atlanta.  So I found us a hotel and we headed out Friday night.

This hotel turned out to be a great find so I want to memorialize it in my blog.  We stayed at the Crown Plaza Atlanta SW - Peachtree City.  The rates were quite cheap, likely because we were there on such a quiet night.  There were very few cars in the parking lot and we saw almost no one else.

We arrived after dark and found the four charging stations all unoccupied.  Coming in so late you never know whether the chargers will be open.  It's common at hotels (and elsewhere) for ICE cars to take over the spots even though they clearly have no need for the electricity.  

The hotel is a convention center with multiple hotel buildings plus the buildings for meeting rooms and common spaces.  They have a nice indoor pool which we used that evening and a restaurant on site.  Our room was located in the Lakeside building and had a view of the small lake that the buildings surround.  I understand the hotel had been renovated fairly recently and everything felt pretty new.

This a view of the building we stayed in.  On the first floor is a room with the curtains pulled and a light on which was our room.

We never saw the geese but based on other signs, it sounds like they nest on the property.  Geese can be aggressive so I suggest believing the sign!

Orange Beach - A Vacation from a Vacation - Thanksgiving Weekend

This summer when we were looking for ways to use our hotel loyalty points and weekend trips we could take, I suggested the beach for Thanksgiving weekend.  So we booked it and then when Paul went to put it on the calendar, he said something to the effect of, "honey, do you realize how close that is to our Galapagos trip?"  I hadn't but it turned out to be a good thing.  We desperately needed some peaceful down time.

We've been to the beach many times so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this post but I did want a quick documentation of the weekend for our historical records.  I find this blog a nice place to go to see when we last visited somewhere and where we stayed.

Being Thanksgiving weekend, we thought we should celebrate Thanksgiving. So we brought the ingredients for turkey sandwiches including some pre-made relish from Publix.  Our first chance to celebrate was as we charged on the way down.

This might be a good spot to mention the car challenge we ran into leaving Birmingham.  Earlier this week we had picked up a used Model S.  About 20 minutes out of Birmingham, a BMS warning came on telling us the car may not restart.  This appeared to relate to the battery management system which is pretty important so we turned around to switch cars.  Fortunately, the car was still under warranty.

This year for the first time, we had reached Platinum Elite with Marriott.  For this trip we had booked the Fairfield Inn in Orange Beach using points and we had applied to use our Suite Night Awards (pending availability).  About a week before the trip, we received an e-mail indicating we had been upgraded to an Executive Suite with a Balcony!

Our time on the beach was spent taking it easy - walking or sitting on the beach and listening to the sounds of the waves and shorebirds.  Sunrise Saturday morning was just breathtaking!

The boardwalk to get to the beach