Darien Trip!

Well I can now mark number 23 off of my 25 for the year 25! 

And warning: this is going to be a long post up in here. Like, way long.  With a lot of pictures.  But it's my 100th post!!!!!  So put on them reading glasses, and have fun!

Friday afternoon Husband and I headed towards the coast for a weekend of hot hot weather and seafood!  I took a vacation day on Friday (thanks boss!), so after grabbing some Chick-Fil-A in Thomasville, we were on our way! 

We got into Darien at about 4:45pm and checked in at the Darien Waterfront Inn.  

 We got a Living Social deal for a 2 night stay here, with gift certificates to several restaurants ($25 total), all for about $140.  It's not very often that Living Social and Groupon have getaways that are close by, so when we saw that this place was only a couple of hours away, we snatched it up!  And we're quite glad we did.  The room had a huge king size bed, nice bathroom, and little sitting area.  

 Friday night we went to the Darien River House Restaurant to use our $20 giftcard that came along with our deal.  Timothy had a huge steak with mashed potatoes and vegetables and I had grilled swordfish with a fruit salsa, rice, and veggies.  I definitely meant to get a picture but it looked so good that we both just dove in before I remembered to take a picture.  

Since we walked to the restaurant, on the way back we decided to take a little detour and go through the town square and take a couple of pics!  There will be more pics of this later!

 We saw a bunch of pretty trees!

Since the Inn was right on the Altamaha river, we grabbed the camera and headed there next, right as the sun was going down.

Pretty ominous sounding boat, eh?

And then we took some more pictures of ourself...*cue "You're so vain"*

"You probably think this song is about you..."

Ok side note: As if on cue, this stupid picture above, every single time I tried to insert it right here, it would shoot up to the very tip top of the post so that it was the first dang thing you would see.  Goodness!
Anyways!
The next morning we woke up bright and early to a steamy hot day.  I mean HOT!  And everything we wanted to do that day was OUTSIDE.  Shoot me now!
Our first stop was Fort King George, which is the oldest English fort on Georgia's coast.  It was built in 1721, and they have rebuilt some of the buildings so that it looks just like it did then.  It was pretty interesting but HOT!
Behold, some pictures!

That funny lookin top heavy building was the main building thing.  I don't remember what it was called.  I was too dang hot to pay attention.

This was the coolest spot the whole day.  This was on the top floor of that building above.  We stuck our heads out for a long time just catching the breeze.

Here I am trying to position a long gun at a lookout.  That gun was way too long for that space and was giving me issues.

Then we found a bench and took a pic

Then Husband took his 10th picture of me swatting away a bug.  He's excellent at 

taking these pictures.

And then I got a little artsy

And then Husband found an artifact, a railroad spike.

And then Husband said he "found where Jesus was born"

And we found a bunch of canons.  It was a fort, ya know?

And then Husband found a chest that he said was bought in 2003.

And then we sat in the shade a little.  BECAUSE IT WAS HOT!

And then we saw where the Indians lived before the English ran them off.  

Imagine that, Indians being run off!

And saw a monument

And some graves

And another cool tree

 After we were thoroughly covered in sweat, we decided to grab a bite to eat and use our other gift card to the Purple Pickle!!!

 They didn't actually give you a purple pickle, heck, not even a regular pickle, and it took me like 5 minutes to figure out how to turn on the faucet in the bathroom.  But the food was pretty good!  I got a huge club sandwich and pasta salad.

There was an older couple that we saw at the Inn that morning at breakfast, and then saw them at the Fort again later.  Timothy made the comment that we would probably see them at lunch too.  And guess what!  They sat down next to us at lunch!  We talked to them all throughout the meal.  They were from Athens, and since Timothy and I both went to college there, we had a pretty good bit to talk to them about.  They were so nice and helped us have an enjoyable lunch. 

And then, friends, the real fun began.  Fun in the form of "let's go look for alligators for hours in 100 degree heat" hosted by my lovely Husband.  I have always known that he was obsessed with alligators, and has been his entire life, but until this trip I don't think I fully grasped just how deep his liking went.  Once Martin (the gecko) heard of this, he was quite offended.  I mean, he's like a little fun size alligator minus the teeth!!!  But Husband will have nothing to do with him! 
I spent the entire time pretty much complaining, and taking pictures of everything but alligators...because, guess what!  There were none!  It was too hot even for these cold blooded creatures!!!!

Even the beauty of this butterfly could not distract me from the sweat dripping down into my eyes.  Isn't the snot colored algae in the background just lovely?

We finally saw two little baby alligators, but Timothy was not satisfied. (You can kind of see the tail towards the left of the frame)

We must've spent 3 hours driving/walking around that nature preserve looking in little ponds like this, for man eating animals.

I kept secretly hoping that we wouldn't see one and he'd give up.  But the sun was making me dilusional (have I mentioned it was HOT?!?) because Hello!  Have I met my husband?  He is nothing if not determined/stubborn.

Here he is scanning another pond for more gators.  

Darn you Swamp People for refreshing his love of gators!

We saw a bunch of these birds in the water, which was a sure sign to me that there were not many alligators hanging out.

 FINALLY we saw an alligator.  I think it heard my silent supplications, because I was about at the end of my rope.   See that leeeetle spot in the water.  I caught it like 2 seconds before it went under.  And never resurfaced.  Creeeepy.

After seeing this alligator, and receiving threats to his life, Husband wizened up and abandoned his gator hunting.  Several people told us to check out a local place called BJs for dinner, so we headed there about 5:15.  When we got there, there was a huge line out the door already!  We didn't want to stand in the heat for another hour, so we gave up and went to a restaurant on the river. It was pretty good.  I got some grouper fingers and Timothy got shrimps!

Us waiting on our food

The next morning, after a delicious breakfast of sweet potato pancakes, I snapped a couple more pictures.

This cool building was beside the Inn.  

Churches lined Vernon Square

The heat gave her a splitting headache.  See what I did there?

And then we went home!  You finally made it to the END!  Yayyyy!!!  Thanks for reading!  We definitely recommend this area for a laid back vacation.  The Inn was wonderful: delicious breakfast each morning, clean rooms, and nice amenities.  Hope everyone is having a good week.  Tomorrow is Friday!  Yayyy again!