The oaks and their spanish moss adornments are the most alluring, most calming, most enchanting things to be surrounded by. Herman Hesse on trees describes this enchantment (and that which I felt out west as well) (read the whole excerpt from Wandering: Notes and Sketches):

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

• We stayed: Jekyll Island Campground
• We explored: Jekyll Island State Park, Clam Creek, Driftwood Beach (five stars!), Georgia Sea Turtle Center, the campground’s bird sanctuary
• We fished: We crabbed the pier at Clam Creek
• We biked: the endless bike trails around the island
• We enjoyed: Holly Jolly Jekyll (drivable light show, parade, fireworks, outdoor Christmas movie), beach horseback riding, Jekyll Brewing (though not located on the island), the Wharf restaurant at the Jekyll Island Club
• We are reading: Mary Oliver’s Why I Wake Early (in fact I’ve been pacing myself through this one since day one of this journey. It’s gorgeous and cathartic and settles one into the rhythms of nature)