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Post by Graveyardbride on Oct 23, 2013 22:35:27 GMT -5
As some of you know, Julia, Catherine, Madeline, Kate and I are on our Dark Shadows trip and right now, we're at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel in Georgia. This is the reason I did not post much today and yesterday because it isn't as easy to post from a laptop as from my computer at home. The hotel was built in the late 19th century and is said to be haunted. Our rooms are in the main hotel -- where the ghosts are. Madeline will be posting later and telling everyone more about our trip, the hotel, whether or not we encountered any ghosts, etc. Below are photos of a guest room, one of the dining rooms (where we had Georgia bison ribeye tonight) and an ancient oak on the hotel grounds. - Lee
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Post by aprillynn93 on Oct 24, 2013 9:28:49 GMT -5
That tree is absolutely GORGEOUS!!! Thanks for sharing these photos with us Lee!
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Post by natalie on Oct 24, 2013 10:39:51 GMT -5
The hotel looks nice, clean, and cozy. Pretty pictures! My friend's considering going to Savannah with me, but I am not sure if we'll make it by year's end, considering the year's almost over. I have heard about haunted locations there so I am excited.
I have only traveled internationally, so I am looking forward to seeing any other states, including Georgia, regardless of whether I see anything ghost-related.
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Post by jason on Oct 24, 2013 13:44:28 GMT -5
I've been to Jekyll Island, but we didn't stay at the Jekyll Island Hotel because of some sort of convention. Jekyll Island was established by the Robber Barons of the late 19th century and there are tours of some of the cottages they built. There's a quaint little church, which was also built by the Robber Barons, with a fantastic stained glass window and some interesting "gargoyle" carvings both inside and out.
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Post by madeline on Oct 30, 2013 13:22:42 GMT -5
While we were at Jekyll Island, we went on a trolley tour of Jekyll Island, which was in the daytime, and two nighttime trolley ghost tours, one of Jekyll and one of St. Simons Island. We also went to the St. Simons Lighthouse, which is haunted by the ghost of a lighthouse keeper, who was murdered by the assistant keeper. One of the most interesting haunted places was Christ Episcopal Church on St. Simons, which has a spook light in the cemetery that is said to be the light of a lantern that a husband placed on his wife's grave every night because she had been afraid of the dark. Another interesting ghost on St. Simons is Mary the Wanderer, who rides a white horse along the roads of the island carrying a lantern searching for her young man, who was lost at sea. One of the ghosts at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, where we stayed, is General Aspinwall, who haunts a room that has been converted to a closed in porch. Samuel Spencer, who died in a train accident in 1906, haunts his old suite at the hotel. Rooms 2416 and 3101 are also haunted and a ghostly bellhop, dressed like they did in the 1920s, haunts the 2nd floor. We were on the second floor, but we didn't see him. JP Morgan haunts Sans Souci Cottage, which is part of the hotel. The Cherokee Cottage, which is now part of the hotel, was built by Edward Gould for his wife's parents, the Shradys. Their grandson, Eddie Gould, and his brother loved to visit them. Eddie was killed in a hunting accident when he was a teenager and people say that the door to the room he always slept in sometimes opens by itself. People also smell the scent of roses, which was Hester Shrady's favorite scent. Both the main dining room and the Crane Cottage restaurant at the Jekyll Island Club are great. One night, we drove 20 miles to The Georgian Room at The Cloister on Sea Island, which is supposed to be a 5-star restaurant and we all had the venison, but it really wasn't any better than the food at our hotel.
We went on a ghost tour of downtown St. Augustine and we've also been to the lighthouse and Lee has taken us to some other haunted places, such as the "murder house," which is just across the street, where someone chopped up a woman with a machete back in 1974 and they never caught who did it. Catherine and Kate are staying with Lee in her extra bedroom and Julia and I are staying at the Casa Monica Hotel, which is about 5 blocks away. It was cool last week and the first part of this week, but it's supposed to be warm again today and tomorrow. We liked the cool weather because it's easier to walk in cool weather than when it's hot. Just about everything in St. Augustine is supposed to be haunted and there are a LOT of tours and people walking around and sightseeing. There were a lot of good restaurants on Jekyll and St. Simons Island and there are a lot in St. Augustine, too. The restaurant here at the hotel is decorated like an old dark castle with reproduction Jacobean furniture. We've had dinner here a couple of times and we have reservations for Halloween night. Last night, we ate at a place called Harry's Seafood Grille. The food isn't that great, but the restaurant is in a haunted building where people have seen strange shadows and the women's bathroom is haunted. Tonight, we're eating at a place called The Raintree. St. Augustine is full of golden raintrees and they're beautiful this time of year when part of their foliage is turning. Lee has a huge golden raintree in her yard that must be 40 feet tall. Next spring, I'm going to plant a couple.We've stayed in character the entire time, but it's a little harder to do here in St. Augustine because it's a small town and Lee knows a lot of people and they expect her to introduce us.
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Post by aprillynn93 on Oct 30, 2013 18:56:08 GMT -5
I fell head over heels in love with St. Augustine when we visited last fall. Next time we go I'm staying there. Forget Disney!
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Post by natalie on Oct 31, 2013 11:58:49 GMT -5
I am planning to go with my friend, hopefully before Thanskgiving, and we will probably visit Savannah, Georgia before the year's end. Any particular restaurants, hotels, sights you recommend?
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Post by catherine on Nov 5, 2013 23:43:32 GMT -5
Maddie didn't mention the ghostbusters in her report. On the weekend before Halloween when we were at the Jekyll Island Club, they had a ghost hunt weekend and that Friday, a group of ghostbusters in black t-shirts and baseball caps arrived with all their silly equipment. We were in the Grand Dining Room, the one that Lee posted a photo of above, where men are required to wear jackets and all the women were in long skirts, like we were, or cocktail dresses. We heard people laughing and talking loudly and there at the entrance were the ghostbusters in jeans, black t-shirts with some kind of silly ghost insignia and sneakers! I just had to know what was being said, so I pretended to go to the ladies room and lingered long enough to hear the maître d' tell them that they would be more than welcome at the Crane Courtyard or the Café Solterra, the other two restaurants at the hotel. I gave them a snooty look and so did others passing by. What the hell is wrong with these people? Did they really think they would be admitted to the Grand Dining Room dressed like frigging field hands?
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Post by catherine on Nov 6, 2013 0:09:23 GMT -5
Natalie: My favorite restaurants in St. Augustine were the Raintree, which Maddie mentioned, and the Santa Maria, which is built over the water where you can throw food out the windows and feed the catfish. We ate at the Raintree twice, the night before Halloween and then we went back the Friday after Halloween because that was "prime rib night." The restaurant at the Casa Monica where Julia and Maddie stayed is called Cordova 95 and it's decent, but nothing special and there didn't seem to be a dress code and for a hotel like that, you would expect a dress code.
We were at Jekyll Island, which is a hundred miles south of Savannah, and I haven't been to Savannah in several years. If you go to Jekyll Island, all three of the restaurants at the Jekyll Island Club are good. On St. Simons, the Bonefish grill is okay, but stay away from the 5-star Cloister because the food is mediocre. If you like oysters on the half-shell, there's a restaurant called Latitude 31 on St. Simons where you can sit at the bar and they shuck oysters for you. We had a lunch of beer and oysters there one day.
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Post by natalie on Nov 8, 2013 12:21:00 GMT -5
Great, thanks!
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Post by Kate on Nov 9, 2013 1:45:43 GMT -5
I enjoyed this year's trip, the haunted hotel, the two lighthouses we visited and the other haunted places, but because we didn't go to the Dark Shadows Festival first, it was somehow different, even though we watched Dark Shadows DVDs. Of the two lighthouses, the St. Augustine Lighthouse has the most ghost stories, but I liked the lighthouse at St. Simons the best, even though it has just one ghost.
All we know about next year's trip is that the DS Festival is going to be held at Lyndhurst and it's usually in July or August. I like the Lyndhurst events a lot better than when it's in New Jersey, New York City or California.
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