Jump into spring

Sunset on St. George Island
Oh, my, dear readers. I've been away for a long time. Sorry about that. We started this blog to document our travels, and we have not been traveling. Incentive dissolved.
In twenty five words or less, we left Maine in October, visited family and friends, did a little touring, went to Louisiana for RV repairs, schlepped over to Jekyll for the winter. OK, twenty six words.
The RV repairs had to do with our main slide, which wasn't working. We went to Dick Albritton's fine Alfa repair shop in LA for an upgrade to the motor, one better designed for the weight of the huge slide. So far, all that is working fine.

Foggy Jekyll Campground

We stopped in Roanoke, VA and Asheville, NC on the way down. We did a little touring in both places, going to the Blue Ridge trail and Biltmore Estate, and a nice downtown market in Roanoke.
We stopped at Summerdale, AL and St. George State Park in the Florida Panhandle on our way back east. Checked out the Gulf coast (post oil spill) in AL and wondeful deserted beaches in FL.
We arrived on Jekyll on Nov 28, just after Thanksgiving.
One of our goals was to share our knowledge here with those who were willing. Consuelo developed a beginner's and intermediate knitting classes. I put together a photography workshop and held 2 full 4 week sessions in January and February. We discovered that there was little structure to such activities, so we worked to develop some infrastructure. Part of that included creating a new blog for the winter group (jekyllwinter.blogspot.com), an online calendar, and developing policies that worked. There is now a working group designed to empower activities duing the winter season.

Alligator warming on the golf course

The photography was good this winter. Given that I'm just as inclined to put my feet up and watch TV as the next guy, instead of going out to find creative scenes to capture with my camera, but I got out enough. I continued to expand my skills both with the camera and with the software, in part by taking a class at the Jekyll Art Center. 90% of the class was reinforcement, 10% an expansion of my skills. I was disappointed that the class did not include creative feedback as promised. The culmination of all this was the Jekyll Arts Festival, a juried competition. This meant buying frames and mounting photos, always a challenge for me. Given their guidelines, I entered as an intermediate, and won two seconds, a third and an honorable mention. I've been informed that my time as an intermediate is over, I'll be in the advanced group next year. Harder, perhaps, but better.
To sell photos, I created 13" X 19" posters and sold a bunch, note cards, and I was requested to do portrait photo shoots. I also found a little work as a "Photoshop Expert" for a local photographer during the Christmas season.
We renewed old friendships and made new ones here during the winter. By February, I got out the golf clubs and did weekly rounds with the guys. Consuelo went to lunch with a bunch of other ladies a few times, and we had our share of dinners out.

Sunset over the fishing pier

Jekyll is partly under construction, as the old convention center has been demolished, and a new on under contruction. Huge tents have been placed in the historic district as a temporary convention facility. During November and December, 20th Century Fox tied up parts of the island making a movie. A huge chink of beach is still fenced in as restoration work continues where the movie set was located.
Now it's April, nearly all of our winter friends have gone home, replaced by snowbirds stopping on their way north and locals getting out of the Georgia winter for the first camp out of the season. We'll be here until 4/18, when we'll wing our way north.