#2,386 Wakulla 2016. 

We left Savannah bright and early this morning bound for one last night of our trip in Wakulla Springs. On the way out of Georgia, we finally found the peaches we’d been looking for:   

  
 
And just a little while later, we made it to Wakulla right in the middle of a short-lived summer thunderstorm.     

Soon, the storm cleared and the sun came back out and the guys and Lucy swam in the icy cold springs until dinner time.

   
This is my summer place. Here in the absolute middle of nowhere. I once found a tiny black and white photo in an old shoebox that my grandmother snapped of her sisters at the grand opening of this hotel in 1941. Every year I haven’t gotten to spend a night in this gorgeous old Mediterranean lodge, I’ve missed it. Here, it will always be the 1940s. There are no TVs with talking heads fighting about politics. There are wood burning fireplaces and rotary phones on bedside tables. Cold marble floors beneath my feet. Spanish moss shades every window, and the old brass accordion elevator door creaks closed when you arrive at your floor (that they say is haunted, but I’ve never met the ghost). Here, we listen to Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong and swim in the ancient aquamarine springs where they’ve found the bones of mastodons and filmed The Creature From the Black Lagoon. It’s a spooky place, but a welcoming one too. And I miss it when I’m gone.
     

  
And now I’m going to read until I fall asleep right here at 9:30 pm.