Ah! Valona!

In addition to sweet tea and Spanish moss, we have discovered… the beach!

Shortly after the memorial my mom and dad, Izzy, the girls and I headed south to a little place called Valona, GA. Don’t be embarrassed if you’ve never heard of the town. You shouldn’t know about it. We, and the three residents who live here, prefer that no one knows about this little slice of heaven.

Heaven it is. When we were younger, my sister and I would enjoy visiting the post office several times a day. And walking down the dock to see if we could spot a porpoise. We would go cast net shrimping and use our bounty as bait for fishing.

The cabin is rustic. And fantastic. The history is that on September 15, 1913, my great Grandmother Ida Story bought this piece of property that included a dock into the marsh waters of the Atlantic Ocean and a smoke house for hogs. Since then, due to the amazing amount of love and effort of the Story family, the house in Valona has added running water, not one but two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a kitchen and – wait for it – a 19” t.v. (I honestly have not turned the t.v. on. In my mind it would be sacrilegious to cover up the swishing of the tide coming in with even my current favorite reality show, Dancing with the Stars. Melissa, Gilles, Shawn and Ty are just going to have to wait until I have a date with my TiVo upon our return to Oklahoma.)

Recent history is recorded on the door jams, all of the Story kids have measured their growth with scrawled pencil marking the height, date and name of each off spring. Mia and Maggie now have made their first mark on Valona. The tradition continues.

Yesterday we fished off the dock and Grandpa and Daddy were able to catch enough fish to make dinner.

Today we headed to Jekyll Island and hit the beach.

They loved it! At first Maggie was skeptical. It was surprising, our headstrong girl was not about to put her feet in the sand! She cried and moaned and I ended up carrying her a great length of the beach. (I remember that she was also scared of grass for a long time. It must be about the texture…)

But then, enter Daddy. He was the smart guy who taught the girls how to dig holes in the sand and then throw the mud at each other. Viola! Once the beach was fun instead of menacing, she could not be torn away!

We’re out of contact with the world, almost completely. Our cell phones don’t get service regularly and the wireless internet connection we’re stealing from next door comes and goes. For the first time in a year I feel like I can relax.

Maybe it’s the sweet tea, the drawls, or the marsh grass. Whatever it is, I love it!