Celebration – Wandering Dawgs

Cellpic Sunday – Junkanoo for St. Patrick’s Day

March 22, 2026Posted in Celebration, PhotographyTagged Cellpic Sunday, Crab Shack, green, junkanoo, One Word Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, Tybee Island11 Comments

Every year, the Bahamian Junkanoo group Barabbas and the Tribe create special costumes for the St. Patrick’s Day and are a crowd favorite in both the Tybee Irish Festival parade and the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Parades.

The fun starts a few days before the big Savannah St. Patrick’s Day parade when twice a night the Junkanoo Band marches through the Crab Shack on Tybee Island to the delight of everyone.

Shared with John’s Cellpic Sunday

Also shared with One Word Sunday – Green

Every Day is a Gift

Wandering Dawgs – Celebrating 13 Years of Blogging

March 21, 2026Posted in CelebrationTagged blogging, blogging anniversary, blogging community, blogging friends49 Comments

March 19, 2026 was the 13th anniversary of my first post on the Wandering Dawgs blog. I started the blog in 2013 as a way to keep friends and family up to date on our RV journey from Georgia to Alaska and back. When I started the blog I never dreamed I would make blogging friends from all around the world!

I enjoyed keeping up the blog even after we returned from our Alaska adventure. For several years I mostly posted about our RV travels before I expanded my focus to include posts about gardening, birds, wildlife, coastal Georgia, and other random things. I still post about our travels even though we don’t take the RV any more.

I started participating in photo challenges somewhere along the way. In 2025, I was honored and excited to be asked to be one of the hosts of the Lens-Artists team. To learn more about the Len-Artists challenges please click here.

Wandering Dawgs then and now:

Thank you to everyone who visits Wandering Dawgs. I really appreciate all the visits, likes, and comments over the years. I value each and every one of my blogging friends! Thank you for your kind words and encouragement through the years!

I just renewed Wandering Dawgs for another year. I hope to keep this up until I run out ideas and photos!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #377 – Holiday Fun

December 10, 2025December 10, 2025Posted in Celebration, PhotographyTagged Christmas, Christmas season, Family, Fun Holiday, Holiday, Lens-Artists, Memories, Photo Challenge38 Comments

This week Ann-Christine is asking us to share some Holiday memories. We can choose any happy memories from any holidays we have enjoyed. The Christmas season is here and I will be sharing some of my fondest Christmas memories with you.

My favorite Christmas memories go way back to when our children and then our grandchildren were young. Those were magical times when they would get more and more excited the closer we got to Christmas. In the following gallery our grandson was 4 when we had a magical day with him at Busch Gardens in Tampa right before Christmas. I love this photo of him looking up at the giant Christmas tree. Later in December of the same year his family came to our house for Christmas. He and his little sister loved looking out our living room windows at Christmas Train lights and seeing our living room transformed into a snowy Christmas village.

Most of the ornaments on our tree have special meaning. My favorite ones are the ones our children and grandchildren made. Below on the left is a reindeer made by one of our grandchildren. On the right the two paper star Santas were made by our children almost 50 years ago.

We have lived on the Georgia coast for many years. Many of the Christmas light displays have a beach theme with lighted palm trees and even mermaids.

One summer we were in North Pole, Alaska on the Fourth of July. We visited the Santa Claus house and although we didn’t celebrate Christmas with Santa we had fun watching the North Pole Independence Day Parade which of course featured Santa Claus!

It was my pleasure to be your host for last week’s challenge of Wings. I enjoyed every one of your creative posts. Thank you everyone who responded with natural wings of birds and insects from around the world. There were even a few airplanes, angel wings, dragons, and gargoyles.

Many thanks to Ann-Christine for her challenge Holiday Fun. I hope you will join us for this fun challenge.

Be sure to check back on Saturday, December 13 at noon eastern time for our last challenge of the year.

For information on how to join the Len-Artists challenge please click here.

Every Day is a Gift

Anniversary Celebration in Darien, Georgia

August 9, 2025Posted in Celebration, Georgia, Historic SitesTagged anniversary, Coastal Georgia, Darien Georgia, Fort King George, Georgia on my mind, Shrimp boats31 Comments

We’ve driven through Darien many times over the years and have previously stopped there for a seafood dinner on the Darien River. We had never taken the time to explore the area so for our anniversary this year we decided to spend the night in a hotel on the Darien river.

After taking the scenic drive south on Highway 17 we checked into our room before having a delicious flounder sandwich for lunch at a popular local restaurant.

The first place we explored was the Fort King Georgie State Historic Site close to our hotel. The fort was was built by the British in 1721 at the mouth of the Altamaha River to protect the area from the Spanish and the French. Fire destroyed the fort in 1727 and the fort was decommissioned.

Reconstruction of the fort began in the 1970’s and still continues today. We toured the interesting history museum before wandering around the reconstructed fort.

The rest of the afternoon we enjoyed the pool and for a while relaxed on our balcony overlooking the river. After a delicious seafood dinner and a walk along the dock we ended the evening back on the balcony enjoying the view.

The next morning I strolled along the Darien Waterfront Park before breakfast.

On our way home we made a slight detour to visit a recently opened Buc-ees on I-95 in Brunswick. Imagine a huge gas station and a huge store with souvenirs, hot food including Texas brisket, a wall of jerky, groceries, clothes, and even fresh made fudge. It was our first ever visit to a Buc-ees. Now we can say we’ve been there, done that.

Celebrating my Birthday on Daufuskie Island, SC

July 27, 2025Posted in Celebration, Historic Sites, South CarolinaTagged beach, birthday, boat ride, Bull River Marina, Daufuskie Island, day trip, Old Daufuskie Crab Company, Pat Conroy, South Carolina30 Comments

We celebrated my June birthday with a day trip to Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.

Daufuskie Island is one of the South Carolina sea islands located near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. The island can only be reached by water. You can take your own boat or take a water taxi from either Hilton Head or Savannah. There are tours available on the island but we chose to rent a golf cart and see the island on our own.

Our day trip adventure began with a water taxi ride on the Bella from Bull River Marina in Savannah. We felt like we were on a private charter when we discovered we were the only two passengers on the boat. Henry and I both love boat rides through our beautiful coastal waterways. It was wonderful to watch for birds and dolphins as we traveled the 45 minutes to our destination.

The captain dropped us off at the public dock on Daufuskie where we hopped in our rental golf cart and began to explore the island. The roads are mostly dirt although there are a few paved roads. As we headed in the direction of Bloody Point Beach we saw a few houses but most of the ride was through undeveloped woods. We took a walk on the almost deserted beach. A logger head turtle nesting area was marked off for protection and we could see Tybee Island off in the distance.

As we rode along we stopped to explore some historic sites on the island. The following gallery includes the old Silver Dew Winery, the Bloody Point Lighthouse and former living quarters for the lighthouse keeper and his family (the building is now a museum and gift shop), and the former Mary Field School where the author Pat Conroy once taught. His novel The Water is Wide is based on his experience there.

It was time for lunch so our next stop was the Old Daufuskie Crab Company and Scrap Iron Bar at the Freeport Marina. This is a popular place for boaters and some of the water taxis stop here. I was a little disappointed when I discovered they didn’t have any of the famous deviled crab but my locally caught fried shrimp was delicious. The Scrap Iron Bar is known for it’s Scrap Iron cocktail.

Our last stop was back at the public dock where we waited for our water taxi at D’Fuskie’s Store. I saw a sign for Deviled Crab behind the cash register. I asked if they had any frozen to take home for my birthday dinner and bought the last three they had. They kept them in the freezer for me while we waited for our boat ride home. We enjoyed sitting on the porch talking to some of the locals who live on the island. When it was almost time for the boat to arrive we sat under an oak tree by the water and enjoyed talking to some other locals.