Heads Up Hilton Head!

We're comin' to see you! And we did..We just decided to go see the golf capital of the world...Well, it's not really the golf capital of the world but it could be, there are enough championship golf courses there for the most discriminating golfer. We just wanted to see it...It's one of those places where you have an image in your head and it's nice to verify whether it's the right one or not. It wasn't...We were very surprised to see it's not the extremely expensive place we thought it was (at least where we were) and it's far more beautiful than many resort areas that we have seen. There are NOT the high rise hotels and motels and restaurants lining the roads to where you can't see the water...They must have a lot of restrictions on how you can build in the area. It was so lush and green with vegetation!

It's a beautiful community....the restaurants and hotels are there, but they are set back from the road, there are many protected "green spaces" on the island, there are tons and tons of trees and beautiful landscaping around all the shopping areas...We just took a little jaunt today to see it, so we just scratched the surface, but what we saw we thought was wonderful.

porch swing by a massive oak on the resort property

We kind of stumbled upon a resort area called Sea Pines...and a little section called Harbour Town. You pay 5.00 to enter the resort area-- you can shop, eat, see the Hilton Head lighthouse, and a famous golf course, Harbour Town Links, whose 18th hole lines up with the Hilton Head Lighthouse. The 18th hole has been one of the most photographed finishing holes in the world. Sparky climbed the 114 steps of the lighthouse to see the 360 degree view of the island. It's a 3.50 cost to get a little exercise and get a little history about the island, both militarily and in the golf arena.
We walked around a bit, then rocked in one of the many red rocking chairs that are available for you to sit and watch the world go by. We did.....

There are some fantastic bike trails in that part of the island. They were absolutely beautiful..You can rent bikes there if you want. We are definitely going to return and ride and ride and ride (well, maybe just ride, says E.) in a couple of days, after the high 80's temps go away....The bike trails went for miles and miles all around the island and were very shaded and level. Can't wait!

beautiful bike path to the right of the road

Kayak rentals available down at the harbor, along with jet skis....

What was interesting about today, was, Eldy decided to "check in" on Facebook just for fun. He did, and a post went out over "Cyberland" where he was, in Hilton Head...We took a photo, too, of the two of us to. This was about 1:00 PM. A little while later, we headed over to Pinckney Wildlife Refuge to check that out...no photos of that today, it was too hot to get out and hike. When we got back home today, an old high school chum of Eldy's commented on Facebook that he had been at the Hilton Head Lighthouse at noon today. We just missed him!  Eldy hasn't seen him since high school. Small world, getting smaller all the time with technology.....Tomorrow, it's back to Beaufort.....