Vacation – Sand Spring Chesapeakes

The Big Oak is a large live oak (Quercus virginiana) located in Thomasville, Georgia, in the United States at the corner of Crawford Street and Monroe Street. Read the rest of the history of this tree HERE.

In the middle of January you may have seen by my Facebook posts that my friend Dana and I took a little vacation to Georgia to visit our training friend Sandy who lives in WI during the summer and in Georgia during the winter. Sandy was an excellent hostess and tour guide. She had so many adventures lined up for us, there was barely a moment where we were sitting still. I wanted to share with you The Big Oak tree adventure first because this was such an amazing site.

This tree was so beautiful, the branches were so long, the trunk was so big it was truly being taken care of with love. You could see all the work that was being done to keep this tree thriving. There were cables every where’s holding the branches up there were rods placed into the tree I imagine to help keep the limbs from breaking off. Little tree stools were placed under the limbs that have reached the ground to keep them off the ground. Signs were place around the tree to remind visitors to be respectable to the tree and not climb on it.

It was fun listening to the excitement in Dana’s voice when she was taking pictures and talking about how her husband and son won’t believe the size of this tree. They both work for Asplundh Tree Service so they have seen many trees over many years.

1982 the Big Oak property was dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Ireland Poe. The property is now known as the Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park. The Big Oak once received a distinguished visitor in 1958. On a hunting visit to Thomasville with colleague George M. Humphrey, Dwight Eisenhower stopped by to take a photograph of the tree on his way to the airport. The President reportedly asked his driver to stop while he took a photograph. He then exited the vehicle, stood on the porch of Mrs. Rudolph Keyton, took his photograph and returned to his car.^[

I didn’t realize the park was the Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park, so it makes this even more memorable since Sandy took us to Pebble Hill Plantation which was owned by Elizabeth Ireland Poe, I will take you on that tour later.