Out to Sea

Tybee Island -

Traded a good internet connection for the ocean. 

Today, I walked on the beach twice, found a perfect conch shell, watched pelicans diving for their breakfast...

went to the pier and took my own picture with my cell phone

and it's not even noon yet.

I'll be back on Sunday...

Savanah III

It's already becoming a blur for me.  Beautiful squares:

Beautiful houses:

And then I reach a point of overload.  Yes, it's all beautiful, and I just can't do anymore.  No more pictures.  No more beautiful rooms with amazing furniture.  No more souvenir shops. 

I hit that point about 4:30 yesterday, and after that I was just driving Julia around, like Driving Miss Daisy.  I'd go straight, turn left, turn right, just following directions, til she'd say - there!  park!

And I would.  She'd jump out and disappear into another square, camera in hand. I'd close my eyes and snooze.  Waiting for the next directions - go straight...

But I've skipped to the end of the story, well, one of the ends, and there's still so much to tell.  Ok, backing up now.

There was Chris and the bus tour, and the 10,000 stories he told, and then the ghost tour that night, which he also led.  That was lots of fun.  He totally sold me on the idea that on a battlefield where 1100 men were killed in 55 minutes, there must be ghosts.  While I haven't been able to find conformation of his exact version of the story, which involved betrayal and great drama, it is apparently true that about that many men died in what is called "the bloodiest hour of the Revolutionary War."

Also interesting were the four prohibitions that Savannah started with:

-  No lawyers
-  No hard alcohol
-  No Catholics  and
-  No slavery

Eventually, of course, all of those prohibitions were lifted.  Slaves in Savannah, however, had a slightly different experience than elsewhere in the country.  I had read this somewhere before, but forgotten it. 

Slaves in Savannah were allowed to travel into town and work at a variety of trades, such as blacksmithing or weaving.  They were allowed to keep the wages they made from these endeavours.  If they purchased their freedom, they were treated pretty much like other citizens (with the exception of the vote, I think.)   So that created a somewhat different atmosphere in Savannah.

Having read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" before I came to Savannah, I already knew that Savannah locals pride themselves on being a little eccentric, with Southern charm to spare.  For sure, that's true.

Tuesday night, we had dinner at The Pirate's House as part of the ghost tour.  It was fun to see the cellar where the underground tunnel was open for rum-runners coming in - and kidnapped men and boys being "shanghai-ed" to sea.  Of course, Chris gave us graphic details of the cruelty imposed on the kidnapped men - and the men who were injured and left behind to die.

We were encouraged to take pictures in the area, and assured of the likelihood of capturing some ghosts on film.  

Unfortunately, all my pictures look like this.  No, I can't see the ghosts either.  Julia, however, has some on her camera that are pretty impressive, and I'll post them when she sends them to me.

But it was even more fun to listen to our server, Elijah, rave about the ghost pictures he's captured on film.  He was passionate about it, and divided his time pretty evenly between providing impeccable service to our table for dinner and accompanying us to even better areas to catch glimpses of ghosts.

I did cringe a little when he referred to us as "young ladies," but he couldn't have known that we wouldn't have been delighted.  Well, and I wasn't thrilled when he called us "love," as if he were British - "Here you go, luv," as he set a plate down.  But those were minor negatives, and he was friendly and fun.

Here's a picture of the Pirate's House restaurant - that's Chris, our tour guide, back in the corner.  

Ok, so that kind of brings us up to date - well, not really, but it gets us through Tuesday night, pretty much, kind of, and that's something. 

Today, we move to Tybee Island.  It's supposed to go up to 60 degrees and the sun's shining - woohoo!  and I'm excited.  Julia's taken the car and gone to explore more of the city.  When she comes back, we'll go see the couple of more things I want to see, and head out.

Stay tuned...  tomorrow I'll tell you about the one rude person we met...  Oh - here's what I saw from my balcony today: 

Ok, unfortunately, you can't really tell what it is.  However - see the bridge off to the left - then look at the big thing that looks like another building in the background - that's actually a ship.  The little white piece with the red top sticking up?  Part of the ship. 

So my pictures may not be professional quality.  I actually forgot I had a real camera here and the iphone may be a little limited.... 

Savnannah - II

I'm already behind in my story - but that's ok, right?  I can always catch up when I get home.

That first night, after we got here, we headed out for dinner.  A windy, cold walk to the river - fortunately only a couple of blocks long.  The restaurant was warm, thank goodness.    We decided to have a drink to celebrate.

Yep, martinis.  Julia's is the one with the olives - our server, Will, stuffed them with blue cheese himself.  Mine has expresso and a little chocolate and a dash of carmel in it.  It was lovely.

I had to take this picture about 10 times - I kept accidentally doing a video instead.  Very annoying. 

Here's a not-very-good picture of Will, who took really good care of us:

As you can see, it was a dark, elegant restaurant.  He's doing a Ceasar salad tableside, always a treat.  That got us started reminiscing about Willie Bizzle Ceasar salads, which were the best in the world, and then about other restaurant people and places.

Back in our youth, we sampled some great restaurants.  The Brass Rail in Nashville, 1789 in DC, and some fancy restauant that neither of us can remember the name of in Chicago...  And we have great restaurant stories, but I won't go into that here.  Enough to say, we amused ourselves nicely, while feasting on -

Jumbo scallops with asparagus and goronzola cheese for an appetizer, followed, of course, by the Ceasar salads and then we split:

Shrimp Saute, with mushrooms and capellini pasta and a slightly spicy sauce.  Yum.


With, of course, a glass of white wine - Chardonnay for Julia, Pinot Grigio for me.  Lovely.

After which, we fought the wind all the way back to our room and slept soundly.

We started late yesterday - Tuesday - didn't get on our trolley bus tour til almost 11:00.  But our timing was good in one way - our first tour guide was Chris, who was knowledgable, which I'm sure all the guides are, but also funny. 

Chris started out with a story about the beautiful bridge to South Carolina we could see from the trolley.  Chris gave us all the facts and figures about it - and that it was named after a governor.  The extra tidbit (in his delightful southern drawl) was that the particular governor had only been in office a short time before he was found to have "sticky fingers."  He was removed from office shortly after that and - Chris shrugged - "we named a bridge after him."

Ninety minutes later, we had a good overview of Savannah's history, and a lot of great stories.  We got off the trolley ready for lunch.

This is where we ate:

It was very fun. 

But I've barely even started on yesterday yet, and in 3 minutes, I've got to wake Julia up so we can start Round II of Seeing Savannah. Yikes.

More to follow....

Savannah - I

You've probably already heard the story about my sister's birthday celebration, but I'll tell it again just in case you missed it.  It started with the book Annie Freeman's Traveling Funeral, which is a wonderful story about a woman (Annie Freeman) who dies.  She's cremated, and she'd left instructions for a group of women friends to take this journey to scatter her ashes.

In the book, she has the trip all set up, with planned adventures and encounters along the way, and then of course, there's always the unexpected.  If you've never read the book, I recommend it, it's very fun.

So Julia reads it, and thinks it's great, but - "why wait til I'm dead?  I wanna have the adventures while I'm still alive."  She turned 50 this year, and once you turn 50, you realize that you really can do anything you want to.  At least, that's my theory.

So that's what she does.  All year long, Julia goes on little trips with different people she loves.  Now, here we are, December, the birthday year's almost over, and our adventure is almost past due.

I wanted to go somewhere warm.  She's always wanted to go to Savannah.  I wanted to see the ocean - don't have to lay out in the sun, just need to see it, smell it, be near it.  She's always wanted to go to Savannah.  It was the perfect plan.

We knew it might not be real warm.  We knew it was a long drive.  When we heard it was supposed to snow the day we were leaving, we even knew it would be smart to leave the evening before we'd originally planned.

We didn't know that we'd pull into Savannah looking like this:

We left about 6:00 Sunday night, and driven through the snow, past Lexington, past Corbin (home of the original KFC, and close to where our grandmother had lived.)  It was snowy, and kind of slick, but we persevered.

We stop at the rest area on the Tennessee border.  Laugh at the sign that says, "Use caution, roads may be slick." 

"Well, no duh," we say.  "The roads are a little slick.  Ya don't have to tell us to use caution!  But it's only 58 miles to Knoxville - let's at least get that far." 

And we blithely head on.

5 miles, and 20 minutes later, Julia says, "Well, it's not so bad as long as there's a truck or something ahead of us.  Their lights give me some depth perception.  But without that, oh, geez, I can't see - well, I can't see much of anything." 

Fortunately, an SUV passes us - we follow him for another 8 or so miles.  Then he picks up some speed - "No!  Don't leave us!"  we say, half laughing, and watch his lights fade away far ahead of us. 

We creep on.

So when we see a billboard that says "Comfort Inn - Exit 141 - 5 miles" we don't even have to discuss it.  It's got our names all over it.

And it's a beautiful sight - as we finally slide onto the exit ramp, we can see it, sitting at the top of a little hill.  Lining the driveway up to it are rows of Christmas lights, arranged to lead us safely in. 

"Yes!" we breathe a sigh of relief.

The woman at the desk is warm and welcoming, even if she might think we're a little strange for being out in this.  The room is cozy and nice.  We're happy.

Julia examines the trip tic - yes, we still have a Triple A trip tic, she loves them.  "I think we want to avoid the mountains as much as we can."

"Ya think?" I say, then add, "Really - do we have a choice?."

"Look," and she holds out the map, pointing, "If we go this way, through Atlanta, see here - I think we avoid most of the real mountains, and it's only about half an hour longer."

I don't even have to put on my glasses, I trust her judgment on this completely.  But I put my glass on anyway, just so it looks like I'm a full partner in the decision making.  "Mmmhmmm," I say, and it does look like there's a lot less elevation, "Sounds good to me.  Let's do it."

Of course, there is some talk about leaving early, then we realize that's foolish.  "If we wait til after rush hour, the roads will be clearer, traffic won't be at a standstill, we won't have to deal with all those other drivers."

Sounds like a plan to me. 

So we start out the next morning, after a good night's sleep.  It's a little slow going at first, but no real problems the rest of the way. 

I stop and get the car washed right before we get to Savannah because the snow is finally all gone, and I don't want my car to be embarrassed in front of all the pretty, clean cars.  For some reason, the GPS on my iphone, which had been guiding us unecessarily, quits talking right when we need her.  I'm driving again, so I can't fix it without drifting off the road, but we manage to find the hotel anyhow.

And at last here we are!  Our hotel is right in the historic district, only about a block from the river.  The desk clerk is delightful, answers most of Julia's questions, and assures her that the concierge will be able to tell her much more in the morning.

At last, checked in, settled in, and freshened up a little, we're ready to head out for dinner...