It’s Savannah, y’all (03-21-13)

Although I have no desire to visit Savannah in the summer when the temperature and humidity both reach 100, we could have used a little more warmth for our visit here!  We delayed our trolley tour of the city, hoping for a warmer day.

  When we are touring a largish city, we consult Trip Advisor to see what the “must do” attractions are, so we spent our first day in the Massie School. It was built in 1856 and now houses information about the history and architecture of the city. 

On one of the desks were sheets of paper with examples from an 1895 8th grade final.  This one is the Grammar final, but they also had the arithmetic including questions such as:

1. Name and define the fundamental rules of arithmetic.

2.  Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

I bet we could all use an 8th grade refresher course!

 

Savannah was founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe and a group of settlers from England.  Oglethorpe designed the city using a ward system (I wish he had founded Boston!!).  Several neighborhoods were created, each one centering around it’s own public square.  Actually, the layout that was painted on the floor gave me a good sense of what the organization looked like.

There was also a scale model of the city, which gave us a great sense of how it was laid out.

Savannah is a city full of beautiful architecture which is best seen while meandering around on foot.  Since the weather required winter jackets, and/or raincoats, we didn’t do too much of that, and my pictures of the beautiful buildings are extremely limited. I didn’t realize how limited until we’d left the city.

We saw several of the squares while walking to and from whatever parking spot we managed to find for the truck. 

Eventually we took the trolley tour of the city, getting off at several stops along the way.  It wasn’t the best day we’ve ever had, but we managed to go with the flow pretty well.  It started off badly when we bought our tickets.  No half price deals here, so we paid full price for the tour, making it a little expensive, but we figured it would be worth it.  We opted to include a discounted ticket for the Savannah History Museum in our trolley ticket purchase, but when we got off at the stop for the museum, we discovered that our ticket was for the Massie School.  So, back on the trolley we went, to straighten it out.  They apologized for the error   ( they don’t sell tickets to that museum anymore, but had forgotten to take the info off the menu board).

Take 2 of our trolley tour led us around the different squares, and gave us information about some of the buildings.  We got off again at the river front to meander through the stores.

Problem 2 of the day happened \when we tried to re-board the trolley.  We stood with another couple, waiting for the trolley to show. We stood, and stood, and stood. When we’d seen about 4 trolleys go down the street a few blocks away, but not stop where we were, we called the company.  They once again apologized that we had not been informed that although stop 12 is still on the map, they, in fact, do not stop there anymore (Paul’s point: how hard would it have been for them to cross out the 12 on the map they give out??). We got convoluted directions to the “new” stop, that required another call to them for clarification.  Once there, we had two trolleys go by that didn’t stop for us. At least one had no room. We are not sure why the other driver ignored us trying to flag him down! After another call to the company, they sent a trolley out specifically to pick us up.  Whew.  Once we got back to the parking lot, however, our 3rd issue of the day occurred. We couldn’t get our truck out.  Someone had parked behind us in a place that wasn’t a parking spot, taking away our maneuvering room.  Luckily the guy parked next to us showed up and we then had enough room to make a 20 point turn and get out. 

Surprisingly,we didn’t eat out very much while in Savannah, but we did have lunch at a restaurant that I’ve eaten in before- Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room. This restaurant is only open 3 hours a day, and the line starts forming outside an hour before it opens. We waited in line for over an hour to get seated for lunch.  So, what makes this place so special?

Well, besides the fact that the food is great, the  experience is unique. There are tables of 10 set up, and each table gets filled with the next 10 people in line, so we sat with 8 people we didn’t know.  Then they start bringing the food.  It’s all served family style, and there is an amazing amount of food.  It gives you a chance to try different southern style dishes.  I tried Black Eyed Peas, Collard Greens, okra, and candied yams, and that was just the ones that were new to me. 



There was a total of about 14 side dishes, in addition to the 3 types of meat served.  We met some great people- my only wish would be that dinner last a little longer so we would have had more time to chat.

The day we ate there we also visited the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.   This is a beautiful church.  Originally built in 1876, a fire destroyed everything but the exterior in 1899.  It took a full 13 years for the interior art and decoration to be finished.

The stations of the cross are carved out of wood and are absolutely beautiful.  We were going to go back on Sunday and attend mass, but realized it was Palm Sunday and the place would be mobbed.


















This last section is for all my animal lover friends:
The campground we stayed at had a resident Australian Shepard that was always off leash.  We found out that her name is Disco.  When we talked to one of the workers, she said if you make the mistake of throwing the stick Disco offers you, she will guilt you into playing for as long as your arm holds out.

Every day that we sat outside she would come over and ask us to throw sticks. One day, she couldn’t find a good stick for us to throw so after searching for a while, she brought over a small piece of firewood.

The next day she was really desperate and brought us a pine cone to throw.

 
She is such a well behaved dog, Paul and I really enjoyed her company.  We discovered how well trained she is when we got tired of stick throwing and told her to “go home”.  We were totally surprised when she actually left when we said that!

Dozer didn’t enjoy Disco’s company very much and it didn’t surprise us at all when he tried to chase the dog away. Disco handled herself very well when the cat was outside, and never approached.