No trip to the Deep South would be complete without a visit to Beautiful Savannah, Georgia. Savannah is an old city, by our standards. It was established in 1733 and proved to be an important port in both the American Revolutionary War as well as the Civil War. The city maintains over twenty park-like squares in/near the downtown area. Each one is slightly different and all are beautifully maintained. Some have simple monuments, like the one on the right, (dedicated to the Scottish immigrants who came to Savannah). Others are much more detailed statues and are dedicated to individuals or to groups. My Girl-Scout Leader, Mrs. M. would be so disappointed if I did not also mention that Savannah is the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts.
For our tour through Savannah, we elected to take advantage of one of the "Hop-On-Hop-Off" (HOHO) trolleys that are very commonplace in many large tourist destinations. We found the drivers to be both entertaining and very informative. Our plan was to make a complete circuit then go back and spend more time at some of the places that really peaked our interest. Of course, like so much of our trip, time was not on our side. We soon realized that our best bet was to take the trolley around then drive back to particular areas ourselves.
Before we left Texas, we had specific instructions from Doris' daughter-in-law. We were to bring her a menu from "The Lady and Sons" restaurant. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with Food Network, that may not mean anything to you. For the rest of the world, yes, that is the restaurant owned by Paula Deene. Apparently, Kim is a big fan. AND, it is important to understand how big Paula is in Savannah...there are "Paula Deene" themed tours. These guarantee the participants a "no-wait" dinner at the "Lady and Sons" restaurant in addition to more specific information about Paula and the Deene clan. Well, we didn't take the Paula-themed tour, but we did make our way to the restaurant and more importantly, to the Paula Deene store. Doris got Kim her menu and I bought my sons and their significant others some goodies too.
Back on the HOHO, we continued through the river-front part of Savannah. In 1996, Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympics and the rowing (probably some fancy name for it but since I don't know what that is, lets just stick with "rowing"), competition was held in Savannah. To commemorate this event, the Olympic Calderon still stands near the waterfront.Then, like the rest of our trip, it was time to get back on the road, much too soon. Although we are all retired and had talked about our ability to be "foot-loose-and-fancy-free," we seemed to have come to an unspoken understanding that we would be back home by Wednesday. That would mark a week's vacation on the road. So, we made the turn and started our trek Southwest back to Texas. We planned on one more major stop, New Orleans. So, come back tomorrow to read all about that.
Please keep the victims of the bombings in Boston in your prayers.
TTFN,
Lois
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