Savannah-1

Savannah - Day 1

We allowed three days for the trip from Luray, VA, to Savannah, GA, but only took two. Nice trip down, particularly I-81 angling SW through the Shenandoah valley. Much of I-77, -26, and -95 through SC, though, were tree tunnels – mostly pines, no fall colors.

Thursday morning, 11/1 (just four years ‘til 11/1/11 – what will we call it – oh-eleven?), I do some internet research on Savannah – looking for things to see and do and places to eat. Just in time planning, I call it. Clary’s for breakfast has hearty recommendations, so that’s where we head mid-morning. I’ve forgotten to bring the GPS, but we find the restaurant anyhow. I get kosher corned-beef hash with eggs; Susie gets fancy oatmeal. Both very good. We see that they have allyoucaneatcatfish on Friday night at another location, so we make our Friday night plans.

After breakfast we check out some of Savannah's squares and scout out the Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church, where we'll probably go Sunday morning. I'm going to do a separate posting on Wesley in Savannah -- not a pretty story, but nevertheless an important part of Methodist heritage. This square, with its park, is across from that church.

We then go back to the RV park to move Tuzi. By getting in a day ahead of our reservation, we had to park one place Wednesday night, then move Thursday pm, which is what we did. Better site in many ways, but no wi-fi access, unfortunately.

Anyhow, we book a city tour for Friday morning and then head for the Wormsloe Historic site that I had learned about that morning. This was the site of a plantation built in 1739. About all I had learned, though, was that it had a 1.5 mile live-oak lined driveway, a portion of which is seen here. Four hundred trees, I believe.



The house and surrounding wall – protection from Indian and Spaniard raiders – were built of a material called “tabby.” Tabby is a mix of equal parts of sand, lime, seashells, and water. Large blocks, about the size of an old-fashioned hay bale are stacked to build walls. Well, over 250 years of rain and humidity are not good for tabby, so what remains now are wall ruins.


In fact, the house was abandoned in the early 1800s. A few artifacts are displayed in the site's museum. A grandson of the original settler built another house, not open to the public, in which family descendants still live.

As we’re wending our way back into the historic downtown area, Susie is browsing a best of Savannah booklet and espies an ad for Paula Deen’s Lady and Sons restaurant. Paula is an Oprahcelebrity and has quite a life story. She spent twenty some years as a recluse, afraid to go out of the house (exercise for readers: what’s that phobia called?). Somehow, cooking got her out of her funk and the rest is history. Our waiter told us that this is the sixth busiest restaurant in the world (I’ll check that out when I get internet access again). They serve about 550,000 diners a year (statistics means never having to say you’re certain – have I told you that before?).

We got there early, but all that was available was bar-seating, but that was OK with us. I had some crab stew that was great, followed by “an old southern favorite,” shrimp and grits. That was good, too. Little nuggets of sausage were hidden in the grits that spiced things up. Susie got chicken pot pie that looked really good, but wasn’t – way too much dark meat. Win some, lose some.

Nice lady from Chicago sat next to us. She was in town to meet her brothers and sisters for a sibling weekend on Hilton Head Island. Susie is great at sharing our life story, which, as it so often does, led to the question: What do you teach? Statistics. Oh, yech, she said – they all do. I offered to give her a 15 minute lecture that would change her view, but she declined. We did get friendly enough, though, that she sent half of her key lime pie slice home with us – maybe for not giving the lecture.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie