Savannah – Riveted

Ghosty Stuff in Savannah

Laura Domela — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 11:54:33 +0000

Yesterday afternoon we went back to further explore the Bonaventure Cemetery (made famous by the book/movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). We had about 15 minutes before they closed the gates so we drove around to get a good look at some of the more interesting graves and sculptures. I definitely could spend more time wandering around in here.

Driving down one of the roads inside the cemetery:

We had an early reservation at The Olde Pink House for dinner. We'd read good reviews and had also heard mixed reviews from friends…our experience was great. Our waitress recommended some fantastic dishes and we enjoyed everything we had: crab soup, a BLT salad, crab-stuffed grouper, and crispy duck. Our table in the "Study" was lovely, right next to three opened window/doors onto a garden balcony:

After dinner we walked back to our car and I swapped out my cute suede platform wedge shoes for the more comfortable alternative because we were going to spend the next couple of hours walking around Old Savannah on a ghost tour. This was the perfect thing to do on our last night in Savannah (and on the Saturday night before Halloween!)

We met our guide (Chad) at McDonough's pub and got a beer to-go (you can do that here) and started our tour at the Colonial Park Cemetery. This cemetery has some really interesting (and creepy) history, such as:

the cemetery used to stretch several more blocks but as the city expanded, they just built over it as they were developing, so although over 10,000 people are buried here, there are only about 600 headstones.
hundreds of General Sherman's soldiers camped here during the Civil War and would clear bodies out of the tombs so they could sleep in there (warmer than their tents). During this time they also amused themselves by carving disinformation into some of the headstones.

I took a couple photos with my iPhone here (my battery was at 35%):

The sidewalk around the cemetery has this pattern in it…apparently it is/was believed that spirits cannot cross patterns and so there was pattern all the way around the cemetery:

I took about five photos and then my iPhone went black. I tried to turn it back on and it gave me the dead battery icon and the diagram to tell me to plug it in. Um, no. I tried to restart it –nothing. We walked a bit more, I tried again — nothing. I was so bummed. We continued the tour and learned a lot of interesting Savannah history and got to go inside and check out some really interesting old buildings and still, my iPhone would not come on at all.

Our last stop was the building that now houses Moon River Brewing Co. We went into some seriously creepy rooms in this building. Still, no camera.

Eventually the tour ended and we got to talking with some new friends (Hi Katie and Russell!) and the four of us continued down to the City Market area where there were hundreds of people in Halloween costumes. We went and had a beer and danced a bit at the Tree House (totally fun) and then eventually we said goodbye and headed back to the car. As soon as we were in the car, the car robot voice said "Phone, connected." Huh? My phone was dead…how could it bluetooth connect to the car? I got it out of my bag, and it there it was, 18% battery charge, working fine as if nothing had happened.

Now what d'ya make of that? Spooky, huh?

Watching the Wind and Hurricane Sandy

Laura Domela — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 12:27:14 +0000

We've been following Hurricane Sandy pretty closely since we're on the East Coast (in an Airstream) now and scheduled to be around this area through Thursday. Seems like the worst we're supposed to have is today: a 30% chance of rain, and winds in the 20-30mph range.

I've been getting into this weather tracking thing and some of the graphics are particularly beautiful interesting. These wind graphics show the wind for the next three days. I like that you can move it ahead by the hour, by the day, by the month…try it! It's really cool. (Go over to "Map Type" and choose "Wind (kts)" … then up top where the date is, there's a pull down for moving the time/day around.)

Here's today, at about 1pm EST:

Today should be the worst of it for us, and it looks kinda scary, but if you click the image to enlarge it, it's much clearer what's going on for us. We are in Savannah — where the marker is. Looks like we're in the 18-23kts area today. So far it's just a little breezy, and there's been no rain at all.

Here's tomorrow (Sunday), same time. Our wind drops to the 12-15kts range:

And Monday, same time (winds about the same, 12-15kts):

I think right now — we're going to go for a bike ride around the campground.

Touring Old Savannah

Laura Domela — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 21:46:17 +0000

This afternoon we drove into Savannah to explore a bit. We parked in what ended up to be a very cheap parking garage (State Street Parking Garage on State and Broughton…a buck an hour).

We walked around and ended up walking past Lady & Sons (Paula Deen's restaurant) and we'd heard mixed reviews but thought for lunch it wasn't much of a gamble so we put our name in (45 minute wait) and walked around some. We wandered a bit in the historic district (loved it) then headed town to the riverfront and walked the length of that (touristy, but not crowded so not too bad), and then back up to the restaurant.

More moss:

Cobblestones:

Huge loaded ship on the Savannah River:

Lunch was good, not spectacular, but good. The way they do the whole seating thing, however, is not awesome. You go to the little podium outside and put your name in and then come back when they tell you to. Then they send you into the gift shop (!!) and tell you they'll call your name from inside. Just inside, past the the gift shop there's a seating area (we went straight there) and they called our name about 4 minutes later and gave us a little yellow ticket. We were ushered past the buffet and upstairs to the third floor where they took our little yellow ticket and seated us over by the window. (There's a buffet on every floor…$15.99 for lunch). The interior is kind of rustic, the staff was nice but not super friendly or warm, and overall if felt a little like we were being processed through the system.

We ordered some fried okra, a wedge salad, crab cakes, and some seared scallops. We also ordered peach mint juleps, and when I ordered mine, the waiter said "You know there's bourbon in there." Um. It's a mint julep, isn't it? So funny.

After lunch (early dinner, really, since it was 4pm) we decided we'd probably get a lot out of one of the trolly tours so we hopped on the 90 minute Old Savannah Tour that left at 4:30. It was great, and we got a ton of good information about architecture, history, people, ghosts…and even the food our tour guide ate while he lived in Germany. Our tour guide was fun and entertaining (they called him "Mojo"). Here are some photos from the trolley.

Here's the gorgeous Mercer Williams house:

I couldn't get a good photo of the First African Baptist Church where Martin Luther King first practiced his "I have a dream" speech because it was on the other side of the trolley, but here's the First Baptist Church (I guess it's the non-African version):

Architecture:

This building was built during a time when property was taxed on the number of doors, so they just made the windows big enough to walk through:

Graffiti on the Old Savannah Theater:

Tile entry of the theater:

Owens-Thomas house (side):

Cathedral of St. John the Baptist:

Here's our trolley:

We got back to the parking garage and had a lovely view from our parking spot:

We drove over to the Bonaventure Cemetery but the gates close at 5pm and the sun was just setting so it was a bit too dark for photos. We may go back over tomorrow.

The sunset, however, was incredible. The cloud cover made the entire sky change color. This is straight out of the camera.

Incredible. It just got redder and redder as we made our way back to the campground:

Skidaway Island State Park (Savannah, Georgia)

Laura Domela — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 10:33:18 +0000

Here we are. We got in on the late side last night but here's what our campsite looks like in the daylight:

It's huge, and there's tons of hanging moss (kinda hard to see in these iPhone shots I just went outside to take). But it's there, trust me.

I picked up this little glass Airstream ornament (we won't say the C word just yet, since it's not even Halloween!) but I couldn't resist. It's about 4 inches long, and super cute, don't you think?

Oh yeah, and I found this photo I'd forgotton to post of one of the decorated golf carts over at Disney's Fort Wilderness campground. I'd love to have seen it at night with its "Boo Y'all" all lit up. So fun:

We'll be working this morning and then at some point we'll head into Savannah to do some sightseeing today. We're keeping track of the storm (Hurricane Sandy) here and here. We're looking good at this point but of course if the forecast changes, so will our plans.