Thanksgiving Break

We took off to Savannah, Georgia and spent two nights checking out the city. It is very old and beautiful, and more industrial than I expected.

We arrived in the city about 4pm, with enough light left in the day to scope out River Street. After checking into the hotel, we proceeded to head out looking for someplace to eat. Our brand-new Westin hotel was on Bay street, very conveniently located near River Street and
one block from the Savannah City Market. We went walking in the market, which is closed to pedestrian traffic. One of the sweet shops had two giant nutcrackers out front, one of which Austin and Emma are seen posing with.

We had dinner at a non-descript restaurant, and then spent our evening walking River Street checking out the shops and such. There are a lot of restaurants, some sweet shops, an ornament shop, and some tacky t-shirt stores. It's definitely more the place to come for a drink and people-watch with friends. The annual St. Patrick day parade brings in 800,000 people to the city. River street isn't that long, so all I can imagine is New Orleans at Mardi Gras time type crowds (yuck!) The street is still cobbled, so it's hard to walk on - thank goodness for the sidewalk! We had no crowds while we were there (a Mon and Tue night), but I was assured by a shop worker that the weekend brings 'em all in. Dad said he and Mom used to make sure they were in Savannah for St. Paddy's day on their way down to Florida each year. I'm trying to imagine my Mom navigating a crowd like that, but Dad said she loved it.

Our first full day in Savannah took us around the city. There are many historical homes and lots of park squares. We went to Forsythe park, where the kids played on the playground while I walked the perimeter of the park taking pictures of the fabulous houses that face it. The sidewalks of the park are flanked with oak trees, the branches spread so wide they cross clear to the opposite side of the sidewalk. My pictures can't even capture the scale of the oaks; they are absolutely enormous! The branches are covered in clumsy clumps of spanish moss, which trail so far down that they sway daintily in the breeze.

Being that I like cemeteries, and Dad likes ghosts, we decided to walk through the Colonial Cemetery when we stumbled upon it accidentally. It is a very unique looking cemetery, especially for one in the US. It has vaults and crypts, along with the usual headstones and monuments. It has the oldest date on a headstone that Dad or I have ever seen, and if I could remember the year I'd tell you, but it was the very early 1700's.

Driving out of the city a way, we visited Old Fort Jackson. It's built of bricks, which is unusual, and is the oldest fort in Georgia. Just as we were paying to get in, we heard and felt a huge explosion. It seems that we missed the one and only daily cannon firing. Good thing; if we had been any closer to it, Emma would've been in tears. There were uniforms to look at, old cannon balls, artifacts and that sort of stuff. It was interesting, as far as forts go anyway. I thought the most revealing part was about the loos. They used to throw their garbage in the "toilets". Ingeniously, the latrines were located on the outside wall, where after the tide came in, it would ostensibly take the sewage back out with it. The first modern "flush" toilet. That must've been lovely.

After much perusing on River street for a suitable seafood restaurant, we settled on Mex-American. Go figure. Hey, it had $2.00 margaritas, of which Dad and I partook. We relaxed and had a fun time, thus the goofy picture of me and Dad.

On our final day, we decided to visit the Tybee Island Lighthouse on our way back north to Huntersville. Having visited many lighthouses on the Cape, we had to see this one. We climbed the 178 steps to the top to be rewarded with a panoramic view the ocean and island. It's still a working lighthouse, so we also got to see the giant lens, of which I stuck my camera up into to get a picture of. Turns out Sandra Bullock has a house on this tiny island. We walked the beach and collected shells, of which I must say are nicer than any we've collected in Florida. It was windy on the beach, but we made do and got to see a pod of dolphins surfacing near the end of the jetty. The day was moving on, and so were we, heading back to Huntersville to arrive by evening.