Savannah

May 16, 2015

Day 39

Had a superb breakfast of French toast and fresh fruit and more great conversation. Hit the road up to Rockledge to get Jack's lost glasses. We arrived in Rockledge, no sooner sat down with a cup of coffee when Steve called to let us know the glasses had arrived! We would have loved to stay but needed to get a little further along. We wanted to get to St. Augustine but only made it to Ormond Beach. We did laundry and our usual blogging. We did have one exciting fateful moment on the way. I have a tendency to briefly panic when I think I have left something behind. I couldn't find one of my backpacks with most of the camera equipment in it. I finally did and reached for it. As I did, it hit the laptop which crashed into the car shifter and knocked it into neutral. One more notch to reverse and I don't even want to think what would have happened. Hopefully,you have to push a button to really get the car in reverse, but I wouldn't want to find out! Needless to say, we didn't converse for a few minutes.

Savannah square

May 17, 2015

Day 40

We got up and went to mass at Prince of Peace Catholic Church. After a quick breakfast, we headed out toward Savannah, Georgia. Once we arrived, we decided to take a trolley tour which turned out to be quite interesting. Savannah has 24 beautiful squares around which the historic city was built. It is the oldest city in South Carolina. There are beautiful antebellum homes, the Girl Scouts were founded here and the founder's (Juliette Gordon Low) home. Flannery O'Conner's childhood home is here.

Flannery O'Conner's childhood home

 General Sherman was housed here during the Civil War. People thought he would burn Savannah, but did not and instead used it for housing his troops. We also learned that contrary to belief, he didn't burn residential areas of Atlanta. 

Sherman's residence

There is “Spanish Moss” (which really isn't a moss) hanging from the live oaks (and power lines for that matter). When settlers arrived here, the used it to stuff their mattresses. Henry Ford stuffed the first car seats with it. What they didn't know until later is that chiggers call spanish moss home. Ouch! Our guide told us that the expression “don't let the bedbugs bite” is a result of this!

Spanish moss

 We learned several movies were filmed there. I believe the nonfiction book and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was mentioned the most and we saw the Mercer Williams house where the murder took place.  Scenes from Forest Gump were filmed in one of the squares. Unfortunately, the city got rid of the bench where Forest made his famous statement, “Mama says, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” 

Mercer Williams house

 There were many tourists here today. We had a nice lunch outdoors listening to some good musicians. We walked around and took pictures, tried to get into St John the Baptist Cathedral but they were having a baccalaureate Mass so we could not get in. 

Savannah cemetery

St. John Baptist Cathedral

Wright square

 Headed out of town through lowland country and  to St Helena Island where our next ATC hosts were. This island is home to the Gulla people, language, food and culture. We were sorry we did not have enough time to really explore. I have decided that this is a reconnaissance mission for future travel (that does not include baseball!). This was really a special area. It is home to the Penn Center which was the first school for the freed black slaves. Anyone who has read Pat Conroy would recognize this area. He is from this area and currently lives in Beaufort which is where we are going tomorrow. Our hosts took us out on their very long dock which has tide water that runs through, sweet grass and lots of birds, otters and shrimping. 

 We spent the evening talking and getting acquainted.  They have done a tremendous amount of camping, have driven to Alaska twice (from South Carolina) and all the way to the Panama Canal in their RV. Very interesting people.

Have I mentioned lately how hot it is? I am not complaining or anything.