Savannah

What a beautiful city! We enjoyed it even more because we got to see our friend Gary while we were there. Gary works for an airplane manufacturer, and once a year they send him to Savannah for school. Essentially, they want to keep their people up-to-date on the products and procedures, I believe. Gary has class Monday thru Friday and weekends off, so we had all day Saturday and Sunday to visit.

***Update***

We hit the road a little later than we had planned, but the day was beautiful and we made good time getting to Savannah. Gary came right down when we called from the lobby. He looks great! It was so good to see him again. I did find myself wishing he had brought the whole family with him, or at least Kalei. We sat down in the breakfast room and caught up on all the news. I still miss all the people from SHAPE, and it was good to hear what is happening with so many of them. After a bit of chinwagging, we decided to head into town. Gary drove, since he lived in Savannah before and he is familiar with things. Such a beautiful day had lots of people in the Historic Area so parking was difficult to find, but we managed, then took off on foot. The River Street area has been revamped from Colonial times of course, but it was still interesting to look at the architecture and enjoy the weather. As we were walking, a lady (obviously trolling for business) asked if we were interested in taking a trolley tour. Gary asked for details, and we learned the price for a daily ticket. Then she asked if we would be in town tomorrow. When she learned that was a possibility, she explained the 'hop-on/hop-off' feature that we could get for just $3 more...then she looked directly at Tom and said "but I am suspicioning that you might be eligible for our Senior Discount." I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud. Tom just raised his eye brows and made some funny comment about his 'son ,' indicating Gary. We got the ticket and got onto the final 'round' of the day. We learned a lot about the city of Savannah and saw some b e a u t i f u l sights throughout the Historic Area. When we got back to the car it was dinnertime so we went to a restaurant Gary enjoys called 'The Pirate's Den.' It was one of the original buildings of the old district, and made a very interesting eating place. There was a very steep spiral staircase. Legend has it that a young man who was not careful could find himself drunk or drugged, then dragged down the stairs, through the tunnel at the bottom to a ship where he would wake up in the middle of the ocean with a naval career ahead of him. On other words, shanghai'd. The food was good and so was the company. We went back to Gary's hotel, got our car and headed off to the Red Roof Inn next door. In the morning, we met Gary for breakfast. His room included breakfast, but he said he wanted something different so we went to the Waffle House. I've never eaten there before, but it was a cross between IHOP and Dunkin Donuts. The food was good and not terribly expensive, and we enjoyed the time together. The weather was not nearly as nice as the day before. It was raining when we left the restaurant and headed out. We decided to go check out the mall, but our timing there was bad -- the stores weren't open even if the building was. We did some window shopping and chatting, then headed downtown again. Tom wanted to look through one of the antique stores we had seen the day before from the trolley. I loved looking at all the cool stuff there, but most of it was not antique. Tom found an interesting piece of furniture that was exactly as a colleague had described and indicated she was interested in. The shopkeeper called it a 'davenport.' I always thought a davenport was similar to a sofa, but this was more like a desk or secretary. Anyway, Tom got the purchase information for his colleague and we moved on to another store. I found it interesting that this store had some of the exact same pieces for sale at similar prices. Definitely not antiques. We got onto the trolley to finish our tour...we saw lots of things from the day before, and heard some different stories, some conflicting facts (which I found interesting, too, although nothing that changes history) and saw some things we hadn't noticed the day before. Savannah is truly a gorgeous city, worth visiting, for sure.

As the afternoon began to wane, we began our trip home...both wishing we could have visited longer, but knowing Tom had an exercise starting Monday morning. We invited Gary to spend some of his off time with us in Sumter. Since he'll be free at the weekend, we also invited him to join us in Fayetteville to see our friend Ken play Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast. Gary indicated he just might do that if he wasn't needed for the plane. Since next Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, it is also possible his company will provide entertainment, so we'll wait and see if we have company later this week or not. Gary, if you're reading this, we'd love to see you but we understand if another option presents itself.

All in all, a busy weekend, but a really good one. What did you do?