Savannah, GA

We woke up this morning to Thunderbolt Marina's signature benefit, delivered directly to the boat daily: a box of 6 still-warm Krispy Kreme doughnuts and the newspaper.  They had fresh brewed coffee up at the office as well, but we chose to stick with our boat-brewed Martin Henry Coffee from home.  We did manage to limit our intake to 4 of the donuts, but 6 more will show up again tomorrow morning. We asked if we could get just 2 and were told the choices were 6 or 12 !!!  We’ll have to increase our exercise or leave here, or else we’ll become diabetic in a mere matter of days.

Savannah is most noteworthy for it’s beautiful Victorian, Italianate and Colonial-style homes, as well as the spectacular 24 Squares that are laden with oak and magnolia trees, moss, statues and monuments, each one a park-like setting with benches and walking paths. 

One of the lovely homes is that in which Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, was born and raised. Because Cathryn was a Girl Scout for many years and credits her early great love of the outdoors to this experience, she enjoyed seeing Juliette’s home and church.  This year is the 100-year-anniversary of Juliette’s founding of the Girl Scouts, and celebratory events are planned in Savannah.

We took the public transit bus into town, our second experience with public transit while on this trip.  Unlike the Key West bus back to Marathon, everyone on this bus was sober and well behaved.  We were the only white people on the bus except for the driver (all others were black) and we were told by him that “white people don’t ride the bus in Savannah”.  Hmmm . . . not like Seattle.

For those of you have read John Berendt’s non-fiction bestseller “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” set in Savannah, as Cathryn has, today’s tour strongly summoned that feel of the book and city.  She’s still amazed this true crime story happened in a southern city as depicted in the book, which evokes a heavy Southern-Gothic feel, is astonishing and hilarious at the same time, with remarkably eccentric characters. It’s true history from the 1980s and includes a murder, 4 trials before the judge finally moved the venue out of Savannah, and a fascinating story.

Savannah was established in 1733, but a fire in the 1790s destroyed much of the city.  Now large parts of the expansive historic district of this city of 140,000 people is composed of buildings from the early to late 1800s.  It’s a great place to walk the streets and absorb the various architectural styles.

Down by the river was a roadway made of ballast stones off of ships from the early years.  In the mid 1800s farmers drove their wagons full of cotton bails under these walkways where cotton buyers stood above, evaluated the quality of the cotton, and placed bids on the cotton.

At the end of the day after lots of walking in the high heat, we settled down for a beer in an outdoor café while waiting for a return bus, as it runs only infrequently to our marina.  Our timing was perfect!  Right after we sat down an afternoon thunderstorm hit and dropped a huge amount of rain in just a few short minutes.  We finished our beer, the rain stopped, and we walked to the bus. Timing is everything!