Hello y'all from Sunny Georgia, Savannah in fact! It has been a few days since I have had time or energy to blog after hours of sightseeing and walking the streets of Charleston and Savannah.  I have grown accustomed to women in Charleston calling my husband "darlin" and almost everyone being so darn friendly!  The staff and waiters and waitresses have been exceptional almost everywhere!  Our last day in Charleston (Tues.) started off early with a carriage tour of part of the city. Our guide was a former professor and very interesting and knowledgeable. After that we  headed to The Battery to walk and sight see. The houses along that part of the city, right by the water, were absolutely incredible. We decided to tour an Italian mansion, the Calhoun house, which had quite a lot of history and is owned by an eccentric, rich and narcissistic man today. He travels with his international law and collects antiques for this house/museum. We have NEVER seen a house that crammed with antiques and art!!!  The tour guide says that in two weeks since she had worked, a few new things had shown up. I think it is sad that he can't think of anything better to do with his money. I 'd like to write and tell him about trafficking and see if he can put some money into a problem in the countries he probably shops it! 

 

This doesn't do it justice and you can't take pictures inside , of course. I wouldn't give them anymore money for a book either, after I found out the story inside of it! and the Gardens........beautiful !

 

After lunch we toured one more house and it was a bit more normal. Mike was done with houses for that day, so we hiked around The Battery a while longer and headed home. That night we ate MORE seafood, taking home the leftovers. Somehow, shrimp just isn't as good at breakfast, even microwaved.  We ate our last Continental Breakfast and hated to leave Shem Creek Inn. We found a cool antique shop to check out, washed the car, and headed out of town.  We decided to skip another plantation, and check out Beaufort, Georgia, where some of Forrest Gump, The Big Chill, and another movie were filmed. Once again, we ate lunch and asked the waitress where we could find some movie sets. If we had not needed to get to Savannah, we could have taken a movie tour. However, one gal who worked at Plums (the quaint sandwich shop's name) had just been on it and told us everything!  We found the church and learned by calling Kara that the park where he sat was in Savannah, just several blocks from our hotel.   The actual bench is in the history museum here I guess.  We saw a steeple this morning that was in it at the beginning in the "feather" scene. It will be on TV Sun. eve. if we get stuck in a storm shelter somewhere. (We are praying against that dreadful force supposedly coming to the gulf coast where we were headed next!)

 

 

 

 

 

We spent last night orienting ourselves to downtown, historical Savannah. We are very near the water, in fact, we can see boats going right outside our seventh story hotel window.

 

 

 

 

 On that side is the river district with old shops and tons of restaurants, and a 4 room candy store. THERE are at least 6-8 candy stores in this immediate area!  There is also a peanut/nut store where you can sample all kinds of flavors of nuts!!! Crazy! Also a 200 flavor SALT STORE, whick astounded Mike.   At nine last night we had a Ghost story tour by  horse drawn carriage.   It turned out to be very fun and full of historical facts(?), which were then embellished with more of a twist concerning the people of the past and their reappearances as ghosts. NONE of us believed in ghosts, but were fascinated by her way of telling stories.  She is working to help her husband get through SCAD, the School oF Art and Design here. Today we learned that is quite a school, with 11,000 students and 43 areas of studies. The school has spread into numerous OLD buildings around the historical district and now owns 73 buildings. They pop up all over! 

This morning we walked before breakfast, and went on a bus tour after breakfast. Once again, or guide was quite knowledgeable and had lots of stories. It got a bit tiring after a while, but we learned some things.

 

 

I tried to take some pictures from the bus, but we will continue to walk and see some of the things we saw again. We had some more SEAFOOD (also see food, we see food on this trip and we eat it!) for lunch, walked some more, and finally rested before dinner!  Mike broke his 6 days of oysters or shimp to try Alligator gumbo today. ONE bite was enough for me !!!   Dinner tonight was in our package deal, a trip to Paula Dean's "the Lady & Sons" restaurant. It was three floors, in a huge old warehouse. Our deal was for the buffet, which was not that fantastic except for the AWESOME Friend Chicken, GOOD and BUTTERY Biscuits, and Peach cobbler!  Mike says "SHE CAN'T DO BARBEQUE!!!" She also has  a store next door with --you guessed it--KITCHEN STUFF !  I passed up the mugs, utensils, pans, etc. to get some baking mix and light salad dressing.  She has all kinds of seasonings, rubs for meat, etc. One was called Silly Salt!  It is SIMPLY SILLY to think someone in this day and age of HEALTH AWARENESS can make so much money off recipes with fat and sugar and all the luxuries of calories in them.

We finished the night walking some more, listening to some "old people's 60's music" by two guitarists on the square, and yes Lindy, people watching!!  I was not too obvious about it, but really, it should get more interesting this weekend during Oktoberfest we hear. We were forewarned last night. There will even be a wiener dog run on Saturday!!!   Since open bottles are legal here ALL the time, we can't imagine that Oktoberfest could be that different. It sounds like there could be a "RAINBOW FESTIVAL" too this weekend, which  WE HOPE we do not SEE !

 

I 'M SORRY , but my program won't download anymore pictures tonight. If it doesn't work I 'll email some later. It is late and I need to sleep~!  love, Julie aka Gramme aka Mom