SUMMARY
Picked up our rental car on the south side of town and so had a late breakfast and visited the (uninspiring) Savannah Botanical Garden while in that part of town. Went to the last two hidden gardens on the Hidden Garden Tour then chilled in our room to escape the heat mid-afternoon. Early dinner and some more walking around. - Karen
DETAIL
Up late, coffee, very blue sky
The only plan for the morning is breakfast and to pick up our rental car at noon. Then the phone rings. It’s the rental car company. In a strong southern drawl they double check that I know they close today at 11:30 am. It is Saturday after all. Good to know. We’ll be there at 10.
Lyft to rental car? $37. Too much for such a short ride. We walk 100 feet, turn a corner and are on the Main Street. From here? Lyft is $25. Interesting.
From our ride-share we can see the Saturday Farmer’s Market, off in the distance snaking up the middle of Forsyth Park. It seemed to be working its way towards the “health food” store at the south end of the park. We surmise there’s a connection.
SCAD, the Savannah College of Arts and Design, are everywhere. Annual tuition? $60K. Ooof.
Picked up car our car and installed the dash cam that we always bring. Belts and suspenders.
We stop for breakfast at Sunny Side Up Diner. It's crowded! The place is big and has huge portions. We split one thing and it's still a lot. There are people smoking outside. It’s the kind of place you might hear “do you want one or two ladles of the sausage cream gravy on your tater-tots?”
We visit a local botanical garden. It's small, free, and has a "beware of snakes" sign that quickly gets our attention.
We drive over to Costco, out by the airport. Shorts for Karen and wine for both of us. Karen forgot to bring shorts and Costco seems like a good place to remedy that. She’s sad there are no changing rooms where she can try them on, til she sees a girl doing just that, over her thin gym shorts. Karen’s in a ‘skort’ and bravely does the same in the store. Mission accomplished.
We went to Costco when in Alaska and Hawaii and saw obviously local inspired offerings, unusual to our eyes. Black-out camping tents and 3 gallon tubs of butter in Alaska. Spearfishing gear and huge tins of Spam in Hawaii. Here it was just the same offerings as in Austin. We did see Jasmine plants on offer. Checked the label. Yep, “Confederate”.
Driving around we see signs of marshy land, a reminder of what much of the land here is normally like without human intervention (I guess). Here, and in south Louisiana, the land peters out eventually becoming the water with coastal marshlands protecting dry land from the ravages of the sea. In my mind I contrast that to the well defined a coastline from Vancouver down to San Diego. Maybe I’m imagining it but it seems the land here just becomes a maze of puzzle piece islands, loosely fit together, with “beware of alligators” signs sprinkled throughout. No worries there.
We park our rental car across the street from our room and head off to ‘unhide’ the last two gardens from yesterday’s tour.
On the way we walk through Colonial Park Cemetery. Here, during the “War between the states” (as the locals call it), northern soldiers were billeted. Apparently they were also bored and some spent their spare time ‘adjusting’ the dates and other writings on the headstones. As such you have people who seem to have died long before they were born, or had a dozen children by the age of ten. The writing (carving) on the headstones is old and weathered. We’re unable to see any evidence of the mischievous edit of the northern soldiers.
We see last two gardens. After a while they all run together so we head back to room to escape the afternoon heat. We relax and book activities for tomorrow.
We head out for an early dinner reservation at Garabaldi’s. It’s the sister restaurant to The Olde Pink House (where we ate our first night here). It was also recommended by our driver coming in from the airport.
On our walk to dinner we stop into a store that sells thin, quarter-sized cookies. So good. So many flavors. And you can try them all. Dangerous! byrdcookiecompany.com, in case you want to order some.
We pass a group of locals on a DIY pub crawl. We learn that if they each get a drink and a taco from six or maybe eight bars they earn a tee shirt. (And a hangover, we imagine). They ask where we’re from. Austin? “Oh, I have a [fill in the blank] there!” Everyone we meet has a relative or friend in Austin.
Good dinner, fun waitress. Big old fancy building, all gussied up.
We walk home, stopping into the basement gym we have permission to use (as a part of our “hotel”). So big. So much equipment. So few people. Well, it is Saturday night. Maybe we’ll come in tomorrow. We feel virtuous just for having peeked in.
Photos
Finally our own car. American-style freedom.
Sunny-side up diner. Very popular.
One breakfast, split in two. Still a lot of food.
The botanical garden. Small but sweet. Other than the supposed snakes.
Some wild flowers we'd never seen.
Some of the headstones the minxy northern soldiers adjusted for fun.
Our last hidden garden.
Byrd Cookies, sample all the flavors! Yum.
How they make all these cookies.
City hall and one of the many statues in one of the many squares.
Dinner and cocktails. Mine is a PB&J (Pineapple, Basil, and Jalepeno, and rum, of course).
Comments