Y’all, Savannah was marvelous. It was 80 degrees and breezy, and since the towne is slam full of huge live-oak trees, shade was to be had by all. We found a parking place in the 10-hour stretch ($3 for 10 hours), and walked all day long. My hip is killing me today from walking on all those bricks and cobblestones, but who cares, it was worth it.

The old part of town is beautiful. The buildings range from 1730 to 1950 and are laid out on three-block squares, with the center being a big park with trees
and benches, occasionally a statue commemorating Tomo-Chi-Chi or maybe John Wesley. There is a church every other square, and shops shops shops. Artisan stuff like handmade jewelry or blown glass or incredible one-of a kind clothing. I saw a jacket I coveted of light tan felted wool with incredible embroidery in a coffee color- kind of filigree look work with beads and such. It would have looked great on me 20 years ago when I was a size 10, as it is, it just looked great in the window with it’s $3500 price tag.

Lunch was at Paula Deen’s restaurant “Lady and Sons”. That place was run with a military efficiency. 3 floors of tables, and people with bluetooth headsets trolling and clearing and seating folks. We showed up at 9:30, and got our name on the list. There was a line, and a huge tub of icewater and cups for folks who got hot waiting. There we also misters in the awnings, to help cool a body off. The hostess told us when to return (12:30), and to be ready. We did, she hollered our name out on the street, and gave us a card to get to the 3rd floor. The hostess upstairs took it and we were seated immediately. A young man came by with a platter of cheese biscuits and hoe-cakes, and gave us some. The biscuits were light, fluffy, and buttermilk. Delicious. The hoecake was fried in lard, and we both had heart palpitations after looking at it. A dollop of maple syrup fixed that, tho. We split a cup of crab chowder. Think creamy clam chowder, no potatoes, and a quantity of crab no sensible person would use. It was amazing, a bowl full of crab meat held together with delicately seasoned cream. Oh baby it was good. And rich. A cup split between 2 is plenty. A bowl would have put you in the hospital. We also split an asparagus sandwich that was a little weird, but tasty in it’s own “I’m bored let’s see what happens if we do this” sort of way. Pumpernickel bread, grilled asparagus, monterey jack cheese, the perfect delicate touch of red onion, and thousand island dressing. Weird, but tasty. OH! And they put MINT in the iced tea! WOO! Go there, but check your calorie counter at the door. They also have a buffet with fried chicken and bbq and other stuff. We wanted crab chowder, tho.

Savannah is full or ironwork, gates, fences, railings around verandahs, and ivy, crawing up buildings, and window boxes full of colorful flowers. A testament to capitalist excess build in 1890 (think bricks, amazing millwork, 3 stories and a widows walk) sits 50 feet from a sober merchant’s house built in 1790. And both houses are haunted. There’s an inn built in 1820 with a ghost that steals guests underwear (ladies only) and hangs them on the Christmast tree. She will also try on the women’s jewelry and lay it in odd places when she’s done. The management there has a policy in place for reimbursing you if your panties disappear. There is the ghost of an orange tabby cat, that only children can see,and the cat will play with the children. Apparently it bothers people to see their lil tikes petting something that isn’t there.

SCAD is there (Savannah College of Art and Design), with buildings all over downtown. Instead of building a single campus, they just buy an old building and put classes in it, working hard to maintain the aesthetic integrity of the structure. So you can look in the window of a 1930’s era movie theater, and see people sculpting. The marquee (lightbulbs and neon vertical signs that reads SCAD) will say “Clay Series 1-5 with Dr. MacMuddy”. Art students are notorious for having their own ideas about dress and hair styles, and we discovered a charmingly shabby coffee shop that smelled of fresh cookies and had bottomless cups, so we sat in squashy chairs, ate cookies and drank multiple cups of papau new guinea whilst watching the creatively coiffed stoll by with their portfolios.

Downtown is full of art stores, as you can imagine. I found one place that made me grateful I left the credit card at home. It was full of handmade artisan papers and I am a sucker for such. They even had sheets of wood veneers so thin you could fold them and put them in the matching wooden envelopes. I had a vision of writing SD a love letter on a cedar sheet. It would work. They had every kind of sculpting tool and clay and finishing stuff, well, it was a store that catered to the high-powered artist that is the typical SCAD student.

We met a guy from Tucson in the colonial cemetary. He had this gorgeous enormous dog who leaned on me for no reason, so we talked a bit and found out he was a filmmaker, who does documentaries and is planning on moving to the area. Janet and I filled him in on housing prices and such, and I played with his amazing dog (half standard poodle half some french cattle dog- Bouvier?) Then we all took the Ghost Tour around town, and learned of the larcenous panty stealing ghost at the 1790 Inn, the cat at the Douglas House, and the nonexistant children in the Powell House. She told of a guide friend who has regular encounters with an invisible man smoking a cigar. Tour guests will see a match strike, and puffs of smoke behind the guide’s head. Apparently the ghost will only do it when this particular guide is there. If you’re ever in Savannah, take the ghost tour. You can also get the tour with a pub crawl.

So, a good time was had by all. River Street is where the tourists go, and where you can see the huge cargo ships come in, watch the tugboats tug, and buy cheap plastic tchokes from China.

One incident that was funny during the ghost tour, we were on the sidewalk by the Colonial cemetary, listening to a discourse on yellow fever, mass graves, and the accidental burial of people who weren’t actually dead, when this older couple (70-ish) struggled by. I say struggled, because she was very overweight, had on knee braces and compression stockings, and was really having a hard time walking. He was skinny and angry with her about something. He got really mad at one point and just stomped off, leaving her behind. She just stopped right there (to the edge of our small group) and pulled the whole “passive-aggressive I’m not budging” routine. Finally he was 2 blocks off and realized she wasn’t moving, and came clucking back like a wet hen. They got into a shouting match, interrupting our guide’s schtick, and causing us all to have a bit of unexpected entertainment.

So, if you ever want to take a trip to somewhere unexpected, go to Savannah, bring your walking shoes, and a bottle of water, and figure 3 good days of people watching and gallery trolling and an occasional Geechie haint. But do it in February, or November. Not August.