Savannah

Our campground is home to 20+ swans - so fun to see them in the water and up on the shore even if they are not very nice animals!

First stop in Georgia was Peach World. If you want something peach flavored this is the place to go from peach fudge to peach bbq to peach candles to peach salad dressing to peach... well you get the ideas. We tried some hot peach cobbler with peach ice cream - yum! We also tried pecan pie and realized that they do not add molasses in the south like we do in the north which makes the pie a very different (blah) experience.

Thanks to a shuttle at our campground we didn't have to take the big truck into Savannah. Thank you KOA! It was nice to be dropped off and not worry about parking. We decided to do the hop on - hop off trolley to spend the day exploring.

We learned some very interesting facts about the various historical houses in the area. For instance, the Pink House is not pink by design. When they began building it in 1771, the main part of the house which was made of red bricks covered in white plaster which began to bleed through the white plaster, turning the house a pink tinge. For years, whoever owned the house painted it white trying to cover the pink. In 1920, the woman who bought the house wanted to turn it into a tea room so she just let the pink shine through and even enhanced it. It has been pink ever since and is now a restaurant.

The Pirate's House was first opened in 1753 as an inn for seafarers, and fast became a meeting point for pirates and sailors. The story goes that a tunnel underneath the building was once used to kidnap drunken patrons. The stories suggest that either pirates, or unscrupulous ship captains dragged victims down to the rum cellar and then to the river through a secret tunnel. When they woke up - they were suddently sailors at sea with no escape. The Pirate's House is now a restaurant and that building and the one next to it are the oldest buildings in Savannah.

The Marshall hotel used to be a hospital during the Civil War and through two yellow fever epidemics. It is supposed to be quite haunted with children running down hallways, faucets turning on themselves, etc.

Savannah was the site for the 1996 summer Yatching Olympics so it was fun to see the torch to commenorate near the river. Also by the river is the statue of the girl waving. The story is that she stood there waving from 1887 - 1931 to all the ships - perhaps awaiting a lover? That was never verified. It is said the boats returned her greeting with a blast from the horn and many ships today still sound a quick salute to her.

We were shocked to see a massive ship come down the river. Another made its way back up with tug boats at both sides and another at rear. We didn't know what the one at the back was doing - guiding? Slowing it down? I guess they have dredged the river to accommodate these massive ships and the bridge, while it doesn't look high enough, is.

The buldings are beautiful and fun to see Christmas starting here in the deep south. The staircases on either side of the front door are called embrace stairs. They were orginally built for men on one sidea and women on the other so that when the woman lifted her skirt slightly to walk upstairs - the man wouldn't see her ankles. :) After a lunch by the river of squash soup and lobster/crab bisque plus finally trying fried green tomatoes, we made a stop at a candy store for a taste of taffy and fudge. After that we were tired out from our exploring.

Oh the road is where the trolley turned to take us down to the river - talk about tight quarters! Also the red doors were interesting. When the mortgage is paid on a house, the city comes by and paints the door red to show it is fully owned. The color blue shown is used to keep ghosts and spooks out of the house. They believe it is close enough to ocean color the ghosts don't come in.

December 2022