Savannah-Bound: Savannah, the Next Day

Although the plan was to sleep in, Isabel's not really a late sleeper.  She woke, got dressed, and in the process woke me up too.  We left David sleeping and went to explore the hotel and maybe find something to eat.

We found a Starbucks in the hotel, had some muffins and drinks, and then went exploring.

A gorgeous Chihuly hangs in the second floor entrance to the hotel's restaurant.  My favorite colors.

Decoration for an Indian wedding taking place that morning.

The view of downtown Savannah's waterfront from our hotel.

After exploring, we woke David, got packed and left out beautiful resort, to head back over hte bridge to Savannah.  We parked in the visitor's center, where parking was free on Sundays. Hooray.

We entered the visitor's center, got free maps, bought a Self-Guided Tour of Savannah book and headed out on foot.

I took WAY too many pictures. I'll post the ones that I like most.

Sorrel-Weed house.

Guardians of the Nicholas Kruger House. Each of these birds is holding a round stone between its wings.
If the bird would fall asleep. he'd drop the ball on his foot, waking him up to continue his vigil.

Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church

Hamilton-Turner Mansion, believed to be haunted by the Hamilton children.
 The house was featured in the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil." The Hamilton-Turner
mansion was visited by Walt Disney. It became the inspiration for his "Haunted Mansion."

We walked for almost two hours before FINALLY stopping to eat at the waterfront.  I was cranky and hungry and tired.   Being Labor Day weekend, it was crazy-packed.  We waited an hour and 10 minutes to eat at the Pirate's House.  Memo if visiting: MAKE RESERVATIONS!  If you make reservations, you get seated immediately.  I wasn't greatly impressed.  Tourist restaurant with tourist fare.  

After eating, we continued on our tour, heading back to the car in the process.  Savannah has SO much history.  It was beautiful.  I can't understand anyone being in Savannah and not loving the history and the gorgeous buildings everywhere.

We drove home that evening, Sunday, because David had to work Monday night, and we didn't feel like spending another night in a hotel.  

What a fun, spontaneous weekend getaway!

Savannah-Bound: Savannah First Night

Back to the Labor Day weekend vacation:

We drove over the bridge that goes from Savannah to a small island between Savannah and S. Carolina to get to our FREE hotel, the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa.

Driving over the bridge to get to our hotel.

 There was ZERO parking.  The parking lot, usually a fee-to-use lot, was wide open and there was NO WHERE to park.  Cars were double-parked, parked in fire lanes, etc.  I know it was Labor Day weekend, but what the what?  David dropped us off while he went back to circling.

We learned that there were not one, but two weddings being held this evening. Hence the free parking / no parking situation.  We ended up parking on this bridge, pictured above, until later in the evening (way later) when the wedding guests had gone.

Our view from the room!  Wedding party # 1 on the left, leaving. Wedding # 2, nit started yet, on the right.

We decided to give Isabel an hour in the pool before we jumped on the free ferry to take us across to the historic Savannah waterfront for dinner.

The waterfront of Downtown Savannah is behind us. We have to take a ferry to get there.

The hotel as seen from our deck chairs.

We went upstairs so Isabel could change and then caught the ferry over to the mainland.  It was busy. Lots of traffic, lots of people, and in my opinion, not very kid-friendly at night. I was a little disappointed at my first taste of Savannah.  

We were starving and EVERY restaurant we stopped at had over an hour-long wait.  Isabel was sagging.  It was past her bed time.  We ended up at Tubby's on the second floor of a building.  The wait was over an hour. We had no choice.  Tons of people, some getting seated way before other's who had been there longer, making people angry and leave, and then suddenly, random young staff guy walks over to us, sees Isabel lying on my lap, and whispers "Just the 3 of you?"  I nod.  He says "I got a booth, want it?"  DO I?  I get up, call David and hurry after the young man before anyone notices that we just jumped ahead of a bunch of people who are downstairs listening to live music and watching artists paint.

Two very tired ladies.

David plays games with Isabel to distract her from being so tired.

We had a good dinner. Mine was the best meal of the three of us.  Parmesan chicken alfredo over linguine with mushrooms, spinach and garlic.  SO GOOD.

The building the restaurant was in had many levels.

We walked back to the Ferry stop, took the ferry, David moved the car to a real parking space, and off to sleep we went.

Our hotel, from the ferry.

Savannah-Bound: St. Simmons Island

After leaving Jekyll Island, we crossed over to St. Simons Island. We were hungry and it was time for lunch!

The streets of St. Simons Island

An arts, crafts and pottery show right in front of where we parked.

The young man carrying the backpack came up to David because
David was wearing a t-shirt saying he was a pilot.  The kid had just done his first
solo flight the previous week and talked to us about it.

We walked up and down the street, looking at menus, and chose Iguana's.  Website link.  It looked like it had reasonably-priced food and zero wait.

After a yummy lunch of shrimp Po-Boys and buffalo shrimp for David, we headed over to Fort Frederica, where we had an amazing hour and a half of fun.  See my special post about that here.


After the Fort, we headed north to Savannah!!

Savannah-Bound: Jekyll Island

So as I mentioned in my last post, we took a very last-minute vacation when we figured out David had Saturday through Monday off.  David mentioned Savannah, Georgia, which is only 4 hours away and I said Yes!   David's boss offered him a Monday shift (Labor Day) and after discussing it, we agreed that we needed the cash and cut the vacation short by one day.

I used points I accumulated from all my travel with work to Panama, Atlanta and Charlotte.  We left Saturday morning and drove north. We decided, since check-in was 4 p.m., to spend the day exploring Georgia.

First up: Jekyll Island.  So cool.

This sucker was HUGE!!

Jekyll Island Island Hotel

Goodbye Jekyll Island

The bridge to St. Simons Island, our next stop.

National Park Service; Fort Frederica

Labor Day weekend was a whirlwind of FUN. At the VERY LAST MINUTE, we decided to use travel points to get a free hotel stay and explore Savannah, Georgia.  Like..I booked the room Thursday night.

I'll get back to that story later.

I just wanted to give a big ole KUDOS to the National Park Services for their work at Fort Frederica National Monument in St. Simons Island, GA.

 

We arrived at the Visitor's Center and immediately, Ranger Dennis engaged our daughter in conversation. 

"Hi there, how old are you, young lady?"  "Ten," she replies.  "Want to go on an adventure?" he asks.  Then he begins to explain about their Junior Ranger Program.   Here's a pdf link with more information.  After watching a movie about the Fort and the town, she was handed an Adventure book. The Adventure book, that she got to keep, was very interactive.  Little envelopes with maps, pop-up windows with information, secret messages to take to General Oglethorpe.   She was also loaned a haversack full of things she would need to complete the mission.  The PDF link above shows what was in the haversack.

We set off outside, reading the Adventure Book and following along, moving from plot to plot, deciphering clues, filling out the book and learning about the history of the town and its people.  

Isabel works to write sentences in the Creek language.

The haversack.

Plotting on a map the route the Spaniards took,
 using a compass, spyglass, and a protractor.

The foundation of Dr. Holzendorf's two-story house.

The foundation of the candlemaker's house and shop.

The remains of the Fort.

She named a tavern and created its sign, wrote a journal entry and wrote a letter "home" to England about her stay in the town. 

We rushed back to the Visitor's Center, as we only had 15 minutes left until closing.

Ranger Dennis had everything ready for us and swore Isabel in as a Junior Park Ranger.

The program, park and Ranger are all to be commended.  

Kudos!