October 5, 2014 Savannah, Georgia

Another great day in Georgia! We walked through the Visitor’s Center and looked at some of the displays about the early days in Savannah, then wandered by the Georgia State Railroad Museum.
The Tri-centennial Park and Battlefield Memorial Park are directly south of the Visitor’s Center and has a re-created redoubt to show what it was like for soldiers during the Revolutionary War. It was interesting to see.

We continued on to Colonial Park Cemetery which dates back to about 1750, but closed to internment in 1853. So many of the gravestones are so worn that you can hardly tell there is any inscription on them! It is said there are over 10,000 people buried there, but only about 800 gravestones because so many were destroyed during the Civil War. The Cemetery in now part of the Savannah Parks System. The Historical Society has placed lots of interesting plaques telling about the people buried there.

We made our way to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist which was built in 1896.

It is one of the largest cathedrals in the South and was absolutely amazing. We happened to arrive between services so I was able to go in and grab a few photos, since tourists are not allowed during services.

We headed back to the RV by way of the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of America. She was born in the house below in 1860.
After lunch, we took the “Old Savannah Tours” company 90-minute trolley tour of the city. Our driver/guide, Sonny, was quite entertaining, as well as informative. We opted not to do the “hop-on, hop-off” feature since we had already walked most of the area.

Their tour company offers a feature that some of the “characters” from the area who are dressed the part, get on board the trolley and tell a little story.

We had a visit from a pirate from the “Pirate’s House” come aboard and tell his side of the story regarding “importing” alcohol and exporting or “Shanghai-ing” captives!

Forrest Gump also came aboard at one stop. Apparently, over 80 movies have had scenes filmed in Savannah!

We enjoyed hearing more about the background behind some of the beautiful historic homes in the area. I don’t know if it true, but our drive said the house below was ordered as a kit from the Sears-Roebuck catalog and the instructions weren’t very good. He asked what was wrong and Tobey knew the answer – the windows are installed upside down! Can you tell? I couldn’t.

We also learned that many of the old houses had beautiful balconies, but no doors out to them because doors were taxed. The owners got around the extra tax by putting in large windows and just stepped through them! Of course, iron was expensive, so the more ironwork on your home, the wealthier you probably were.
After the tour, we picked up Penny and headed back to the City Market area to listen to some of the music. She settled right in on the bench and enjoyed the music. It turned out to be the same guys we listened to yesterday and they were good.

We took Penny back then went back to the RV so we could go back to the Wild Wing Café to see the Broncos-Cardinal football game. We had some really good chips and salsa and the Broncos won, 41-20, so we left happy campers! Another band, the Steppin Stones, was playing just outside so we stayed to listen to them. They played lots of good rock ‘n roll music from Crosby,Stills and Nash to Led Zeppelin to Janis Joplin and lots of their own original music. It was entertaining and fun! They have a Facebook page I will have to check out when we have internet again!

We head out tomorrow toward South Carolina, but would love to come back to Savannah again!