The Hostess City - Savannah, GA

7/20/20 - 7/24/20 Brunswick, GA to Savannah, GA, 68 miles, stayed at Savannah Oaks RV Resort for 4 nights

When I was still in High school, I dreamed of attending the Savannah College of Art and Design. There is just something about that southern town and their hospitality.  As a matter of fact, they’re called “the Hostess City”. I read that the first city of Georgia was spared during the Civil War because they decided to welcome General Sherman and the union army instead of fight them.  

James Oglethorpe received the charter to establish the last English colony of Georgia for King George II in 1733 as a buffer against the Spanish in Florida.  Oglethorpe designed the city along a grid and 24 squares. Each settler would receive similar houses and amount of land so that no one person had more than the other.  Lawyers, Catholics, slavery and alcohol were forbidden. Unfortunately, those ideals didn’t last long, and Savannah soon became THE slave ship port for the colonies. It is said Sherman decided to save the city because it was so beautiful, and offered it as a Christmas present to President Lincoln.  

It still holds up today. The riverfront is lined with cobblestone streets, and inviting restaurants and shops, once you find a way down the iron staircases.  (There is an elevator at the Hyatt Regency, if you don’t do stairs well). Up top, you can stroll along Factor’s Walk with more restaurants and shops, or venture into the city. Savannah is easy to navigate because of the grid design, and each cool, grassy square has a fountain or statue or benches where you can rest under mature shade trees, a wonderful respite from the heat and humidity. 

Of course you can tour the city with the hop-on, hop-off Old Town trolley to get the lay of the land, as in most big cities, but they didn’t have the plexiglass between rows or limited seating as they did in St. Augustine, and I wasn’t willing to be that close to others even then. Such is life in the time of COVID. I found a great Self-guided walking tour that wound from the riverfront, past the historic Colonial Park Cemetery and the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, ending at Forsyth park. It was so hot, we actually drove it. We followed a trolley for a while, Bill dropped me off at a few spots, but parking was easy at the Pay and Display spots along the road, and it was cheaper than the trolley. 

We ate at The Cafe at City Market in the City Market, a four-block pedestrian area, just across from the American Prohibition Museum. The lunch was okay, but the peach cobbler was TO DIE FOR. Then we meandered. I love to just explore after gaining a little knowledge about an area. Jones street, in particular, had gorgeous, unique townhomes on cobblestone streets and beautiful gardens. We parked on Monterey Square and walked along Bull Street to Forsyth Park.  It’s a great place to rest and people watch. There’s also a monument and a bandstand in the park. 

The next day, we went to Bonaventure Cemetery. Is that weird?  If you’ve read “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, that’s where the girl with the bird statue used to be, but like Forest Gump’s park bench, it’s been moved to a museum to preserve it. Still, this is an old cemetery, and I love to look for the oldest headstone. Again, I like to wander.  Here’s what I found.  

We only scratched the surface of this lovely place. I could come back again and again. It is that beautiful. 

Skeletons? Sculpture? Driftwood? YES

7/17/20 - 7/20/20 St. Augustine, FL to Brunswick, GA, 104 miles, stayed at Coastal Georgia RV resort, 3 nights at $45.36/night

If you’ve read my other posts, you know, I am a beach lover!  Any time we get near a coast, I have to dip my toes in. So when I heard we were near a beach that had eroded away so that the tree’s roots had been exposed and were left lying on the sand like huge driftwood, I had to see it. (It is one of the settings used for The Walking Dead.)

It’s an easy drive out to Driftwood Beach at the north end of Jekyll Island, near Brunswick, Georgia, a vacation destination in its own right. Then, we parked and walked a few yards through the woods to the beach and stood among them. Every turn revealed a new fallen tree. They truly do look like skeletons of some long-extinct gigantic ocean creatures, each one a beautiful sculpture in its own right. I couldn’t take enough pictures. 

The locals come here at sunrise to take gorgeous colorful photos, or wedding photos, or have a wedding on the sand, but you have to be careful to time it with the tides, or you’ll get washed away. Luckily, we caught it at the right time of day, as did many others who were using the huge root balls as beach umbrellas. 

The photos speak for themselves...

Old St. Augustine

7/14/20 - 7/7/17/20 Dade City, FL to St. Augustine, FL, 143 miles, stayed at Compass RV Park, 3 nights at $42/night. 

Before we left Florida, there was one city that I wanted to visit - St. Augustine. I’m a huge history buff, and love to explore old places. Bill - not so much. He humors me and goes for some of it, as long as there’s good food involved somewhere. 

St. Augustine, FL was founded by the Spanish in 1565. It rivals Santa Fe, NM as the oldest city in the United States.  It was protected by Castillo de San Marcos from the British who settled further up the coast. It has been said that Ponce de Leon landed here in his quest for the fountain of youth. The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine is the oldest Catholic Church in the city. So you get the idea.  It’s old. Older than the Plymouth colony, founded in 1620; older than Jamestown, founded in 1605. The architecture here is beautiful old Spanish Colonial with intricate cast iron balconies, and they harvested blocks of calcified crushed seashells, called “coquina”, to make sturdy concrete-like structures.

I debated as to whether I should take the hop-on, hop-off trolley to get a good overview of the area. I could have gotten a discount ticket by booking online, and they would pick up and drop off directly from our RV park. But even with stringent cleaning after each route, plexiglass between rows, and the fact that it was open-air, many of the sites that I wanted to visit were closed and I wasn’t really keen on sitting that close to other people. So Bill drove me downtown, found a shady spot to park on the square, and I struck out on foot.  It was near 90 degrees with high humidity, so I tried to pick and choose carefully. 

The old historic downtown is very walkable, especially the pedestrian-only St. George Street. Castillo de San Marcos (a National Park) and the Colonial Quarter were closed.  I started by respectfully walking through the Cathedral, viewing the frescoes and gilded icons. (It’s also nice because it’s cool inside.).

 Then I walked quickly down St. George Street, looking for authentic St. Augustine amongst the touristy offerings (although the chocolate shop was SO tempting. They pipe that glorious smell onto the street).  I stopped at the oldest wooden schoolhouse, and walked all the way down to the city gates. 

Then I took a left and meandered through the narrow streets back toward Flagler College. It was originally built as a luxury hotel by the railroad magnate Henry Flagler.  It was decorated with Tiffany stained glass windows and chandeliers and I hear the girls dorms are beautiful. Of course they were not giving public tours, so I admired it from the outside. By the time I got back to the car, my face was bright red and my water bottle was empty. Time for an Icee!

          

We drove out to the beach and found a free parking spot at the pier. We walked out to the water and cooled off by dipping our toes in the Atlantic Ocean.  It’s amazing to me that beaches are so different from place to place. Here, the water was darker and cooler and the sand was a course pinkish-beige.

The next day, Bill and I parked along the river and walked to Harry’s restaurant. It has a large open patio and we sat with a view of the water. The crabcakes were amazing!