Tallulah Falls, Georgia: A One Day Visit

A century ago people called Tallulah Falls “The Niagara of the South.” It was one of Georgia's most popular tourist spots, drawing thousands of people a year to see the mighty Tallulah River with its six waterfalls, and to hike down into the Tallulah Gorge, which is two miles long and in places as deep as 1200 feet. At its peak, the little town was home to seventeen hotels and boarding houses, and in addition to the natural beauty of the river and the gorge, it offered restaurants, tennis, horseback riding, and music and dancing.

In 1912 the Georgia Railway and Power Company dammed the Tallulah River, reducing the Niagara of the South to a trickle. But Tallulah Falls, Georgia is as worth visiting today as it was a hundred years ago. Though the dam left the falls quiet for nearly 80 years, now regular controlled water releases bring the falls back to life several times throughout the year. But even when the dam fully holds back the Tallulah, the gorge itself is as awesome as ever.

Anna and I had stopped in Tallulah Falls for only a few minutes back in July on our way to Gatlinburg. I thought the place was interesting enough for another visit, so I took a Wednesday off work and went back. Fortunately, and quite serendipitously (I didn't think to check the water release schedule before planning my trip), my visit was on one of the midweek water releases.

I left my house at 8:15, stopped at a QuikTrip for the traditional cup of cappuccino and two Krispy Kreme donuts, and headed up U.S. 23. The drive is beautiful, and I took it slow. At 9:49 I pulled into a parking spot at the Indian Springs Trading Post on the 441 scenic loop.

It was probably the Indian Springs Trading Post that first attracted me to the little town. I've admitted to my weakness for roadside attractions any number of times, and the faux western fort and genuine imitation Indian totem poles definitely tickle that part of my fancy. The Indian Springs Trading Post wasn't open, however, so I took a few pictures and moved down to Tallulah Point Overlook (“A mountain tradition since the 1920s”). I browsed in the store for a few minutes and bought a grape Nehi, a walking stick, and a book about Tallulah Falls. There was a small but steady stream of people coming through, about five in the store at any one time. There were four other cars in the parking area when I got there, but about four more soon arrived.

Next I went to the Tallulah Gallery (“Prints   Originals   Pottery”), looked around for a few minutes, and bought a couple of things—an enameled pin with a cat that looks like our Seuss for Annie, an angel medallion to give to my friend Pearl on her birthday.

At 11:47 I turned in to the Terrora Lake part of Tallulah Falls State Park and discovered that on Wednesdays parking is free! Not that I would have minded paying the two dollars admission, but it didn't bother me to not pay it either. I parked in the shade, walked through the nature trail, sat on a bench by the lake for a few minutes, and then set off for the walk along the rim of Tallulah Gorge.

The view from Overlook 5 I joined the trail at the midpoint, Overlook 5. My first thought was: what a place of splendid beauty! There was a breeze coming out of the gorge. The leaves were starting to change colors. Overhead, a pair of crows seemed to be having a cawing contest, and from across the gorge I heard the yapping of some small dog climbing the trails with his family.

It took me about forty minutes to follow the trail along the north rim from Overlook 5 to Overlook 1. I was growing a little hungry, not having had lunch yet, but I was too excited to really think about food. What a wonderful place to be on an autumn Wednesday afternoon!

At the end of the north rim, near Overlook 1, I went into the Jane Hurt Yarn Interpretive Center. The Center was named after an Atlanta environmental activist who was called “The Grand Dame of Conservation” by Southern Wildlife magazine. I walked around the center for a while, going through the history of Tallulah Falls exhibit, looking at the examples of flora and fauna found in the area, and browsing in the gift shop. I went into the little theater and watched the 15 minute film about the the area, and then headed out to the south rim.

It took me about an hour to walk the south rim. There were a lot of friendly people out there, people who talk to The Author at the end of the South Rim you. There was one couple I first encountered on the north rim and who I met up with again along the south rim. They were probably both in their mid fifties, possibly from the Midwest; they were, the woman told me, meandering through north Georgia in their RV. The man had a gold earring and a mustache and wore an enviable brown hat. He let me look through his binoculars (also enviable) at one of the falls. At another spot we watched a green snake climbing a tree.

I finished the south rim at about 4:30. My legs hurt and I was very tired and hungry, but also very happy.

I intended to end the day by having a simple dinner of a hot dog or grilled cheese sandwich at the Cat Cafe at Tallulah Point Overlook, but it was just closing down as I arrived at 5:00. Instead, I went to Isabelle's. Isabelle's is a big white house on a hill that you pass on 441; I imagine that in a past life it was home to some wealthy family, one of the ones that found prosperity in the late 1800s tourist boom only to see it all taken away by the dam. I ordered Monterey chicken with French fries, which I ate alone (as far as I know, they didn't have any other customers that night) on the screened in porch. I was not nearly as hungry as you might think, considering that all I'd eaten that day before going to Isabelle's were two donuts about nine hours earlier.

I finished eating at 6:15, and began the drive south, back to my mundane life in Lawrenceville.

(I originally published this travelogue on my AOL Web site on the dates shown above, and transferred it to our family blog in late October of 2017.)

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

 Day One: The Adventure Begins 

A Little Background on Gatlinburg

Gatlinburg, Tennessee is a veritable mecca for tourist attraction afficianados like me; I've been dying to come here for a couple of years now. How could I resist the pull of a place that can boast such disparate sites as the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum (“three floors of outstanding and incredible artifacts from around the world”) and Christus Gardens (“See Greatest Story Ever Told in a series of realistic life-size dioramas; rare Bible & coin collection”), plus Hillbilly Gold (“Play the world's most unusual miniature golf. Two 18-hole courses with challenging mountaineer hazards.”), the Mysterious Mansion of Gatlinburg (“Gatlinburg's scariest and most exciting attraction. Come see your nightmares come true, it's an experience you won't soon forget.”), and the World of Illusions (“The world's largest exhibition of action packed Grande Illusions. Make a friend disappear, walk away from your shadow, see a superman use x-ray vision and much, much more.”)?

Even the Genesis (to borrow a term from Christus Gardens) of Gatlinburg is interesting. According to my favorite book, Dixie Before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun by Tim Hollis, Gatlinburg “was originally called White Oak Flats, and its main business enterprise was a general store owned by one Daniel Reagan. Another character with the last name of Gatlin eventually bought the store, but he then announced that the locals could not pick up their mail at the post office (which was located in the store) unless they renamed the town after him! Hence, Gatlinburg came into being.”

9:11 AM: Heading Out of Lawrenceville

We pulled out of my garage at 9:11 Thursday morning to begin the short (but, it turned out, long and wonderful) drive, and after a stop at QuikTrip for a couple of cappuccinos (one hot and one frozen) and a box of Sour Patch Kids, we were off. We drove up US 23 for a couple of hours with only one bathroom stop, until we arrived in Tallulah, Georgia.

11:30 AM: Tallulah Gorge

Around 11:30 we took a detour onto the Tallulah Gorge Scenic Loop and stopped at Tallulah Point Overlook (“A mountain tradition since the 1920s”) to get out to gawk at Tallulah Gorge, which is a 1000-foot chasm carved out by the Tallulah River, and which contains a series of five waterfalls. (The town it is in, not coincidentally, is named Tallulah Falls.) After we looked at the gorge, read about Carl Wallenda's 1970 tight-rope walk across the chasm, and browsed in the gift shop (purchasing one Cheerwine cherry soda, a bag of Tallulah Gorge peanuts, and a couple of postcards), we walked up to the Tallulah Village store and browsed some more. We finally left at around 12:30.

We didn't get far out of Tallulah Falls before stopping for lunch at Granny's Kuntry Kitchen in Clayton, GA, where a hand-written sign told us that “Our food is made to order. Good food takes time. You cannot be in a hurry. Especially on weekends.—Chef Don” Chef Don? I assumed that Granny did the cooking. Well, though they did take about twenty minutes to arrive (the sign was right), the grilled chicken and mashed potatoes were good anyway. After lunch we made it a little ways up the road before stopping at the Dillard Antique Mall in (guess where?) Dillard, Georgia.

Finally, at 2:48, we crossed over into North Carolina. After five and a half hours on the road, we were...well, about a hundred miles away from my driveway. But after our stop in Dillard we managed to drive for over an hour without getting out to look at anything; we drove through Cherokee, NC, passing the various tomahawk shops, teepees, and “Take your picture with a genuine Indian” stands without stopping; we were even too tired to get out and play with the baby bears.

3:55 PM: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in 1934 and was among the first national parks assembled from The Great Smoky Mountains private lands. It's vast, covering thousands of of acres along the North Carolina and Tennesse border, and contains, accodring to the brochure, “1,500 flowering plants, dozens of native fish, and more than 200 species of birds and 60 of mammals.” It also contains species of salamander that have never been found anywhere else.

Our drive through the thirty or so miles of 441 that goes through the park took about an hour and a half, mostly due to my desire to stop and take pictures at nearly every overlook. It's not a place one wants to speed through anyway, though, even without a camera. It is, in places, unspeakably beautiful.

5:30 PM: Gatlinburg!

Our cabin in the mountains Finally, more than eight after our departure, we completed the 200 mile drive and arrived in Gatlinburg proper. We checked in at the East Tennessee Realty office and drove the five miles to our cabin, which is at the end of a steep gravel road that my Nissan doesn't particularly like driving. The cabin, though, is wonderful; it's well furnished, comfortable, and private and secluded.

After about an hour of unpacking and then relaxing in our cabin, we headed back to Gatlinburg, with dinner as our main objective. The strip of Gatlinburg along 441 is incredible; it is, I think, the exact opposite of a sensory deprivation chamber. There is so much to see and do, and so many people there seeing and doing, that one gets a little overloaded. After about an hour of walking up and down the strip, we bought Ogle Dogs (foot-long corn dogs) at Fannie Farkle's (“That's a combination of two words,” Anna said, “one them being sparkle.”), and then went into Guiness World of Records Museum. We spent over an hour looking around, reading nearly every plaque, comparing our weight with that of the worlds heaviest man (you know, that guy they buried in a piano case) and our height with that of the world's tallest man.

Some of the things you see in the Guiness World of Records Museum are interesting, but some of them make you shake your head and wonder what people are thinking. Did you know, for example, that there's a world's record for cricket spitting? In July of 1998, Danny Capps of Madison, Wisconsin spit a dead cricket 30 feet 1.2 inches. His mother must be so proud.

We finally returned to our cabin a little after 11:00, exhausted after perhaps the single busiest day of our lives, but also very happy after what was, at least to me, one of the single most satisfying vacation days ever.

And it was only the first day of this vacation!

 Day Two: The Adventure Continues 

1:15 PM: Lunch at Atrium Pancakes and On To Mountain Mall

We slept in Friday morning and then had a breakfast of Pop Tarts, orange juice, and coffee. I then spent the next four hours creating my Day One travelogue, while Anna alternately read, watched TV, and napped, never once asking, “Aren't you through yet?!” She deserves a medal for her patience and tolerance.

We went to Atrium Pancakes for lunch at 1:15. Anna ordered the chocolate chip and coconut pancakes, which I'm afraid aren't rendered very well in the picture, while I had plain old pancakes with ham and eggs. After lunch, we went to the post office to mail a few post cards and get stamps for a few more, and then returned to the main strip of 441. We went into Mountain Mall, looked around for a while, bought about fifteen dollars worth of books at Book Warehouse (including three John Bellairs novels, which have really cool titles like The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost and The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull), and then set out for Ripley's.

4:50 PM: The Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum

Robert L. Ripley was a cartoonist who made a career and a fortune out of traveling the world in search of odd and unusual facts to present to the public, first through his syndicated newspaper cartoon, then later through radio, TV, and even personal appearances. The Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museums, of which there are 26 worldwide, had their start at the “Odditorium” at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. As the museum guidebook describes it, “On display were genuine shrunken heads from the Upper Amazon, medieval chastity belts, instruments of torture, and even The Last Supper painted on a dime!”

We saw the shrunken heads, chastity belts, and instruments of torture, but we didn't see the dime; we did, however, see a stuffed two-headed cow, a chain of chewing gum wrappers that's over a mile long and which a school teacher spent almost two decades constructing, and a funhouse mirror that made me look like my legs went just about to my neck, with practically no torso in between!

We also had a wax cast of our hands made, a process that involved dipping our hands in 136-degree wax about a dozen times, waiting for the wax to cool, then carefully extricating our hands from the wax to leave a Chris-and-Anna-holding-hands shaped mess of wax. It was a most unusual experience, and Anna is delighted with the results.

Here are a replica of a woolly mammoth's skeleton, a horse statue made of coat hangers, and Robert Ripley's personal favorite item from his collection, the Fiji Mermaid, which was fabricated out of the upper section of a monkey and the lower half of a fish, and exhibited in the late 1800s as a genuine mermaid by P. T. Barnum.

7:20 PM: Dinner at Blaine's Bar & Grill

While we were in Ripley's (a span of time greater than two hours), a thunderstorm came up and soaked the city, even causing the power to cut off briefly a couple of times as we made our way through the exhibits. After leaving the museum, we trudged up the steaming streets, and ended the day with dinner at Blaine's Bar & Grill. After eating, I took a few pictures of the still-wet city streets and the surrounding mountains from the balcony outside the third floor.

Finally, we went to the Ole Smoky Candy Kitchen (which, despite the name, was not that smoky), bought a half-pound of bridge mix (mostly chocolate covered raisins, peanuts, and almonds) and came back to the cabin.

 Day Three: Above Gatlinburg 

10:00 AM: Breakfast at the Copper Kettle Pancake House

We started our third day with breakfast at the Copper Kettle Pancake House, one of approximately a thousand restaurants in Gatlinburg with the word “pancake” in its name. We both had the Mountain Breakfast, which includes eggs any way you like them (we went with scrambled), home fries, biscuits and gravy, your choice of sausage or bacon, and coffee or tea. It was loaded with fat, sodium, and cholesterol; I suspect there was even some nicotine in there somewhere. I loved it, though; left to my own devices, I'd put gravy on everything. And I did.

11:15 AM: Christus Gardens

Next we went to Christus Gardens, Gatlinburg's most pious attraction, the complete opposite of the Ripley's museum. It was created over forty years ago by a man named Ronald S. Ligon, after he was stricken with tuberculosis and nearly died. Feeling that his recovery was the result of divine intervention, Ligon decided to build a memorial to show his gratitude. The result is a series of dioramas depicting Some of the murals at Christus Gardens the life of Christ, from the Nativity to the Ascension, complete with dramatic lighting, sound effects, and narration. The museum also contains a series of paintings depicting various parables, a small but pretty outdoor garden, and a collection of Biblical-era coins. It also features what is described as the single most photographed thing in Gatlinburg, an image of the face of Christ carved in a 6-ton block of Carrara marble, the eyes of which seem to be looking at you regardless of how you approach it.

We spent about forty-five minutes going through the museum and then browsing through the gift shop. When we left, we were ready for an uplifting experience of a different kind.

12:20 PM: The Sky Lift

The Gatlinburg Sky Lift has been taking people up to the top of Crockett Mountain for over forty-five years now. It wasn't one of the things I had planned on doing, but Anna thought it would be neat so we did it. I'm glad we did, too; it was quite an experience taking the ten-minute ride on the chairlift up the mountain, looking down at the streets and the people and the city.

We spent about twenty minutes at the top of the mountain; we looked at the cheesy gifts in the gift shop, ate some Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and then rode back down. The ride back down was even neater because it gave us a good view of the city and the mountains surrounding the city.

1:25 PM: The World of Illusions and Ripley's Moving Theater

Next we went to the World of Illusions, a fairly recent and, frankly, disappointing attraction. It's basically a wax museum that uses lighting and mirrors to make it look like Dracula is turning into a bat or the person on the other side of the booth from you has disappeared. The most interesting thing, to me, was found in the Frankenstein display: the wax figure of Dr. Frankenstein, I would swear, had been taken from a now-defunct wax museum, specifically from a MASH display. He looked just like Hawkeye Pierce (or at least as much like him as wax figures ever really do), even down to the dogtags (though I couldn't read them) and the army-issue olive drab belt and pants!

The Ripley's Moving Theater was a little better. There are two movies to choose from; we chose the roller coaster one. Just like a real roller coaster, the time we had to wait was about three times as long as the actual ride. It did feel like a real roller coaster, though, no doubt due to the fact that (as the posters told us) the seats moved in eight different directions. By the time we were done my tucchus was quite sore from all the bumping and jerking.

5:30: Into Pigeon Forge and Dinner at the Old Mill House

We went back to our cabin to rest for a while, but by about 5:30 we were getting hungry. We decided that, since we'd seen most of Gatlinburg already, we would go north a couple of miles to see what Pigeon Forge had to offer.

Pigeon Forge is a lot different than Gatlinburg. It's a tourist town too, but not quite in the same way; it's a little more subtle, so naturally I didn't like it as much. It's biggest attraction, of course, is Dollywood, Dolly Parton's amusement park, but it also has plenty of minature golf places, go kart rides (both indoor and outdoor), laser tag places, and even an indoor skydiving attraction.

Fortunately, though, our objective was dinner, so we didn't have to deal with any of that. We picked The Old Mill Restaurant because it sounded interesting in the guidebook Anna had picked up somewhere. It was interesting, and good; our meals (sugar cured ham for me, turkey and dressing for Anna) included corn chowder, corn fritters, salad, mashed pototoes, green beans, and our choice of dessert. It was a lot of food, and it was all really good. It was worth the half-hour wait.

Acknowledgements

For the historical background on Gatlinburg, and for the many hours of pleasure it has given me, I am indebted to Tim Hollis's book Dixie Before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun.

(I originally published this travelogue on my AOL Web site on the dates shown above, and transferred it to our family blog in late October of 2017.)

Chattanooga, Tennessee: A One Day Visit

10:30 AM: Rock City Gardens

Rock City Gardens is one of my favorite tourist attractions in the world. In fact, I had visited Rock City about five times in the last two years before our Memorial Day weekend visit; as you can imagine, I'm pretty familiar with the place. That's why—well, that's one of the reasons why—it was so nice to have Annie with me, because she had never been there.

Besides being one of my favorites, Rock City is also one of the nation's oldest tourist attractions. Rock City Gardens as it exists today was first opened to the public many years before I was born—in fact, many years before my parents were born—in May of 1932 by Garnet and Frieda Carter. (Garnet, a Chattanooga businessman and developer, had already made an indelible mark on the roadside attraction industry over half a decade earlier as the inventor of minature golf.) The area atop Lookout Mountain that he and his wife opened as an attraction in 1932 had been called Rock City since the 1800s, but during those less civilized years you could get in for free, there were no plaster gnomes, and “Fat Man's Squeeze“ had not been properly labeled as such.

Garnet and Frieda corrected this slight oversight of nature. They laid out pine needle pathways through the rocky formations, provided signs for “Eye of the Needle,” “Lover's Leap,” “Mushroom Rock,” and the rest, situated genuine German statues of gnomes variously along the path, and began charging admission. Tourists such as myself obliged them, and the Rock City of today is virtually the same as it was 68 years ago. The Fairyland Caverns, my favorite part of Rock City when I was a kid, the part I thought was Rock City, were added in 1947, Mother Goose Village seventeen years later, and Rock City Gardens was complete.

 

 

2:00 PM: The Southern Belle Riverboat Lunch Cruise

After our fun-filled two hours in Rock City, we headed down (or is it up?) to the Tennessee River to the Chattanooga Riverboat Co. for a lunch cruise on the Southern Belle. We got there a good half-hour before boarding began, which gave us ample opportunity to browse through the gift shop and take a brief walk down the pier. I was very happy to discover that the gift shop stocks Willy Wonka's Chewy Gobstoppers, which I prefer to the generally more readily-available Everlasting Gobstoppers (plus, of course, the chewy kind don't turn you into a giant blueberry so that the Oompa-Loompas have to roll you down to the de-juicing room, but that, as Kipling would say, is another story).

We boarded the Southern Belle at around 1:30, found a table by a window, and immediately began making our sandwiches at the "'Build-Your-Own-Sandwich' Buffet with a delicious assortment of meats, cheeses, breads, and condiments," as their brochure describes it. "A long table with bread, bologna, and mayonnaise" might be a better description, but it in fairness I must admit that it did include turkey, ham, various kinds of cheese, and mustard. We had pretty much finished our sandwiches before the boat left the dock, so it wasn't truly a "lunch cruise," in so much as we weren't cruising during lunch, but it was close enough for me. Neither Annie or I had ever been on a boat like that, so it was especially neat.

After we finished eating we moved up to the top of the boat, where, as you can imagine, one could get the best view. For the next hour and a half the riverboat meandered down (or up?) the river, with the captain providing a narrative of the sights we saw, the history of the area, and his own experience piloting boats down the river; his rambling dialogue combined the informative, humorous, and annoying in a way that rivaled my own travelogues. A couple of times as we sat in our white plastic chairs along the railing, the sun warming the backs of our necks and the breeze playing with our hair, Annie drifted off to sleep. The sun was especially searing that afternoon and I got some major sunburn on my arms and a little on the back of my neck while we were sitting on the top level of the boat, but it was worth it.

After we were done with the riverboat cruise and got our land legs back, we went to the outlet stores for a while, where I decided against a shirt that I have since wished I'd bought, then we went to a really cool used bookstore that's in Chattanooga, McKay's used books, where we bought a near-complete set of Childcraft Encylopedias and at least a dozen other books. We finally left for home around 8:00. We stopped for dinner at an Applebee's in Dalton, and got back to my house around 10:30.

Acknowledgements

For the historical background on Rock City, and for the many hours of pleasure it has given me, I am indebted to Tim Hollis's book Dixie Before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun. If you grew up in the south in the 1970s as I did and have fond memories of family road trips to places like Rock City, Gatlinburg, Panama City Beach, Marineland, and Six Flags Over Georgia, you should get this book. It's really good.

(I originally published this travelogue on my AOL Web site on the dates shown above, and transferred it to our family blog in late October of 2017.)

April 4 - 7, 2000: Savannah, Georgia

 Day 1: The Drive Down 

4:00 AM: Up Early and Out the Door

I stumbled out of bed at 4:00 this morning and staggered into the shower. I stood there for a couple of minutes in groggy confusion, clinging to my bar of Irish Spring as if to dear life, wondering:

• What the heck am I doing up so early?
• What's so great about Savannah anyway?
• Why am I still dry?

After a minute I realized what was wrong and turned on the water; I immediately let out a blood-curdling scream—it takes a while for the hot water to make it from the water heater in the basement to the shower in my upstairs bathroom.

Okay, I made all that up: I was so excited about the impending trip that I woke up a little after 3:00 and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up, had some coffee, watched a little TV, and went upstairs to get ready around 4:00. By 4:45 Molly, Anna, and I were in my car and heading for the airport—Anna's sister Molly (Hi, Molly!) was visiting from Connecticut for a few days, and our first task for the day was to get her to the airport in time for her 6:27 AM U.S. Airways flight.

We made it to the airport in good time, but, sadly, I was off in search of coffee when Molly boarded, so I didn't get to say a proper goodbye. So...

Bye, Molly! It was really nice to meet you!

Anna and Molly right before Molly's departure

Molly boarding the plane

6:30 AM: Out of the Airport and Heading For Savannah!

We left the airport at about 6:30 and were on the road before 7:00, but we hit a huge and very frustrating traffic snarl at 7:07 (I know because I looked at the clock). There was apparently an overturned tractor-trailer or something of the sort; it delayed us by about forty minutes, finally ending when a nice policeman in an orange rain slicker with a flashlight to match guided the approximately one million cars that were backed up on I-75 into one lane, through a maze of orange cones, past the accident, and back into the nearly traffic-free expressway beyond.

As we traveled, we listened to the unabridged audio book of the second Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Annie was dozing off quite a bit, though, and I wasn't really paying attention that closely, so we're now a third of the way through it and have no idea what's going on.

We stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds in Dublin, Georgia; for just a second I got excited, thinking somehow we had crossed over into Ireland, but as soon as the woman behind the counter asked in a thick Southern drawl, “Kin I hep yew?” I realized we had not.

12:00 PM: In Savannah!

We made it to Savannah proper around noon, after several stops along the way, including a rather disappointing stop at a rest area—no little chocolate donuts! Since the check-in time at the Fairfield Inn wasn't until 3:00, we went to the Savannah Visitor's Center. After spending about a hundred years looking for a parking space (you probably think I'm exaggerating. I'm not.), we went in and went through the museum and watched the 18 minute history of Savannah movie (narrated by the statue of James Oglethrope).

Next we dined at the Whistle Stop Cafe where, conventional southern wisdom to the contrary, we decided against the fried green tomatoes.

Finally, at just a little after 3:00, exhausted, well-fed, and even a little bit educated (see previous comments about 18 minute movie narrated by statue), we checked into the Fairfield Inn on Lee Boulevard. After unpacking and checking the room for hidden cameras, we took a much needed nap.

One of the many interesting things in the Savannah Visitor's Center Museum

Room 250 of the Savannah Fairfield Inn

6:40 PM: River Street

After a couple of hours rest in the hotel, we ventured back out again, this time ending up on River Street, right by the beautiful Savannah River.

We walked along the river for exactly 49 minutes (there were 11 minues left on the parking meter when we got back to the car), seeing all sorts of cool things. Just as we walked by it, one of the river boats was taking off for a two hour dinner cruise. Had we gotten there a bit earlier we probably would have joined them; I know they had room, because I could tell that the table by Mr. and Mrs. Howell was available.

After leaving River Street, we went to the Wal Mart on Abercorn to get a bathing suit for me in preparation for our Thursday trip to Tybee Island, then had an elegant repast at Arbys, and finally returned to the hotel room a little after 9:00, where I found myself too exhausted to come up with a better ending for this narrative than this.

Me, sitting by a fountain in front of the Savannah River

The S.S. Minnow, skippered by Jonas Grumby

Maybe this is the S.S. Minnow

 Day 2: The Historic District 

8:30 AM: Continental Breakfast

At about 8:30 we went down to the lobby to partake of the promised free Continental Breakfast that the Fairfield Inn provides between 6:00 and 9:00 AM. Now, I don't know exactly to which continent they refer, but that's the continent I want to live on--cream cheese danishes, English muffins with grape jelly, little-bitty boxes of Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops, all the coffee you can drink, styrofoam plates and plastic utensils--that to me is breakfast heaven!

12:00 PM: Lunch at Telfair Square Cafe; the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences

After a short post-breakfast rest back in the hotel, we ventured out to the Historic District. Our first order of business was lunch, and since our second order of business was going to the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, having lunch at Telfair Square Cafe seemed a logical choice. It was very good; I recommend it.

As I stood outside the Telfair Academy reading the sign detailing the history of the place, a small bird landed on the sign and looked at me, ruffling his feathers a couple of times and--perhaps I imagined this--chirping encouragingly. We had already decided that we were going to go in, but if we hadn't, this little bird's sales pitch would have convinced us. As the little bird--Anna thinks it might have been a brown thrasher, the state bird of Georgia (as a fourth grade teacher she has to know this kind of thing)--looked at me, he rotated his head and I saw that the poor little guy was missing his right eye! He seemed to be getting along just fine, though, so I'm trying not to worry about him.

This bird greeted us at the Telfair Academy

The current exhibit at the Telfair is called Robert Gwathmey, Master Painter. "Robert Gwathney's life and career are a testament to the concept that art can be a powerful force for social change," the exhibit booklet tells us. It's a very good exhibit; if you're in Savannah before May 28th, I recommend it. (I "borrowed" the image from the Telfair Web site--www.telfair.org.

The Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences

One of the works in the current Telfair exhibit

2:45 PM: Walking Around Town

After we left the Telfair, we walked around Savannah for a while, going in a few shops, getting ice cream, reading signs, visiting the squares. I was amazed at Anna's sense of direction; I get lost easily, but she seemed to always know where we were, even without the help of a map. ("We need to go down three blocks and then up two, and that's where your car is." How did she know that?)

Savannah is just filled with cool houses like these

4:00 PM: Colonial Park Cemetery

Our final stop before we left the Historic District was Colonial Park Cemetery, a cemetery and park with graves dating back as far as two centuries ago (and none more recent than 147 years ago--it was retired as an active cemetery in 1853). It's a neat place to walk around, but Savannah natives have a habit of bringing their dogs there and letting them run loose, playing with their masters and each other as only dogs can. It was kind of fun to watch the five or six that were there, but I was afraid that one of them would get the urge to dig, and before you know it there would be a Jack Russell terrier zipping by with Button Gwinnett's shin bone in his mouth.

The entrance to Colonial Park Cemetery

Me, leaning against a live oak inside Colonial Park Cemetery

We returned to the hotel room a little after 5:00, rested for a while, and ventured out for dinner. We couldn't get a table at the Pirate House tonight but we did get reservations for tomorrow night at 7:30; I think our dinner at IHOP tonight was plenty good though.

Tomorrow: Tybee Island!

 Day 3: Tybee Island and Fort Pulaski 

4:22 AM: Awakened by a Crazy Singing Bird

I woke up at 4:22 (I know because I looked at the clock) to go to the bathroom; outside our door, apparently right outside our door, there was a bird singing his little fine-feathered heart out. I couldn't get back to sleep because of the little bugger. I'm not sure what kind of bird it was; perhaps a brown thrasher, though not my one-eyed friend, I'm sure; he wouldn't do that to me. He sang randomly and tunelessly (though at one point I'm sure he broke into the theme to "The Andy Griffith Show"), which made it difficult to ignore, and impossible for me to get back to sleep. I dialed 411 and asked for Atticus Finch's number; I wanted to ask him if it was a sin to kill a brown thrasher. Unfortunately there was no such listing.

I put in some styrofoam ear plugs that I bought a couple of years ago when I stayed at a hotel right beside a major expressway and soon got back to sleep. I had troubling dreams, though, involving slingshots and BB guns.

A sunset over the Savannah River, taken a few hours before the crazy singing bird woke me up

8:45 AM: Breakfast, a Quick Trip to Books-A-Million, and then Off to Tybee

This morning, I'm very happy to report, the continental breakfast included Krispy Kreme donuts; I had two kruellers and two cups of coffee. We read as we ate. Anna finished her novel, and then discovered that the other book she brought was one she had heard as an audio book.

On our way out towards Tybee, then, we stopped at the only sizeable bookstore nearby, Books-A-Million, my least favorite of the large chain bookstores (and which Ed Hardy justifiedly calls Books-A-Dozen due to their poor selection). Anna managed to find a couple of books to keep herself occupied, though, and then we set out for Tybee!

We parked at Tybee at exactly 11:22 (I know because I looked at my watch) and fed 4 hours worth of quarters into the parking meter. (Which could be the basis of a good math problem for Anna's students: If it costs 25 cents to park for 30 minutes at the beach, how much will Chris spend to park for 4 hours? Show your work.)

Anna and I walked up the beach to the pier, walked down the pier and read the official posted Fish Cleaning Rules ("Do not throw fish guts or parts into ocean. Use trash cans." I swear, it says that.), and walked back down the beach. We spent the next two hours reading, collecting sea shells, watching sea gulls, and brushing sand off of our blanket. We left after it got unbearably windy; there were 45 minutes left on the meter.

Approaching the beach at Tybee

The pier on the beach at Tybee Island

A boy and his father feed the sea gulls

2:45 PM: Fort Pulaski

Our next stop was Fort Pulaski, a military fort that played a minor part in the Civil War; I think General Custer shot Benedict Arnold there or something. It's an interesting building to walk through, with its ammunition magazines and spartan army barracks and huge cannons. In the gift shop we bought a copy of the Declaration of Independence for Anna's classroom, but it turns out it was heavily edited: they cut out the whole "We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union" part, most of the "Four-score and seven years ago" section, and there's not word one about the rockets red glare or the bombs bursting in air. How are the kids today supposed to learn anything?

Two cannons in Fort Pulaski

7:30 PM: Dinner at the Pirate House

We ended the evening by absolutely stuffing ourselves at the Pirate House. The atmosphere was neat, the food was good, and the dessert was great; having eaten so much makes it difficult to sit here and finish this travelogue.

But I guess I just did!

Tomorrow's high point: buying cookies at the Byrd Cookie Company. After that, with much regret, we return home.

The pirate of the Pirate House

 Day 4: The Byrd Cookie Company, Forsyth Park, and Home 

7:30 AM: Up for Breakfast

We got up around 7:30 and went down to the lobby for breakfast. Because I was still a little full from the meal at the Pirate House, I only ate one donut, but I still managed to have three cups of coffee.

We went back to the room after breakfast and took a nap, then spent some time reading, cross stitching (Anna, not me), watching TV (Little House on the Prarie), and packing. We checked out of the room at 11:30 and went to lunch at KFC.

12:30 PM: The Byrd Cookie Company

Next we went to the Byrd Cookie Company (which was, coincidentally, only a couple of blocks down from the KFC on Waters Avenue) to get some of the oatmeal cookies that Audrey has told me more than once are the best to be found.

We spent a good 45 minutes walking around the Byrd Cookie Company, sampling various items and reading labels and trying to decide what to buy. The chocolate chip cookes were pretty good, the Confederate Cannon Balls were disgusting ("A zesty blend of onion, garlic and aged cheddar cheese"--yuck!), but the Scotch Oatmeal Cookies were unquestionably the best. They were out of boxes of them, so I bought seven bags.

These Scotch Oatmeal cookies are every bit as good as Audrey said

2:30 PM: Forsyth Park

Before leaving Savannah, I wanted to go to Forstyh Park, which we had driven by several times but hadn't stopped at; I also had not seen it on my first visit to Savannah in May of 1999.

We walked through the park for nearly an hour, looking at the statues and fountains, watching kids playing, stopping for a minute to play with a SCAD student's pet ferret, taking pictures of the houses along Whitaker and Drayton.

Anna in front of one of the fountains in Forsyth Park

This ferret was terribly cute, and very friendly

A couple of the beautiful houses along Whitaker

3:22 PM: Heading Home

We left Forsyth Park and began the 290 mile drive home at exactly 3:22 (I know because...well, you know by now). We got back to my house around 8:15; I don't know exactly what time because I was too tired to look at my watch.

I think I speak for both of us when I say we were a little sad that our vacation was over, but glad to be back home.

The End

(I originally published this travelogue on my Web site on the dates shown above, and transferred it to our family blog on October 14, 2017.)