Slow Week and Sharing Some Savannah Pictures

Everyone was sick this week with at minimum a cold. So things were kind of slow.

Henry takes his ice cream cone eating very seriously

Nixon lost his first tooth last Sunday

With all four (4) kids home during the day this is a beautiful sight

The kids also got to help mom make some muffins and cookies

Henry is becoming an expert at getting in trouble

Henry and Nixon were having a blast playing with this thing

Henry was ready for me when I got home from work

Watching Henry and Kim read before bed is so cute

Hearing Henry's animal noises is even more cute

This next week is going to be better and everyone is going to get feeling better.

I thought now would be a good time to share our Savannah pictures since all we have shared so far was a video.

I woke up way too early on our first day and did some exploring before the sun was out

 Our hotel was right accross the street from Forsyth Park, one of the biggest parks

 This fountain in the park is a major attraction

 Savannah is known for the trees covered in Spanish moss

 Once Kim and I really got going for the day we went down to river street, which as the name suggests, follows the river. The street is paved with these really rough stones and there are train/trolley tracks that run in the road

There are lots of shops, gift shops, and restaurants along the street

There are also sidewalks where the pavement has lots of sea shells in it

 In one of the gift shops I got my fortune from Zoltar (from the Tom Hanks movie "Big")

To go between the main downtown area and river street there are really steep stairs, some of which are more modern and well built, while others are much older and not very well taken care of. For those that aren't so nice, there are signs that say "historic steps use at own risk"

 

This picture shows the level of the downtown area with a bridge on the left side that goes accross to a building that is built on the lower river level

 The city has beautiful squares scattered throughout that have various monuments, parks, fountains, and huge trees.

Many of the trees have these long branches that form a canopy

This is at Forsyth Park

The road surrounding this square (the roads are all one-way) is paved with old brick

This square had a nice fountain

This square is where they filmed Forrest Gump sitting on the park bench (the bench was removed and placed in a museum because people were chipping pieces of it off as a souvenier)

There is also lots of beautiful architecture in Savannah

This is the City Hall

 The post office had these massive columns

 The palm trees were something we don't see very often

 We did an escape room that was based on a speakeasy (an illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages) during the time of prohibition

 This was our hotel. A portion of it that is actually the restaurant was used as a funeral home. That would explain why Kim saw a ghost in our room one night (ask her about it some time;)

 There are lots of beautiful old homes

 We got ice cream at Leopolds, which has been in Savannah for over 100 years

 One of the cemetaries had all of these trees that had so much Spanish moss on them that they looked like truffula trees from the Lorax

The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist was really cool

 There was lots of stained glass inside

This building was alive

 Side note: it was so fun to spend so much time together

 We got to ride segways 

 This is the Mercer House. The events of the novel and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil took place here. As you can see, it is covered in scaffolding for some exterior work they are doing on it. Sorry mom...

 We went on a night time ghost tour. Basically, there are a lot of dead bodies burried all throughout Savannah, including under the streets and in enormous mass graves. That many bodies and you are bound to have some ghosts here and there.

The end of the tour was this hanging tree where lots of people have been killed

 

We ate dinner at the Pirate's House. It is one of the oldest buildings in Savannah: https://thepirateshouse.com/history/

I didn't actually get any pictures though because we were there in the evening and for dinner 

 Did I mention I had the best (and cutest) travel companion? 

We took a river cruise on this awesome boat

 This ship was being loaded up with military equipment

We felt lost for a minute until we saw this boat

 We learned that the river has to constantly be dredged to allow the massive ships to get in. This is the boat that does the dredging.

 We saw huge ships full of shipping container. We learned that the containers are not just stacked on the top but are stacked all the way from the bottom of the ship (so there are lots that you can't see). We learned that the containers are attached in such a way that if there is a concern about the ship tipping (because of rough waters) the chains can be detached so that top containers fall off and the ship won't tip.

We also learned that the red paint on the bottom of the ship shows the ships maximum weight load/depth 

 Most of those containers are 20 feet long

 We sailed past Fort Jackson where they shoot off canons

 This bridge was pretty neat. You can see the remnants of the older bridge behind. The new bridge was needed to allow the increasingly larger ships to get through.

 As we were both leaving and returning from our cruise there was a man on the street playing trumpet. It was fun and reminded me of someone I miss a whole lot

We went out to Tybee Island one day. It has this historic lighthouse. 

 One of the surrounding buildings was a museum set up like the home would have been historically, complete with the old Singer sewing machine.

 This was the first time we saw the Atlantic Ocean

 There was an old battery/bunker that we got to check out

 We got a great view of the lighthouse from the top of the bunker

 We saw some really big and huge birds in a marshy area on the island

 I like this one

 We visited a marine museum on the island

The turtles were really cool

 The baby alligator was playing strange

 The sea turtle was definitely the star of the show

 Back in July 2018 a housekeeper at a hotel on Tybee Island found six (6) live loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings in the waste basket in a hotel room. 

These sea turtles are endangered. The Kentucky couple staying that room first claimed they found the hatchlings in town on the street. When further questioned by the police they admitted to picking them up on the beach the night before while intoxicated. Five (5) of the turtles were immediately released and this one is in the Marine Science Center and will be released when it reaches age two (2).

 The pier was really pretty

 The sun eventually set on our wonderful trip to Savannah.

 When I first found out that we would be going to Savannah my first question was "why?" When I asked the attorney that chose Savannah why she chose it she said "why not?"

That wasn't a satisfactory answer to me at the time. 

However, after visiting Savannah I am glad we did. It was warmer than Post Falls at the time (not by a whole lot but still warmer). We both had a great time, saw some wonderful sights, ate way too much amazing food, and had so much fun spending an extended period of time together. 

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Bullock for watching our kids so we could have such a wonderful time.

That's all for now.

Take care