Georgia On My Mind

We have been having a blast exploring around Charleston, but I have always wanted to go to Savannah. I just hear it is beautiful and magical and the pictures look perfect! So, last Saturday (July 13) we decided to take a day trip down there. We left early in the morning and drove down, and I loved the drive because we drove through the country on a little two way highway. That's my favorite way to drive, and even if it takes a little longer it's the way I prefer. It was both beautiful and hilarious because we saw lots of trees and rivers as well as these:

Signs like this still make me laugh. Boiled peanuts and peaches: what more could you possibly want? But you only get one peanut. Also, it's "boild." It's okay, spelling is hard.

The first thing we did when we got to Savannah was check out the St. John the Baptist Cathedral. It was beautiful! It reminded me a lot of the cathedral we saw in St. Louis, but this time we got to take pictures and just walk around instead of going to mass.

After the cathedral we headed over to walk around on River Street, which is the main thing to do in Savannah. It's the main street downtown but is unique in that there are lots of cute little shops and restaurants on the left side and then a big river on the right. You can walk on the cobblestone streets by the shops or right down by the water. Either way, it's awesome! There are lots of ways to get to River Street, but all of them involved really steep stairs haha.

Look at that hotty!!!

Like this.

Or this.

Or these.

Rusty loved watching the huge cargo carriers come through.

Us on the River Walk!

After we walked around on River Street we went and got lunch at a cool cafe (delish sandwiches and desserts!!) and then found ourselves at one of the oldest cemeteries in the country, Bonaventure. We walked around here and looked at the cool headstones and the dates (so old!) and just enjoyed walking around for a little. One of the cool things that we saw was when we were walking through a Jewish cemetery (I'm telling you, Bonaventure is HUGE) and noticed that most of the graves had lots of stones on them. We didn't know why, so we did what all inquisitive minds do and googled it. Turns out in the Jewish community, flowers are not used at funerals (they are excessive and not necessary because they were always buried that night instead of waiting) and so people will bring stones when they visit the gravesite. They collect a stone every time they think of that person and then bring all of them to the gravesite to leave there; kind of as a way of saying I was thinking about you and wishing you were with me. Pretty cool actually I think.

After the cemetery we drove out to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge which is a park that goes through some protected land where you can see lots of cool animals! You can even just drive through so no mosquitoes eat you (much appreciated) but you can still see everything. The best parts were:
finally seeing alligators in the wild
meeting a bird that looked like a miniature of the bird from Up.


I see signs all the time for alligators, and people tell me all the time where I shouldn't go so that I don't get eaten, but I have never actually seen one while I've been here except for a little baby we saw in a pond. Here we got to see five! It was really cool, and now I feel like I will be able to spot them in the pond around us here. (Sidenote: it's actually kind of funny because alligators are in all of the lakes and rivers around Charleston, but it doesn't stop people from swimming in them. They just say it's kind of eerie because you get in and see all of these alligators around you. Okay. What in the world?!? Are these people insane!?!?!) The bird was cool and liked to hop around which made him cooler.

After the wildlife stuff we went back downtown and walked through some parks and got some ice cream from a cute old fashioned placed that is very famous (pictures of celebrities all over the walls eating there) and delicious. (I still liked the one on Kiawah Island better though) When we were walking back to our car to go home it started raining. Something about the rain here is that it's not normal. Nothing is normal here haha. It will start raining and a little bit of rain will come down, and then literally within 1 minute it will be POURING. POURING, POURING, POURING. So we got caught in the rain and decided to just hide out under one of those little umbrella things that stores sometimes have outside above the door. We just waited and there because the other thing about the rain here is that if you wait 5 minutes it will stop and be sunny again. It's funny, but hiding out and eating our ice cream together while watching the rain is actually my favorite memory of Savannah.