Category Archives: Savannah travel
Super Museum Sunday in Savannah
Sure, you’ve heard of the Super Bowl, and it happens on a Sunday, but it’s not nearly as exciting as Super Museum Sunday in Savannah. On this Sunday, many, many museums offer free admission. It’s a chance to visit art and history on the cheap – always a plus.
It being my first year in Savannah, I decided to take full advantage of it. Dee and I started out with the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. The Eighth Air Force was instrumental in the Allies winning World War II, so you can imagine how much history there is to be shared. And airplanes to look at.
I discovered that I am apparently the only person in my family that didn’t already know Jimmy Stewart was in the Air Force. But I was excited about that story. Good ole Jimmy Stewart, right?
I’m not really a fan of airplanes (who knew?) but this snippet of history was fascinating. Apparently there was a comics character called Lace or “Miss Lace,” created by Milton Caniff, the same person who gave us Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon. (You would have to be old to remember them – I barely do, and wasn’t a big fan of them.) But Miss Lace was developed for GI’s in WWII and her character seems to have walked the line between sex siren and girl next door. I could write a whole essay on that, from today perspective.
We were about to leave the museum when I noticed a table with books and a woman seated behind it with a pen – yes! An author signing! Of course I had to stop. The books are an adventure, time-travel series – the main characters are in middle school, and there are four books – The Snipesville Chronicles. I only bought the first one, Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When. ($11.00, well spent.) Just reading the foreword has been delightful, and I have a feeling I’ll have to buy the other three.
After we had exhausted the pleasures of the Mighty Eight Museum, Dee dropped me off downtown to meet up with Julia and Terry to check out some other places (while he pursued other Sunday afternoon interests.) While waiting, I discovered this tasty treat.
Yes, it’s a milkshake – vanilla – with two shots of espresso Could not have been lovelier. And only $5.50!!
Having finished that quickly, I was ready to visit the home of Juliet Gordon Low, aka Daisy, founder of the Girl Scouts. I had a book about her when I was a child, so it was like visiting an old friend. I did learn some new things – or things I had forgotten.
Juliet became deaf in one ear following an incident with a piece of rice thrown at her wedding. I am not making this up. The piece of rice lodged itself in her ear and would not budge. Eventually, in the efforts to get it out, the doctor (presumably) punctured her eardrum. Her friends often commented, laughing, that if you tried to tell Juliet “no,” she just “turned her deaf ear to you so she couldn’t hear you.”
Juliet was an adventurer, and one of my childhood heroes.
(Drawing of a car about to slide backwards off a cliff. In Daisy’s handwriting, it reads, “It was a perfect miracle that I was not killed, love to Anna and to you, yours, Daisy. Below that, typed, it says, “Daisy was quite the traveler. In this 1923 letter to Mary Gale Carter, she illustrates a harrowing adventure.)
I had not realized there was actually a comic book about her, but was so delighted by it that I had to buy a copy in the book store. (I know, free museum, $16 for books, and $5.50 for the coffee milkshake, and another $8 for girl scout cookies…) I posted a page from the comic book below – they have a large one on display. But you can check out the whole comic book here.
(Picture is a page from a comic book, picturing Juliet in England as a nurse and a creator of iron gates.)
Juliet was an artist – she painted and sculpted and did iron work and many other things, but most importantly for us, she was driven to create a program for girls that would teach them how to do all the things themselves.
(My sister and I standing behind the statue of Juliet Low in the garden.)
You might think that we were worn out from all the museum-ing, and we did need a small snack to refresh our energy, but we still had a couple of good museums left in us. I will pause here and come back later to tell you about the King-Tisdel Cottage and the Beach Institute (named after Alfred Ely Beach, and not the sandy area by the ocean.)
Tybee Island with my Sister: Pictures tell the story.
My last day on Tybee Island started, of course, with sunrise.
After coffee and spending some time on FB and eating cereal and so on, it was time to go bike riding with Julia. Here’s what we had planned:
Yes, intrepid bike riders, pedaling around the island.
Instead, both the bike shops were closed – it was Monday. Apparently, that’s the wrong day for bike riding.
So what could we do?
We walked to the pier, got some woman to take our picture (with the sun in our eyes and my hair all over the place.) Then we went to Fannie’s on the Beach, where we had a lovely plate of steamed oysters.
Content with that, we wandered the streets of Tybee for a while, especially Chu’s Department Store. We were tempted by the hoodies and t-shirts, admired a bowl, glanced at the fishing supplies, and thought about buying some Savannah honey.
Eventually, we decided we needed a glass of wine. Back on the street, there were so many places we could have gone – and we chose Doc’s. Julia thought it looked like a bar we knew back in the day – Hikes Point Bar and Lounge, to be exact – and indeed, it did.
It was actually much darker than the pictures. Thanks, i-phone.
We enjoyed a glass of wine, and had some conversation with the bartender. Overhearing her phone call with her 11 year old daughter had me remembering my days of motherhood in all too vivid color. And it made us laugh. The bartender was glad that I could reassure her that it does get easier. Or different anyhow.
After all that, we had worked up an appetite, so we went to find our menfolk and get dinner. Stingray’s was an easy choice for dinner – Julia and I split the seafood platter. Oh. My. Goodness.
And a good time was had by all.
Savnannah – II
I’m already behind in my story – but that’s ok, right? I can always catch up when I get home.
That first night, after we got here, we headed out for dinner. A windy, cold walk to the river – fortunately only a couple of blocks long. The restaurant was warm, thank goodness. We decided to have a drink to celebrate.
Yep, martinis. Julia’s is the one with the olives – our server, Will, stuffed them with blue cheese himself. Mine has expresso and a little chocolate and a dash of carmel in it. It was lovely.
I had to take this picture about 10 times – I kept accidentally doing a video instead. Very annoying.
Here’s a not-very-good picture of Will, who took really good care of us:
As you can see, it was a dark, elegant restaurant. He’s doing a Ceasar salad tableside, always a treat. That got us started reminiscing about Willie Bizzle Ceasar salads, which were the best in the world, and then about other restaurant people and places.
Back in our youth, we sampled some great restaurants. The Brass Rail in Nashville, 1789 in DC, and some fancy restauant that neither of us can remember the name of in Chicago… And we have great restaurant stories, but I won’t go into that here. Enough to say, we amused ourselves nicely, while feasting on –
Jumbo scallops with asparagus and goronzola cheese for an appetizer, followed, of course, by the Ceasar salads and then we split:
Shrimp Saute, with mushrooms and capellini pasta and a slightly spicy sauce. Yum.
With, of course, a glass of white wine – Chardonnay for Julia, Pinot Grigio for me. Lovely.
After which, we fought the wind all the way back to our room and slept soundly.
We started late yesterday – Tuesday – didn’t get on our trolley bus tour til almost 11:00. But our timing was good in one way – our first tour guide was Chris, who was knowledgable, which I’m sure all the guides are, but also funny.
Chris started out with a story about the beautiful bridge to South Carolina we could see from the trolley. Chris gave us all the facts and figures about it – and that it was named after a governor. The extra tidbit (in his delightful southern drawl) was that the particular governor had only been in office a short time before he was found to have “sticky fingers.” He was removed from office shortly after that and – Chris shrugged – “we named a bridge after him.”
Ninety minutes later, we had a good overview of Savannah’s history, and a lot of great stories. We got off the trolley ready for lunch.
This is where we ate:
A Story to Tell 