March 29-30 2012 Savannah and Vidalia, Georgia

Historic downtown Savannah was originally built in the 1700’s when Britain  sent people over the colonize Georgia. The city was laid out in 24 ‘wards’ or blocks, each one with a park in the middle of it, then the houses-0town houses and mansions were built around those.  The union army spared Savannah the fate of being burnt like most of the rest  of the southern towns. Savannah was going to bulldoze the old buildings the the late 1800’s, but the first historical society formed and bought the old buildings and sold them with the covenant that they were to be repaired and restored. So 22 of the original wards are still there.

The cathedral of St John the Baptist. Outside and inside

 

the baptism font and the back balcony of the church. It has the rose window and an organ with 2000+ pipes.

The streets are brick and have Spanish moss draped live oaks hanging over them.  The fountain in Forsyth park has mermen  in it.

What is not covered is pretty anatomically correct. They have cute rear ends. At the end of a long walkway is the memorial to the confederate soldiers. John says they don’t seem to realize that they lost the war. The people here are very proud of their confederate ancestors.

Batman playing the drums in Forsyth park and azaleas

Dogwoods blooming on a wrought iron fence. The old river street was built from the ballast stones from the ships. It was a big cotton shipping port. Now the warehouses have been converted into cute shops, restaurants, galleries,  curio shops and T-shirt shops. It was totally packed with tourists closer to the river.

The cemetery in town was used by the union soldiers for a corral for their horses, so there was some damage. The side wall is lined with head stones, guess they didn’t know where to put them back.  A wax myrtle tree. It has smooth bark, almost looks like none.

The first headquarters of the girl scouts. It was the carriage house of the woman Juliette Low who was the founder. It seems to be a pilgrimage for girls scouts. There were a lot of them around. The local Blimpies even had a special girl scout lunch.

We drove on to Vidalia on the Strange highway. Vidalia the sweet onion city.

We went to see the onion museum. Shhhh-sweet Vidalia onions resting, please do not disturb. They are growing in the smallest licensed Vidalia patch. They can only come from licensed patches or they are not a Vidalia onion.  It is very strictly regulated. It is too stop the counterfeiting of their sweet onions. People were putting other onions in the Vidalia bags and selling them. They are planted and harvested by hand to enhance their taste.

Here I am in front of the smallest patch. They picked the first onion for me. They don’t pick the commercial onions till April 8th.  Inside the museum they had these human sized onions.

The above figure is Yumion, the Vidalia mascot. Also pictured on the right is the onion queen, from the onion festival. We missed it, it is in April. And the Vidalia water tower.

The bus parked at the Dames Ferry campground  outside  Juliette, Georgia, right on the lake. We went to another campground first. It was like driving right into deliverance. Bad dirt roads, lame hookups that were wired wrong. Trashy looking trailers, not a well kept place. The man we talked to had very few teeth and a t shirt that had more holes than shirt and a very southern accent.  We decided not to stay. We had to take the car off to turn the bus around and I ran over one of the hookups and broke it off, water was spraying everywhere. . .  John had to pay for it on the way out. Needless to say we like this place better.

March 27, 28 2012 Savannah,Georgia

We headed up the coast to Savannah, Georgia.

Waffle house. We think there may be some kind of ordinance that says you have to have one of these on every block in the south. My bike in front of the remains of an old still at Skidaway  Island park outside Savannah Georgia.

The remains of the old still. It was one of 31 that were on this island during prohibition. A view of the salt marsh

The roots here are 3-4 inches tall, I was glad I had my own bike with the shocks and toe clips. Above is Fort Pulaski. It is at the mouth of the Savannah River. It was built right before the civil war by the feds. The confederates  took over the fort before it had ever been attacked. It was supposed to be one of the strongest forts ever built, as invincible as the Rocky Mountains. The union brought in new rifled cannons, they had spiral grooves in the barrel and could shoot farther than the conventional cannons and after a 30 hour siege they had broken down one of the walls and were going to blow up the powder magazine, so the confederates surrendered.

The front of the fort, with the drawbridge over the moat. The drawbridge mechanism.

After the union got the fort they built this mound of dirt in front of it, it is the new powder magazines. Here is John walking into the underground passageways and here he is in one of the magazines.

John in the sally port. just past the draw bridge, check out the burly doors.  The inside of the fort

John walking down the casements to the cannons, later part of the casements were made into a prison for political prisoners.

More casements and cannons, a ranger dressed up as a confederate soldier firing a musket.

John going up the stairs to the ramparts. This part of the fort burned, the wooden floor is gone, you can see the supports under the floor.

John with a cannon on the rampart.

An old style cannon ball, the new shell for the rifled cannon and a cut away of the rifled cannon showing the spiral. This is a photo of what the side of the fort looked like after the siege.

The union had the fort repaired within 6 weeks of taking it. The redder bricks are the ones they put in. some of the cannon shells are still imbedded in the walls. The arrow points to one.

more damage, these girls took a photo of John wearing his I love Haggis shirt, they made the mistake of asking him what haggis is, so here they are listening to his long explanation.

The model T’s were in the parking lot. The man in yellow is cranking his car to start it. We went to lunch at the crab shack.

John at the crab shack, and eat, drink and be crabby!

This giant gater is parked in the handicap space. . .,  Sol C Johnson High school’s team is the Atom smashers!

A street in Savannah with Spanish moss draped live oaks. A skeleton of a 20 foot ground sloth.

a box turtle and Bacon park! We though maybe is was a pig park.