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.