Savannah, Georgia | Mickve Israel

Monday 28 October 2002: Hilton Head Island, South Carolina - Oh, so sad about the Giants and so sad we had to stay up so late last night!

We spent the day in Savannah, Georgia. We were up and out of here early, dropping Snickers off at a fancy doggie-day-care across the road from the Hilton Head Island Motorcoach Resort. It is only about a 40 minute drive from Hilton Head Island to downtown Savannah. The weather was hot - 78 - and muggy. We parked at the Visitors Center, and purchased tickets on the Savannah Trolley that follows a route through the Historical District, allowing passengers to hop on or off at any stop all day. The driver-narrated tour gave us a good over-view of this pretty and interesting city. Savannah was settled by 120-or-so English in 1733, lead by a Mr. Oglethorpe. King George sent them to colonize, and to protect the north from the Spanish. The State of Georgia is named for the king. Oglethorpe made the plot for the city around 24 squares. The squares are all lovely and green - shady, cool oases in the city. Savannah was a busy cotton-shipping port and it is here where Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. Girl Scout founder, Juliette Gordon Low was born, married, widowed, started the Girl Guides, and died in Savannah.

In 1981, Jim Williams, a wealthy and popular Savannah antiques dealer, shot and killed his 21-year-old assistant. At the time of the murder, a New York Times reporter was in Savannah doing a piece on Williams and his lavish parties. The reporter stayed in town and wrote a book on the murder and trial, and the characters associated with Williams in Savannah. The book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Bernedt, was a huge bestseller and made into a movie by Clint Eastwood and starred Kevin Spacey as Jim Williams. Also, many scenes from Forrest Gump were filmed in Savannah, including the scene where Tom Hanks is seated on the park bench, with a box of chocolates, waiting for a bus. All of these places are noted on the tour, of course.

Savannah's Bird Girl statue is on the cover of Bernedt's book

Savannah is also home to Mickve Israel, a large reform congregation and the only Gothic synagogue (and the third synagogue) in America. Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews sailed from London to Savannah without the blessing of the colony's trustees, but were welcomed by Oglethorpe despite orders from London to bar them. Among its members was Samuel Nunes, a Jewish Portuguese physician who later saved the colonists from ravaging disease. The temple also holds the oldest torah in America and has letters received from Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.

Mickve Israel


Mickve Israel Interior

We stopped at this beautiful Federal-style home. The Savannah Foundation restored the Davenport House as its first project. It is a beautiful home, and was one of our "stops" on our trolley tour.

Isiah Davenport House

We still walked miles, getting on and off the trolley when convenient. Of course, I stopped in to Twiggs of Savannah, a nice needle work shop, while DT poked around Colonial Park Cemetery. Our guide told us the Nawwtheners used this cemetery for a camp and defaced many of the headstones. She also told us Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence is burr-eed here. DT and I toured along the dock-area on the river, called Factors Walk. Huge brick warehouses stored the cotton before it was loaded on ships. Walk-ways were built above the dock areas, so the "factors" could bid on the cotton from their offices above the warehouses, without having to go down to the river. Now the area is filled with shops, restaurants and hotels.

Historic Savannah cemetery


Fountain in Forsyth Park

At 2:30, we finally stopped and sat down to lunch. A popular lunch spot in Savannah is Lady & Sons. There is no better place, except your Mom's kitchen, to have fried chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, macaroni & cheese, peach cobblers and biscuits. And, then, a few things that were never served in my Mom's kitchen: collard greens, fried green tomatoes, sweet tea and pulled pork. First you are served Hoe Cake and a cheese biscuit with your sweet tea. A Hoe Cake is like a pancake, but made with corn and is quite thick and fried until it is crunchy on the outside and fluffy inside. Divine. It is supposed to be used to wipe-up your plate! Lunch is a buffet. Today the buffet included a nice salad bar with pickled green tomatoes, fried chicken, BBQ chicken, rice, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, green beans, baked beans, pulled pork, peach cobbler, ice cream and several other desserts. If this isn't enough - you can order from the menu. The Lady herself, Paula Deen, walks around the restaurant, talking to the patrons and signing her cookbooks. Someone told us she was recently on Oprah Winfrey telling her story of starting out - from a newly divorced, unemployed, mother of two boys, selling sandwiches on the street - to owning two restaurants and authoring 3 cookbooks. Deen will soon star on the Food Network in her own show! Pass the butter!

The other day in downtown Savannah, an alligator came out of the Savannah River, crawled across Factors Walk and went into the open door of a local seafood restaurant! As Jimmy Buffett would say - Savannah, Fare You Well.

We rescued our dog by 6 o'clock. Snickers was very happy to see us and we really enjoyed looking around the Pet Palace. Dogs were running around everywhere! Such fun! They also had 3 little Bassett puppies in a baby-gate. They were very adorable! They had a "candy jar" for the dogs. Luckily, Snickers was not allowed near the treats, or it would have been empty in 2 minutes. Snickers must have had fun, or was too busy to get-in his usual 12 hours of napping - he is pooped!

So are we - touring an entire city in one day is quite a job. Tomorrow, we pack it up and point this Beach House on the Move south.

Added later: This morning, before we left, I put a lovely Chicken Cacciatore in the crock-pot. When we arrived home from our day in Savannah, a wonderful dinner was ready for us... except we were not ready for it. After our late lunch at Lady & Sons... well, we will have a wonderful dinner tomorrow night!  We were busy putting things away, getting ready to leave in the morning and I took Snickers for a walk. Snickers and I were outside talking with a neighbor. She has a million-dollar motorhome and has decorated her campsite for Halloween, complete with a HUGE blow-up pumpkin. There was lightning in the sky above, but no thunder and our neighbor said, "Oh, that is just heat lightning. Nothing will come of it."

Yeah. Right. About one hour later, we had one of the worst thunderstorms either of us had ever seen. (Don't forget we lived in Manila three years!) It was unreal, and it started so quickly and the rain came down so hard and the wind picked-up - so we were running around - unplugging electronics, closing windows and vents - that we forgot about our Fearless Fido. Snickers, if you don't know by now, is simply TERRIFIED in a thunderstorm. He shakes and trembles, he whines and he pants and drools. He will not leave my side and prefers to be between my feet, touching me at all times. Two strikes of lightning hit near the campground! The clap of thunder simply knocked me out of my chair!  It was like an explosion! I was scared too, Snickers! We both moved away from the windows, to the back of the coach. And then, it REALLY started to rain. Water was streaming off the roof over the windscreen in a constant sheet. After the two big strikes, the storm moved southeast of us, but continued to roar. We had to wait about one hour before it calmed enough to turn the TV (Monday Night Football!) back on and open the windows. Poor Snickers. The storm has gone and rain has completely stopped (it is half-time) and he is still at my feet, trembling.

We never lost the electricity during the storm! It is a mess outside. I can't tell you how much rain we had here in the last two hours. Leaves are off the trees, but I think we had a free car wash!

RV Park: Hilton Head Island Motorcoach Resort