Savannah, Y’all

Wormsloe.

Coming to you from Dunnellon, Florida.

It’s been a few days since I last posted. Yesterday, my sightseeing day in Savannah, was very long and very full, and I was exhausted by the time I got back to the hotel at night. Sightseeing days are actually the most wearing, I’ve discovered.

I planned it all out the night before, as usual. My process usually goes like this:

1. Figure I’ll plan the day the night before.

2. Around 9 pm the night before, start planning.

3. Have sudden flash of stress about not planning earlier.

4. Become absorbed in all the possibilities. Open 20 different tabs. Make notes.

5. Check reviews on Yelp and distances on Google Maps.

6. Book tours/hotels/attractions.

7. Feel a sense of satisfaction as everything falls into place and I recognize that my non-planning worked out just right.

It’s nice. I know not everyone can do it. Probably most people would find it stressful to go on a road trip with only the vaguest idea of what they’ll do and where they’ll be. I didn’t even look for lodgings anywhere ahead of time. I made so few preparations. I figured it would work out.

And whaddaya know. It did. It usually does. This is something my Papa always used to say, and something that now my dad always reminds me my Papa used to say - that everything will work out in the end. (I wonder if my dad knows that my Papa may not have been the first to come up with that one.) Turns out he was right.

Anyway, I kind of love the last-minute planning - like I actually enjoy it, I don’t just procrastinate and then scramble. I like that I don’t know what I’m doing two days from now, that my plan can morph and change however I want it to, that if I get an idea there’s no reason why I can’t do it. I have no restrictions, no places I need to be.

Like last night, I got an idea for Thursday. I was considering my route. I had decided to drive down into Florida on Wednesday and visit a family friend in Tampa on Thursday, but to avoid a really long ride I wanted to split it up and stop somewhere between Tampa and Savannah for the night. And then in a sudden flash of brilliance, I thought, hmm, maybe I could do a hike on Thursday. I started checking the map for national parks and hiking trails roughly along the way. I did my research (step 4), thinking about what kind of hike I wanted to do and where I should stop, and I came up with a hiking path near Ocala, which was about two-thirds of the way down to Tampa. Then I began looking into hotels in the area (step 5) and booked (step 6) the best-looking motel in Dunnallon (great reviews), a 20-minute drive from the hike and two hours to Tampa. And then I enjoyed step 7.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. On Monday night after getting into Savannah, I started my research and came up with a few plans, starting with a hop-on, hop-off trolley tour and potentially ending with a walking ghost tour (fun fact - Savannah is reputed to be the most haunted town in America).

The trolley tour was pretty good. There were 14 stops in historic downtown Savannah, and, as advertised, you could hop on or off at any stop and thereby see much of the city. Plus, I understood from Yelp that not all bus driver tour guides were created equal, so I’d have the chance to try out a few.

Didn’t love the first driver, but she did lay some fascinating information on us about Savannah - absolutely none of which I knew. She introduced James Oglethorpe, the founder of the Georgia colony, the man who made it all happen, and referred to him as a “noble, noble man”, which I thought curious, because surely he created a slave colony? BUT NO! Actually Oglethorpe was incredibly enlightened for his time. He banned slavery in Georgia before Savannah was even really built. He also envisioned the colony as a refuge for the needy, such as debtors - the English “worthy poor” - and he portioned off land in such a way as to avoid the forming of massive plantations and encourage family farming.

Oglethorpe also became besties with the local Indian chief, Tomochichi, who actually has a monument dedicated to him in one of Savannah’s squares. Oglethorpe and Tomochichi (say that three times fast) negotiated the land for Savannah and helped establish friendly, prosperous and peaceful ties between the settlers and the Indian tribes. AMAZING!

In short, Savannah was created out of a desire to help people, with a spirit of tolerance and acceptance. (I’m specifically talking about Oglethorpe and probably a few of his friends; after he left, the remaining colonists successfully petitioned the crown for the right to buy and own slaves.) No battles were fought there during the Civil War, so it has few landmarks or paraphernalia related to warfare. In other words, Savannah has a less bloody history than Charleston, South Carolina, for example.

Not that it was perfect. It did exploit slavery after St. Oglethorpe left (canonization mine). I’m sure some other bad shit happened too. Thus ends my history lesson.

But it’s a really cool place. I hopped off at Forsythe Park to wander in blissful awe at the graceful, spreading live oak trees, draped in our favorite Spanish moss, and the triangular gardens with trees already in bloom. It was stunning.

Forsythe Park

Con't.

Then I visited the shul. Savannah is surprisingly Jewish. Jews were among the first settlers there; Oglethorpe wanted religious tolerance (but NOT for Catholics, obviously). Temple Mikveh Israel looks like a massive Gothic church, and is one of the oldest synagogues in America.

Does this look like a shul to you?

I toured the Owens-Thomas House, after an irritating spell on the trolley with a tour guide who had the oddest speaking patterns I’ve ever heard. She pronounced the “t” in every world and paused and elongated at bizarre times. It was beyond Southern. For example: “In the arT museum, Mary said no smoking, da-rinking, or amuuuusements of any kind.” I made my escape.

The Owens-Thomas House had part of its slave quarters intact, and the guide was very upfront about the issue of slavery in the family, pointing out that although documents show this or that, we don’t know, and probably never will know, how they were really treated.

I think this was slightly less bleak back then.

With the ticket for that house came admission to another museum, part house, part art museum (one of the first in America. Everyone is always claiming their city has this or that first, or oldest, or most, or longest-running, or biggest, or second biggest church/synagogue/theater/monument/museum/indoor plumbing/St. Patty’s Day Parade in America). So I visited that too. I also checked out the City Market, which was very underwhelming, and East River Street, where I spent money on kitschy souvenirs, all the while hopping on and off the trolley.

Savannah was clearly beautiful, but the weather really wasn’t great. It was very overcast, and it was also quite cold. So there weren’t that many people out. I could tell that if I came in the spring or summer, when the squares and streets were bustling, and the flowers and trees were in full bloom, it would be actually magnificent. But a little something was definitely lost because of the season.

In the end, I decided to do the ghost tour. I felt like I would have been annoyed at myself if I didn’t take the opportunity. And what a weird experience! Kind of like the Comedy Barn, just something new and different. While I waited for the tour to begin at 8, I found an awesome coffee shop, funky, cozy, hipstery, with armchairs and a fireplace, just the kind of joint where I had dreamily imagined myself sitting and writing like a cool person. I sat there, drank hot chocolate, charged my phone and and wrote like a cool person.

I am artsy.

The ghost tour was given by Ryan, who works on some kind of paranormal investigative team in Savannah. He and his team had been featured multiple times on various Sci-Fi, History Channel, etc., documentaries and shows like “Ghost Hunters.” Many of the stories he told us were first-hand. I liked how he talked so matter-of-factly about the ghosts: “So she’s been haunting this building since 1855…”

We walked around to different houses and spots that are rumored to be haunted. Apparently, Savannah is known as the “City of the Dead” because it has so many undocumented burials. From how Ryan told it, it sounded like there were basically bodies under our feet at al times. Interestingly, our very first stop involved Savannah’s founding Jewish population and a small burial ground given to them by Oglethorpe. Ryan speculated that one house’s ghosts originated from bodies buried just outside the cemetery, in “unconsecrated ground.”

Churches are creepy at night.

It was interesting, but not scary. Ryan played us a bunch of EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), supposedly of ghosts whispering, singing, etc. Personally, I found them unconvincing. It’s not exactly hard to fake that. I mean, Ryan did seem pretty sincere, and I didn’t exactly suspect him of just making things up out of thin air. Still, it seemed improbable that the recordings were of ghosts.

Some of the stories were pretty spooky, though, including one involving a guy bricked up in a wall in 1890 or so (his body was discovered in 1987) and one truly chilling first-hand tale Ryan told about another ghost enthusiast’s daughter and roommates. According to Ryan, their Savannah home was apparently possessed by a demon who rearranged their furniture, broke their stuff and watched them sleep at night. While a regular sage cleansing kept the spirit away for a bit, he came back with a vengeance, and the house had to be exorcised.

Now I found that last bit very interesting. I had a lot of questions. The priest who did the exorcism was a real priest, you guys, who holds an official post at the famous St. John the Baptist church. In other words what I’m saying is that a real priest came and did a real exorcism on this house. That happened. That’s something this guy does. He’s known for it. It’s his thing.

In this day and age, y’all!

It was a very creepy story, though. Apparently they want it for Ghost Hunters.

I’m glad I did the tour; I didn’t expect to be convinced or overwhelmed by proof, but it was a cool nighttime activity. There were two other couples. It was very romantic. The male half of the couple from Minnesota asked me, “So your significant other was too chicken-shit to come out tonight?” Okay.

This morning I went to Wormsloe, a plantation on the outskirts of Savannah. The property was owned by one of the colony’s founding members, but who cares. The interesting thing about it is the jaw-dropping, mile-long avenue lined with massive, 200-year-old live oaks which lead into the (otherwise not too exciting) park. It begged to be Instagrammed. And apart from that, it was incredibly stunning in and of itself (outside of photographs, I mean, if you can imagine that). I drove down it at the prescribed 15 mph, mouth hanging open.

......!!!

There were some other cool things to photograph. I mean, see. But not many. The plantation hadn’t been preserved, so most of the former farmland had returned to forest. Some foundations were still standing from the original house. And there was a sickly little “Colonial life” exhibit as well. But the live oaks were the stars.

Then I hopped back in the car. I was actually looking forward to driving again. Most of the 4.5-hour drive was really nice. For a few hours I slipped into a driving coma and I can’t tell you anything about the scenery.

But like with all long drives, it started getting really aggravating during the last hour or so. Basically, Florida is just one giant speed trap. Half of the roads I was on today were local, not highways, so at times the speed limit was 65, and at other times it was 15, and usually there was just the barest interlude between them. The speeds changed about every mile or so. It was freaking horrible. And I was so stressed about it, compulsively checking my speedometer, lest I get a ticket for going 63 in a 60 zone. UGH! I was getting really annoyed at Florida.

But then, as I approached my destination, the scenery became gorgeous: green fields, farms, grazing cattle, horses, orchards, tons of trees, all dappled in the late-afternoon light. I was driving along smiling like a fool, being in the moment, wanting to stop the car and get out and walk. It was very idyllic. I listened to my favorite song (“Open”, by Rhye) and imagined I was in the music video. When I arrived, it was finally warm enough to wear sandals.

See? It all works out in the end.