Day 60 - Missing the Mountains Already, Riding Is Just Flat And Boring.

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Last night was our first night out of the mountains, and we miss them already. Today we are heading to Savannah, GA, our final stop this journey. We were not sure what to expect out of "Historic Downtown Savannah", but the plan was to sleep a little late, as it was Sunday morning, and then get a quick breakfast at the hotel, and head down the short distance to Savannah. We did manage to sleep until after 7:00, and by the time we hit the road is was after 9:00. The Garmin Lady seemed to feel much better this morning, and set up the directions without any problem.

The first thing we noticed on our morning ride was how straight, flat, and boring the ride was to Savannah. After all the mountains of the past several weeks, it was apparent this morning we were getting close to home. Most of the scenery this morning was either corn or cotton fields, with the occasional rural South Carolina town. It was pretty, in a sparse sort of way, with very little traffic and just a nice quiet ride. We just cranked up the tunes, kicked back, and headed on down the road. Before we knew it, it was 11:30 and we were arriving in Savannah.

The first place we stopped was the Visitors Center, but it was the Trolley Tours Visitors Center and not the real one. We checked out the tours, and they seemed interesting enough, but mostly it was a "hop-on, hop-off" trolley type of tour. This was a little more commitment than we were willing to contribute, as we would need to figure out what we wanted to see, when to hop-off, visit places, find the trolley stop, hop back on, etc. We decided we would just get a map, and walk around town. We headed over to the hotel, but it was only 12:00, too early to check in. We got them to give us a parking pass so we could park the bike, changed into shorts in the restrooms, and headed out to check out the town.

Our first stop was the real Visitors Center, where we talked to a nice lady about what to see while we were here. There were several things t pick from, but we decided on a couple of art museums as it had been a while since we visited one, and it was over 90 degrees and we were looking for something air conditioned. They actually had what looked like a nice railroad museum, but in the end, art won out over trains.

Our first stop was the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) Art Museum, right next door to the Visitors Center. SCAD has a large art school here in town, and the museum is one of Contemporary Art, one of our favorites. The SCAD Art Museum turned out to be fairly small, but had some very interesting exhibits. The first were a group of somewhat political photographs and mixed media by Hank Willis Thomas that were done very recently. Then there were a group by Carlos Cruz-Diez, where he experimented with various colored lines and dots and showed how the human eye changes the perception of color, and can in some cases induce motion. Not only was the artwork interesting, but there was a good explanation of the physiology involved.

There were several other artists work with more typical contemporary art, but at the end of the hall was an extraordinary red room called "Infinity Lines" by Chiharu Shiota. This was an installation piece, where the entire room is covered in red string. It is suspended from the ceiling and tied to the floor forming archways where we could actually walk through the artwork. there are various chairs placed throughout the installation, as part of the exhibit and behind the string. We were both blown away by the sheer presence in the room, we took some pictures, but they don't really do it justice.

We also saw a video presentation that was a little strange. There was audio in the background talking about duplicity, and various examples where ancient sculptures copied large portions of each other, to modern days where motions of Christopher Robin in a Disney Winnie the Pooh animation were exact duplicates of Mowgli in Disney's Jungle Book animation. It was a little bizarre at times, but contemporary art tends to be a little bizarre at times.

We really enjoyed the SCAD Art Museum and especially enjoyed the Infinity Lines. Our next suggestion from the Visitors Center was to see the Jepson Center for the Arts. This was a more traditional version of a Contemporary Art Museum and was featuring an exhibit from William Wegman. There was also some sculpture and other interesting pieces. They also had a sort of video game artwork. There were a couple of media pieces that had motion, but there were several where the artwork was a video game where the observer could interact and in some cases play a game. It was really interesting.

Our last stop was included in the admission of the Jepson Center and is a place called the Telfair Museum. This was an odd museum, in that it was an old mansion, with a few rooms set up as they would have been in its heyday, and the rest of the house showed paintings an sculpture. Most of the artists we had never heard of, and their featured artist was someone named Hattie Saussy who turned out to be a Savannah native from about 100 years ago. Neither of us particularly liked her work, but then everyone's a critic!

As we finished up with our Art Museum afternoon, it was still a little early to get to the hotel, so we walked along the city streets, checking out the town. We spotted a Starbucks and thought an iced coffee would be perfect right about now. As we were finishing our coffee, the skies were starting to look a little ominous, so we thought we had better head for the hotel. We seemed to time it almost perfectly, as we got to the bike to unload the suitcases, the sky opened up.

Because of the rain, we decided we may as well eat at the hotel, but we are at an Embassy Suites and the hotel restaurant is ridiculously expensive with a limited menu. We waited around for the rain to stop, and found a nice Mexican place right around the corner. It was delicious! Tomorrow we head home! We're both a little excited, as much as we have enjoyed this trip, we miss our friends and family. It will be nice to sleep in our own bed again!

122.1 Miles today

9502.5 Miles Total

0.0 Gallons Today

239.054 Gallons Total

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Photos

SCAD Art Museum - Armopolis - Hank Willis Thomas