Savannah, Charleston, and a heavily wooded area in North Carolina

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Hey Ya’ll! We dun drove true da souf and r bout to meet up wit da yanks. This is a lot of the spoken word we have heard in the south thus far. It has been pretty hilarious. So just so you know that we are really behind on the blogging and it has been our fault partly, but also we havn’t been able to get on the internet in like 2 weeks so there is a lot to write about. So grab a drink, some cheese and crackers and enjoy the story and adventure that lies ahead.

We will start with Savannah because I believe we left off at Orlando. The trip from Orlando to Savannah was a long one. It was about a 5 hour trip and we had left later in the day from my Aunt’s. I have been trying to watch the basketball tournament so that held us up a little bit, but we were able to get some laundry done that was long overdue as well as catch up on some work. We arrived in Savannah around 9:30 that night and the look of the town was exactly as we had heard. It was laid out in a classic colonial style and when we arrived we drove down an old cobblestone road to the river, which was and still is one of the main ports in the south. Lined along the port was t-shirt shops and candy shops. We would later learn that this was not the place to be back when cotton was being sold and shipped as this was the main hangout for pirates, seamen (giggle) and pickpockets. It had really changed since that time. We parked along the old road and bought pralines (candy type coated nuts, google them, they are delicious.) We took a look around the street and by this time it was 11 or so and it was a Sunday night, nothing was going on and we were ready to hit the hay. We drove 20 minutes away to a Sheraton and cozied up in the back of the car for the night. It was a chilly night so we were able to sleep comfortably without it being so muggy like it had been in the deep south. We woke up early the next day and cleaned up inside the hotel. There we found brochures about trolley tours and a bunch of other touristy stuff, but what Kati found the most exciting was the flyer for the Paula Deen Restaurant. In case you are unfamiliar with Paula, she is the older southern woman on the food network who bakes everything in cream and butter and has a famous mac and cheese dish. It’s a pretty famous restaurant in Savannah therefore we needed to go and make reservations early. After driving straight there from the hotel to make reservations we proceeded to the trolley tour, which takes you around the entire city of Savannah with a tour guide. There is so much history here and it is such a beautiful area. This has been Kati’s favorite city so far. It really is a tremendous town. One of the really neat things that we saw there was the bench where Forest Gump sat throughout the movie and that’s it for Savannah. Kidding…. Many of the houses here were built in the 1700’s, there was a catholic church that rivaled any in Europe with it’s architecture, it was an amazing structure. The city is built with 16 or so little squares, each of which has some historic significance to it. Savannah was where Eli Whitney first came to tutor some rich persons kids and from there realized he should invent the cotton gin. Savannah is the Mecca of the girl scouts and was started here. We visited the site where men carried out their quarrels by dueling. This was properly located right next to a cemetery. There is too much to write about in terms of the history here, but if you ever come out this way you have to come to Savannah. It is one of the top 3 cities we have visited and it will most likely stay that way. After touring the city for 5 hours ish we headed to “The Lady and Sons” restaurant (Paula Dean’s Restaurant). This place is busy from the time it opens till the time it closes. We were lucky to have been there right when it opened to make reservations. We waited for 30 minutes and were taken to the third level of the restaurant. We were really hungry and let me just say that the only mistake we made was ordering an appetizer. There was so much food to be had that it was not smart to order anything before our main course. The waitress brought cornbread pancakes and cheese biscuits every 10 minutes or so. If your plate did not have them, they did not have to wait long. I ordered the buffet, which consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, Jamaican pork, some sort of other beef, collard greens, salad , mac and cheese, grits, beans, peach cobbler and some other stuff. Kati on the other hand took a quick look that the menu and decisively ordered, without much hesitation, the crab stuffed, bacon wrapped shrimp. Again we should not have ordered the seafood dip before this. Just to make this story short, this was one of the best dinners we have had thus far. I cannot describe to you the deliciousness of this shrimp. I mean, it was like God had created 8 shrimp and put them on this plate. The whole experience was amazing and we had just easily consumed a combined 10,000 calories. It was well worth it. (Just as a side note, we have been running 4 times a week, but I will be coming back somewhat plumper than I left.) We left Paula Deen’s fat and happy and were on our way to Charleston , which is about an hour and a half from Savannah.

We arrived in Charleston at 9PM and met with a guy Byron who Kati found on couchsurfing. He was the dorm monitor for the university of Charleston and let Kati and I sleep on his pullout for the night. Once again like all the other couchsurfers we have met, Byron was awesome and really hospitable. The room was great because we thought we were going to be in a dorm room, but it was about 3 times the size. We smoked Hookah with him and his girlfriend that night and went to bed. We had an early day ahead of us. We woke up the next morning at 8 and went for a run over the Charleston Bridge. It was really cool to see the whole city, which is very flat. From the bridge we saw a little island in the middle of the harbor and realized that it was Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the civil war were fired. We came back to the car, no shower, and decided to take the Fort Sumter tour. The boat ride out there took 30 minutes but what a cool place to see! It was a man made island that originally held the union army until run out by the confederates. For you history buffs this was the start of the civil war and amazingly, this 34 hour battle had no deaths. Well only one, when the union army surrendered they had a 100 canon shot salute, and on the 47th fire, the cannon went off early and blew one of the union soldiers up. So the salute only lasted until 50. It was a huge fort and only 1/3 of it remained. This was the only major thing we were able to see in Charleston and we had to keep moving towards North Carolina to see a family friend of the Anderson’s.

The drive from Charleston was beautiful. Kati’s friend Shannon lives near Pinehurst, North Carolina, about an hour south of Raleigh and right next to the famous Pinehurst Golf Club (which we were able to drive by and see the course and clubhouse). She owns nearly 5 acres of beautiful land that she raises a few world-class horses on. Just a quick note about Shannon, she is a tremendous horseback rider and nearly went to the Olympics in 2004, but unfortunately had a horse get hurt before she left. Anyway, Kati and I decided that this place would be perfect for us to move to. It had 40 different golf courses all within the Pinehurst area and it is a HUGE place for horse training and competitions. So I figure when I retire in the next 10 or so years this would be good place to move to. ☺ Shannon was awesome to stay with. She had a beautiful home in the middle of the woods with a nice room for Kati and I to stay in. That night when we arrived she had made lasagna with salad and had some of her friends over to meet us. Kati and the girls talked horses and I was completely lost from the moment they started. It was a really fun night though and again really nice to sleep in a comfortable bed. We woke up the next morning and wanted to go up about an hour north to Chapel Hill to see the University of North Carolina campus. The campus was beautiful; I mean it was huge, full of luscious green hills and gorgeous buildings and classrooms. We parked and the first thing we walked to was the Dean Smith Arena. Home of the, maybe, (this has been written before the finals tonight) 2009 college basketball champions. We were able to walk inside the arena and imagined what it would be like there for the North Carolina-Duke game. We left there and walked through the massive spread out campus. It put our beloved CSU campus to shame, and I mean s.h.a.m.e shame. We walked around here for close to 3 hours and left back towards our friend Shannon’s to be toured around her area and then go out to dinner. Here is a little fact about where we were. If you are keeping up with the news lately about the guy who shot the nursing home patients looking for his wife, this was in Carthage, N.C. About 3 miles from where we were. So that was uplifting. That night we toured through Pinehurst, saw the famous Pinehurst No. 2 course (it looked like it was in bad shape) and went out for Thai food. The whole day had been exhausting from walking the UNC campus so much, therefore we ended up in bed relatively early and had a huge weekend ahead of us in Washington D.C and Virginia. So until then, see you all in our nation’s capital! Just so I’m not mistaken, but Obama will be there for autographs right?

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Photos

And God gave shrimp
Bacon wrapped, crab stuffed, jumbo shrimp

My buffet
They need bigger plates

The most beautiful park in the U.S.
This water fountain was freaking amazing

The St. Joseph Church
Just a tremendous piece of architecture

Paula Deen
She was really there! Psyche

The Dueling Area
and I won....

Firing the Cannon
They had these positioned around the entire fort. 360 degrees

North Carolina
We found the pose appropriate

Go Heels!
Home of the champion Tar Heels

The N.C. news anchor
We found this hilarious

Comments

[Michael futebol]

Ahaahhahh
Brilliant!!! I loved reading your blog. It definitely made me chuckle (lol, I know EVERYONE hates that word)