Georgia on my mind

I recently made my first visit to Savannah, GA, and was awfully impressed. I'd definitely go back and bring the wife next time.

I was there for a long weekend withmy son who is working for a few months a couple hours away. We were going to meet in Atlanta but he said airline tickets were cheaper to Savannah and he knew I wanted to visit there. Besides, it's only 30 minutes to the ocean.

The main reason it was on my bucket list was because Midnight in the Garden of Good Evil is one of my all-time favorite books. Considering it spent four years on the NY Times best-seller list, I"m probably not the only who thinks so.

So we did the St. Bonaventure Cemetery thing (read the book) on a foggy, rainy morning, which was cool. Of course the big attraction in Savannah, as far as the book is concerned, is the Bird Girl statue. There's a picture of it on the cover of the book. It was in the cemetery, but it attracted so many visitors that they moved it to a museum. It's also a good way to monetize it. That, in fact, is why I ended up not seeing it.

For starters, I'm not a big museum guy. Paintings, yes. Artifacts, maps, old tools, clay pots, fossils, whatever, not so much. So as we approached the museum, I had it in my head that if it wasn't free I'd spend five bucks to see the statue. The optimist in me hoped it might be one of those voluntary-donation places. But, alas, twas not. It was 20 bucks a head. And I had my kid's head with me. All I really wanted was a picture next to the statue. While I'm no cheap-skate, 40 bucks seemed a bit much so we turned around and checked out the Rembrandt and Michelangelo statues outside the museum for free.

They also have these park-like town squares all over (22 of them). Really nice sculptures and fountains with huge trees and lots of flowers. Every couple blocks there's one. In between are shops and restaurants and bars.

They also have those along the river walk, a cobble-stoned historic area I'm guessing 10-12 blocks long. It's along the Savannah River, a big shipping lane to the Atlantic. There are street performers, bands, and I even rode a mechanical bull. Fun area. Lots of tourists.

One thing I noticed and pointed out to Junior was: "Either they have a lot of pretty women in Savannah or a lot of pretty women visit Savannah."

A while later after noticing a man walking a Mastiff dog, another a Great Dane, and a couple other giant bulldogs outside a shop, he laughed when I said: "Either they have a lot of big dogs in Savannah or a lot of big dogs visit Savannah." He's an easy audience.

I was really impressed with the food options. Every place we ate at there seemed to be another five dishes I wanted to try.

The people were great. There's history everywhere (even though that's not so much my thang).

Most people I visited with didn't know where South Dakota was. When I told them I lived twenty miles from Mount Rushmore, they seemed to get it more. One guy even asked me if there was anything to see out here besides Mount Rushmore. I told him some stuff and he made notes and is coming next summer. Another asked if we had any wildlife. I said, just my wife.

All in all, Junior and I had a great time. One of the favorite places I've visited. (And I'm having trouble downloading the photos off my phone, so you're just going to have to go see the place in person. Trust me.)