Savannah and Atlanta/Greensboro Georgia

We had two days scheduled to explore Savannah, which should be enough to hit the highlights as the city is not that big.  One of Savannah's biggest claims are the number of parks or squares they

have in the city....22 of them.  Each one has a historic marker honoring someone who was affiliated with the state in some way from the Revolutionary war, to the Civil War, to the Spanish American War and beyond. 

Savannah Dan

We scheduled a walking tour of the city with Savannah Dan.  A 6'3" man wearing a seersucker suit and bow tie who should have been an actor but was a cop in his previous profession.  He knew his history of the city and took us on a tour of some of the squares, homes and churches telling their histories in a way that had us laughing and learning.  Not sure that we would agree or completely buy into some of the claims he made about Savannah, but he was entertaining.

First Girl Scout Headquarters

We visited Juilette Low's house, born in Savannah, she started the Girl Scouts in 1912.  The  story we were told is while in Europe, she met Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boys Scouts. When she returned to Savannah and divorced her husband, she found herself bored; so she called her cousin saying, "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight!" The rest is history as they say.  

Pipe organ

There are lots of old churches in Savannah and we heard a number of stories about Baptist, Methodist and Catholics. One church we entered was the St. John the Baptist Cathedral built in 1876, destroyed by fire in 1898 and rebuilt in 1900.  A major restoration took place in 2000 and today boasts wood work, stained glass windows, marble floors and a beautiful pipe organ. It was quite humbling to be in.

One story Dan told about the Civil War (there still seems to be some angst among southerners) was about when Sherman finally arrived in Savannah from Atlanta his troops needed somewhere to camp.  One place they picked was in the Colonial Cemetery. At that time in 1864, the cemetery was full and had been closed to burials since 1853.  When you walk through the cemetery now, you find many areas of open ground, not what you would expect if the cemetery was full.  The story goes that the young Union soldiers knocked

headstones on the back wall

or tore down many of the headstones to make room for their tents, making no effort to keep stones with sites.  When the troops finally left, the city discovered they had no way of replacing the headstones correctly. No written records had been kept of where people were interred.  City of Savannah decided to place all of the discarded headstones on the back wall, lined up for all to see. 

There were other stories told by Dan of Union soldiers using the headstones for target practice (we think this may be true having seen some of the still standing headstones with bullet pits in them) and where the soldiers dug up graves, dumping bones and using the caskets to sleep in for warmth.  Not sure we believe that story.

Lots of open space where headstones once stood.

For dinner one night we ate at Paula Deen's restaurant The Lady and Sons.  Food was okay if not a bit disappointing.  The fried chicken was some of the best I have ever had, but the rest of the meal was mediocre and the place lacked any type of ambiance. 

The second day back in Savannah, still in the historic district, we headed down to River Street and had a 5 star lunch at Huey's.  Huey's has a Louisiana style menu and Deane had Crab cake Benedict he is still talking about.  We had an order of beignets that were by far so much better than Cafe
Du Monde in New Orleans.  This is the only restaurant we've ever seen where, when you ask for directions to the restrooms,  the waitress turns around to show you the directions on the back of her t-shirt. 

River Street is cobblestone and lined with shops and restaurants in building from the 1800's.  Very crowded, with a trolley running up and down the street and cars trying to make their way too. But it is right on the River where there is street entertainment, a paddle boat tour ride and the visitors center.

After lunch we visited a beautiful old home of William Scarborough that has been converted into a Maritime Museum displaying model ships from the Revolutionary War through current day. The museum's focus is on the many different ships named Savannah as well as displays of the many different types of ships built through the years, including a 6' replica of the Titanic.


We left Skidaway State Park Sunday and headed to Greensboro Georgia about 60 miles from Atlanta.  About half way there, we encountered light rain and discovered our windshield wipers no longer worked.  Thank goodness it was only a light rain, and we have a big windshield.  We made it to the RV park, but not before missing the turn and ending up on a one way dead end street.  We had to unhook the car in order to turn the RV around.  Once in the RV park, we found the damn slide would not go out again.  But magic Deane, had made a by-pass thing-ama-jig and was able to move the slide out.

Monday we headed to Atlanta with our destination of Stone Mountain.  We'd met some people on Amelia Island from Atlanta and they suggested we might want to do the hike up to the top.  You know, sometime not doing any research ahead of time is a good thing.... ignorance is bliss!

path to the top

On top of Stone Mountain

When we got there, we find the climb is 1.3 miles to the top, and the trail is solid granite stone.  Stone Mountain is the largest piece of exposed granite in the world, 825ft high, and 5 miles in circumference.  Apparently formed when the Blue Ridge mountains were being formed.  

The most impressive part of this big rock is the relief carving on the side representing the confederate army with likeness of Jefferson Davis, Robert

one of the steepest
parts of the climb

E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. It took up to 60 years and 3 different artists to finish the carving and is remarkable in every way.  The carvings are 90 feet in height and for someone like me who is 'math challenged', I am amazed at the accuracy of proportions.










gum pole

One fun thing we saw on our hike to the top was the 'gum pole'.  Much like the Gum Wall in Seattle,  people are putting their gum here as a way of showing they made the hike.  Beats having them graffiti the area.
Beginning in 1839, Stone Mountain was quarried for its granite.  Granite from Stone Mountain has been used for part of the Panama Canal, Steps of the Capital Building, Vaults of the Treasury Building, Depository at Fort Knox, Capital building in Havana Cuba, and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo among others.

Stone Mountain did have a ugly side to it, when in 1915, it was used to revive the Klu Klux Klan.  In 1923, the owner of the mountain Samuel Venable, granted the Klan rights to hold celebrations on the mountain.  The celebrations continued until 1958 when the State of Georgia bought the Mountain.

We did make it to the top and back down again.  Our knees were screaming by the time we got back to the car and we were thankful we had made hotel reservations nearby and did not have to drive back.

We were going to take the next day and tour Atlanta, but decided we needed to make sure we got the wipers fixed as well as some other things, so we headed home.  Deane found the problem with the wipers and fixed them in just a couple of hours and then redid the hinges on four of our cabinets to reinforce them.  So now we are ready to hit the road again.

built 1830

Last day here Wednesday, we opted to see some of the little towns around Greensboro.  First stop was to Eatonton and the visitors center and discovered they have a small museum that brought back memories of our childhood. There was an actual soda fountain, with the spinning stools both Deane and I remember from our early youth.

What a cute little town and we learned during the civil war, it happened to be on Sherman route as he was marching to Savannah.  A lot of the town was burned by the Union, but some homes were left and then after the war, others were built.  There are beautiful antebellum homes in this area.  One thing we have noticed is everyone, from the little prefab homes to the large plantation style homes, all have porches and most have white rocking chairs on them.


this is the original Brer Rabbit.
Disney softened his look in
the movie
 

A number of famous people have come from Eatonton we learned.  Most notably Joel Chandler Harris who wrote the Adventures of Brer Rabbit and
many other 'critter' stories. 

Visiting this museum we met a delightful southern lady who told us Harris' story.  We learned that he was a shy child and into adulthood had a speech impediment. In his teens he secured a job working on the local newspaper and the owner turned out to be his mentor.  But during his off time, he would visit the slaves and listen to their stories.  These stories became the source for his Uncle Remus stories.  The town has a museum dedicated to Harris, built from three different slave cabins to represent the times.

Another well known author also came from Eatonton, Alice Walker.  She is a Pulitzer Prize winner and wrote many novels, poetry and short stories.  Most well known for her novel, The Color Purple.  In reading her history, I discovered she was married to Melvyn Leventhal a white civil rights lawyer and they were the first interracial couple to live in Jackson Mississippi. 

Eagle Rock Effigy

 Our next stop was Madison Ga. but on the way we had heard about the "Eagle Rock" effigy.  It is one of two effigies archaeologists have discovered in the area and believe they are the largest of their kind still in existence east of the Mississippi built by the local Indians.  Eagle Rock measures 120' from one wing tip to the other and 102 feet from head to tail.  Not sure when it was built, but the measurements are from a 1877 survey done by the Smithsonian.  Archeologist's think this may have been a religious site for the Indians as it was placed quite a distance from where they believe their villages were.



Gone with the wind hat

We found Madison to be a little bigger than Eatonton and a delightful gem.  As we were walking around the town square, we found the Madison Tea House and selected it for lunch.  The owner is from Detroit and opened the Tea House a few years ago to be close to her son. Her husband still has a year before he retires but visits every couple of weeks to see her and their new 8 month old granddaughter.  She was exuberant in her welcome and showed us to the back room and encouraged us to try on the many hats in the room while she readied our table.  Our lunch was wonderful, a typical English tea lunch with a three tiered stand with selection of sandwiches on the bottom, scones on the second and desserts on top.  Deane was so into the lunch he actually asked the owner if she was married!  In his humble opinion, he had just consumed a 6 (out of 5) star meal.



Mad Hatters!

We leave tomorrow for Dillard Georgia, a small town near the border of South Carolina.  It's only 2.5 hours from here, but we won 2 free nights at the big RV show last January and we are going to take advantage of it.