Savannah, Georgia!

We took a weekend and went to Savannah, Georgia and it is beautiful! It is super hot! We went down there thinking it would be nice and as soon as we got out of our car, SWEAT! Blah! We were in long pants and had to change into shorts. Savannah is gorgeous though, the live oak trees are huge and the old architecture is amazing to look at.

We went on a few historical house tours, our first was the Juliet Gordon Low house. Juliet was the founder of the Girl Scouts, it was really interesting learning of how the Girl Scouts came about. She was mostly def through most of her life, such an interesting woman. Our second house tour the the Owens Thomas House, a extravagant home, it had some architecture inside that we haven't ever seen before. The Owens house also had a beautiful garden in the back of the house.

We stopped by a very old cemetery that had a creepy feel to it, it said that a lot of the people buried there were killed by yellow fever and various other diseases. Also our tour guide said that when the city of Savannah was expanding and needed to widen the streets they paved over 5000 plus graves, so we drove on dead people, spooky and sad at the same time.

We took a historic tour of Savannah that took us through a lot of the different parks inside Savannah and explained what the monument built inside of them mean. The parks were beautiful, they were everywhere in the historic district of Savannah, there was one every couple of blocks. The parks added to the coolness of Savannah.

We then journeyed though East River Street and found an old ship that looked like a pirate ship. We went aboard and shivered our timbers. The ship had really close quarters to live and is still sailed to this day, fun stuff. The ship rounded out our first day in Savannah.

The very next day we headed to the Savannah History Museum, typical as most history museums go, but it did have a replica of an ironclad. I have never seen real proof that those actually existed but there it was, it was pretty cool. Right next door the museum was the Roundhouse Railroad Museum. The railroad museum was an old railroad hub that housed all the different train cars used back in the day, like coal burning steam engines. We even got to ride in one of the old train cars pulled by a steam engine.

We headed over to the Andrew Low House and took a tour, it was a very pretty house. All of the rooms looked really well kept up and in great condition. Andrew Low was the man that married Juliet Gordon Low the founder of the Girl Scouts. This house also had a pretty garden in the front of the house.

On our way out of the Andrew Low house we saw a cathedral across the street, so we decided to go and have a look. It was St John's Baptist Cathedral, it is said to rival St Patrick's Cathedral in New York. It was very ornate and beautiful inside.

The last stop was Bonaventure Cemetery, which is said to be haunted. One of the hauntings is a little girl named Gracie, she is said to be heard crying on the wind. When we went to her grave, a little girl had written a note to her and told Gracie that she was sorry she was so sad, it was pretty cute.

Georgia Recap

We had a wonderful time Georgia, it was beautiful to visit in the spring. I don’t think we could live there year round though, because the humidity seems to zap energy. We're just not used to it, but maybe we could get used to it if we were there longer. Here are some of the highlights of Georgia:

• Atlanta
- CocaCola Factory
- The Aquarium
- CNN Headquarters
- Stone Mountain Park

- Georgia Historical Center (Swan House)
• Macon
- The Hay House
- St Joseph’s Cathedral
• Milledgeville
- The Old Governor’s Mansion
- (Eatonton) The Reynolds Plantation

- Boat around Lake Sinclair
• Savannah
- The Roundhouse Railroad Museum
- and take a tour through Savannah

Georgia was beautiful, we recommend visiting! Fun Stuff!

Last days in Georgia...

We were very sad to leave Georgia, but right before we left we went to see a few more things. We first went to the Governor’s mansion in Milledgeville. Milledgeville was the old capitol of Georgia. The Governor’s mansion was beautiful, the best feature of the mansion was a large dome in the middle of the mansion. The dome was awe inspiring a big round room opening up into a second story, the dome itself was laid in gold and small windows at the top. The dome was surprising because it was a hidden dome and you would have never known it would be in the mansion judging from the outside. Unfortunately, we could not take any photos, but here is one of the outside.

Our next stop was to see the museum made for the man who wrote the book Uncle Remus. The museum itself was a small slave’s cabin, decorated with old artifacts from that antebellum time. It had some shadow boxes depicting the story of Briar Rabbit. A small museum but very interesting.

The last stop in Georgia was the Ritz Carlton or the Reynolds plantation, not the hotel itself but the grounds around it. The grounds were gorgeous, there were flowering trees, trimmed grass, and a nicely groomed golf course. It is very green and beautiful in Georgia. March is a great time to visit Georgia, because there are beautiful flowers everywhere.

Here are a few pictures of the house we stayed in on the lake, we are sad to leave, but we are excited to move on to South Carolina.

King of the Mountain

For our last week in Georgia, we headed up to Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta. Stone Mountain is the largest exposed piece of Granite in the world. Only one percent of the mountain is actually visible with the remaining 99% under ground. For our first activity at the park, we headed up the gondola to see the top of the mountain. It's pretty unreal to see only rock and a few struggling plants on the top. With the wind chill, we didn't last very long up there and headed back down after 40 minutes or so.

Next we headed over to the adventure portion of our day. They had a climbing/obstacle course with various ropes and boards to balance on. Katie was a pro, and with the harness on, her fear of heights seemed to vanish. The highest part was three stories high and was still a little unnerving even with the harness.

After our high adventure, we headed over to a history plantation in the park. The plantation had several different areas representing different time periods.

After our fun day at the park, we headed over to Dantes down the Hatch jazz and fondue restaurant. The restaurant was decorated like a ship and old English town. The food was okay, but the atmosphere was really enjoyable.