Since we didn’t have to pick up Buddy from the vet until Monday and Heath has this whole week off we decided to stop in Savannah and spend two nights. We didn’t realize that weekends are the biggest time for Savannah and hotel rooms are expensive and hard to come by. We ended up in a suite bigger than my first apartment.
My goal in Savannah was to visit the Juliette Gordon Low (founder of Girl Scouts) birthplace. Katy wanted to go to a place called The Candy Kitchen. So Sunday morning we got the on-and-off tickets for a trolley tour. The company we used is a local company and most of the drivers are from Savannah and are allowed to talk about what they want to rather than from a script so it was really interesting. They also have costumed characters that come aboard at various stops and tell their stories.
And I got Florence Martus’s name, but not her photo! She’s known as The Waving Girl and there’s a statue of her we didn’t see. She greeted every ship that came into Savannah by waving a white handkerchief and later a lantern at night. Ships would respond by sounding their horns. She did that for 44 years and never missed a ship. When she turned 70, a party was given in her honor and ship captains from all over the world attended.
And stop #9 was the Juliette Gordon Low home. Juliette (called Daisy) was born in 1860, the year the Civil War started. The home was bought by the Girl Scouts in 1953, I think. Daisy’s entire family was very interesting. Her mother’s family founded the city of Chicago and one of her grandmothers was kidnapped by Seneca Chief Cornplanter and lived with the Seneca for a year. For anyone interested in Daisy and her fascinating family and the history of Girl Scouts, “Lady from Savannah”, written by her niece, is the best book there is.
We stopped in the gift shop and spent too much money. When you visit the birth place there is a pin you can buy to wear on the front of your Girl Scout uniform (girl and adult) so Katy and I each got one.
After the birthplace visit we ate lunch at a little soda shop down the street the cashier at the gift shop recommended then went back to hop on the next trolley. We got off at River Street for the The Candy Kitchen. I found out it’s a mail-order company, too, and they have a small shop at the Atlanta airport. Who knew!
They also have homemade ice cream with homemade waffle cones and we watched a waffle cone being made.
After the candy store we poked around in a souvenir shop while we waited on the next trolley. We finished out the trolley tour and went back to the car. A huge storm was coming so what did we decide to do? Drive out to Tybee Island. It started pouring rain, then it started to hail. You could hardly see where you were going and people were pulling off to the side of the road. Cars were pouring off of the island and what were we doing? Heading out to the island. We went past Fort Pulaski and the ranger was waving cars away. The rain finally cleared up and we drove out to the lighthouse.
We really need to go back to Savannah sometime. And not on a weekend! There were lots of places we’d like to see and I want to go to the Andrew Low home. He was Daisy’s father-in-law. Daisy inherited the home when her husband died. He had left it (and practically everything else) to his mistress but his will had been drawn up in England wasn’t valid in Georgia because it only had two signatures and Georgia required three. I don’t know who owns it now.
So that was the end of our vacation. Monday morning we got up and drove home.
