Savannah for the Half of a Half Marathon November 2017

Savannah Nov. 3-6, 2017

Connie and I , and, separately, Leesa, Gordon, and Thomas (and Lola) drove to Savannah for the weekend. The purpose was for Leesa and Gordon to run in the Savannah Half Marathon. In the weeks before the race Gordon got injured, possibly from being such a maniac about training, so Connie and I decided to use his number and divide up the race- a half half marathon each, and our first running race in quite a long time.

It took a lot of drive time to get down to Savannah- about 8 hours counting a couple of stops and 475 miles.
We stayed at the Olde Harbour Inn right on the river. It was a perfect location but a little disorienting when the container ships went by, right out the window, very close, and honked the horn, especially at 3:10 am.

Once we got here we met up with the Gs and went to dinner at Moon River, the same beer place Gordon and Leesa ate the night before, but Thomas used his leverage and said “if you go there, I’ll know there is something I like”. It was a full moon and the view under the live oaks with the Spanish Moss and the full moon showing near the hotel was beautiful, but the photos did not do it justice.

As it turned out, the next day Connie’s American friend she met in Novosibirsk Russia knows the owners and recommended we go there via a message on Facebook.

The race started at 7:20 and Connie had the first half of the race. It was a little confusing finding each other near the halfway point but we did. Connie had found a running buddy, a sixty something year old medical corps woman from near us who is 13 races into running a half marathon in each state.

After falling behind the buddy for a while, I caught up with her near the end. We ran and walked together for a while then got separated again. Gordon AKA Connie and I finished the race in 2 hours 46 minutes, a terrible time for Gordon but a great time for us. I picked up the medal, got photographed as Gordon crossing the finish line, ate a banana and went back to our hotel room. Total distance to that point was 8.86 miles, including getting to the meeting spot and back from the finish.

For lunch I got a wonderful veggie sandwich at a place called Boar’s Head while Connie was shopping. Then we went for the tourist hop on hop off bus tour of Savannah. After the race I wasn’t interested in a lot of hopping.

Savannah is a great place to visit. The pace is leisurely and the green squares every so often slow the light traffic down so walking is a breeze. However, it can't quite make up its mind whether it wants to be an old city celebrating its rich past in good taste or a cheesy city like the New Orleans French Quarter. As examples, on the good taste side there are the squares mentioned, and on the cheesy side, there are T shirts that say things like "In Dog Beers, I've only had One".

Savannah emphasizes the colonial days, the Revolutionary War history, and its importance as a cotton port. The history I found interesting is the Civil War history-  As the war is wrapping up, and Sherman has taken Atlanta, because of the narrow river and the presence of two gunboats and the Forts Jackson and Pulaski, Savannah is unassailable by water. But Sherman marches in from the land with 60,000 troops as the 10,000 Confederate defenders exit via pontoon bridges. Sherman had been to Savannah before the war and evidently had fond memories of it because he did not torch it. However the populace still did not like his being there. The ladies of the church right next to his HQ arranged for the church bells to ring 24 hours a day until he called them in and told them if the bells don't stop your church is going to be a stables. Problem solved.

We hopped off the tour at Saint John the Baptist Cathedral (RC) to look inside and then at the City market for more shopping. When we reached City Market, our guide on the bus pointed out the Johnny Mercer statue and rattled off about 25 of his well known songs in rapid succession. Since Michael and Laura wrote that play about Johnny in high school, we stopped for a photo opportunity there with Johnny.

 The tour folks got us back to the hotel (thank goodness we didn't have to walk another mile or so today) in time for dinner with the Gs at the Pirate House.

Two more little bits of Savannah history- Oglethorpe had two requirements when he established Georgia as a colony, no lawyers (his colonists were debtors) and no hard alcohol. Of course there was a lot of ship traffic and sailors will be sailors. So at the Pirate House, some guys dug a tunnel to the waterfront to bring in the rum. One can still visit the tunnel if one goes on the nightly ghost tour of Savannah. Also Robert Louis Stevenson used to hang out at the Pirate House and Tavern and while talking to its denizens supposedly got the idea for Treasure Island. On the wall in the Pirate House they have pages and illustrations from the first edition. And you can look down the hole of the tunnel without being on the tour.

On Sunday morning Connie and I went for a very genteel walk thru the squares and up to Jones Street looking for Emily's in law's house.

After breakfast we joined the Gs for a visit to the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum (lots of models and ships in a bottle). The gift shop at the museum was displayed on Liberty Ship hatch covers like ours. In the build up to WWII 88 Liberty ships were built in Savannah.

 Then we took a walk to Shaver's bookstore before meeting the Gs again for a riverboat tour to see the container ship yard and the Civil War forts. The guide on the ship was great- very humorous and thorough. The guide said 92% of the things we have as Americans come in on container ships!! The only problem with the tour was that the nasty cigar smoker was not sequestered.

Gordon had been looking forward the whole time to a trip to Tybee Island to eat at The Crab Shack, where the elite meet to eat in their bare feet.This place was highly recommended by a high school friend so we had to go. I'll let the photos show the ambience and the food.

What we couldn't get a good photo of was the gator pit where you can buy gator food and feed it to them via bamboo fishing rods with bobby pins on the end. Sometimes they would only bite down but not take the food so you could feel what it would be like to have a gator on the line. I'll go back there.

Because of fog, daylight savings time ending, and gas stations being out of gas, Connie and I lost a lot of time driving home but we got there in time for a very relaxed dinner with John and Deborah.