We can't quite figure out what our fascination with alligators is but it never seems to end! We've been staying in Savannah, Georgia since April 29th and over the past weekend, we drove through the Savannah Wildlife Refuge (it's in South Carolina but on the Savannah River...hence the name). We had read online reviews of it by other travelers and frankly, thought they were exaggerating a bit. We were wrong! We spent close to three hours covering the 4 miles in the refuge. We saw over 20 gators from 2 foot long to over 8 feet long. Birds, flowers, turtles, fish, even a manatee.
The road is one way and winds through Live Oak stands, dripping with Spanish Moss.
This little guy was one of two in a secluded pond. We met a local that said the two young gators are always in this pond. We suspect they are staying away from the larger gators, which would make a quick snack of them. Did you know, by the time the baby gators are 2 years old, they leave the comforts of home...or mom will eat them?! Mom knows that the 2 year olds will eat the hatchlings so OUT they go or DOWN they go!
After the Refuge, we headed back to downtown Savannah. We had taken a tour around the town on Friday and wanted to go back Saturday to spend more time there. One of the places I (Robert) definitely wanted to go was The Pirate's House. Back in the day, unwary patrons would have too much to drink and they would be carried out of the tavern, via underground tunnel to the port, where upon they would be thrown onto a ship that was short crew. The fellow would awake, hungover and in the middle of the ocean, heading for foreign ports of call! Sometimes when the ship(s) were desperate for crew, they would drug the patrons in the tavern, rather than wait for them to drink themselves stupid. Glad this place wasn't anywhere near in my college days!
It is now a combination of over 15 rooms, almost all haunted, that includes the oldest house in Georgia. The "Herb House" was erected in 1734 to house the gardener for the "Trustees Garden". The Trustees Garden was established as an experimental garden by Gen'l Oglethorpe when they arrived from England in 1733. It consisted of 10 acres and botanists hoped it would provide ideal conditions for grapes for the wine trade and Mulberry trees for silk production. Both of these crops failed, as did many others. Peaches however did quite nicely as well as cotton.
Joss has declared Savannah as her favorite city of the trip so far. What she likes will become apparent when we get the photos up of this stay but I can tell you it is a very beautiful city. The restored historic buildings, the architecture, the squares, gardens and parks filled with trees and flowers. The river front area has outdoor cafes, walks, benches, restaurants, shopping, ferry rides, boats...everything you'd (or at least us) would expect on a river front.
This past weekend was an annual event "Art on the River Front" and the boys and Joss got their hands dirty with some pottery! One of the vendors had hand-made clay pots for us to paint and they would fire them right there. After painting them up, we went to lunch while the artwork baked. The three pieces the boys and Joss did came out beautiful. Now we just have to figure out how to secure them while we're traveling! We don't have many glass things in the trailer you know.
Oops, I forgot to include some pictures from the Doggie Carnival held in Forsyth Park on Sunday! Well, there were hundreds of dogs; white dogs, black dogs, brown dogs, tan dogs, big dogs, little dogs, hairy dogs, hairless dogs, dressed up digs, naked dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs. What amazed us were all the dogs we saw were getting along! No one was trying to eat anyone else! Amazing. Needless to say we didn't bring Baylee. She was getting better about not going after other dogs but lately she's reverting to her old protective ways! She's great with people and kids but not other dogs!
We're off to Charleston, South Carolina on Thursday to check out another of the South's old towns!
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