Sheep Guarding Llama

Min and I are in Savannah for our final day. We got up fairly early and drove out to Tybee Island to spend the last day with her family there. We hung out for most of the day at the house and then the whole crew drove out to Savannah to go to a family restaurant for dinner. After dinner, Min and I hit the road for DC. I am supposed to do some work there tomorrow.

Min and I drove through the night and made it to North Carolina. At 3:30 am, on US i95, the front right tire exploded on Min’s car and we were stranded on the side of the highway. We called Mazda roadside assisstance and they sent out JR from Ralph’s Country Store. He towed us back to Ralph’s and hooked us up with a hotel. They really took care of us and went out of their way to make sure that we were okay. We will have to look for a tire in the morning because they didn’t have any of the right size for Min’s wheels.

Today was Min and my first full day in Savannah together. We got up a little bit late this morning and headed out for the Waffle House for some breakfast. After getting some food in our tummies, we went to the Savanna visitor’s center and booked a trolley tour of the city. We started the tour around noon and it took an hour and a half to travel around the historic district seeing all of the major site. Savannah is a really neat town with a ton of really interesting history. Savannah was occupied by the British in the Revolutionary War (or the “War of Southern Aggression to our Canadian readers) and again by the Union in the Civil War (or the “War of Northern Aggression” to our southern readers.) It had a number of major fires and epidemics over the years. We had a good time on the tour and learned quite a bit. We got off the tour at the end and walked around the city for a little while and did some window shopping. Then we walked down to the Owen-Thomas house, the oldest example of British Regency architecture in the New World as well as America’s first home with indoor plumbing. The plumbing system was fed by water collected on the roof and stored in four large cisterns. The house was built in 1816. The house was interesting but there wasn’t much to do on the house tour and since that was touted as being the best house tour in the whole city, we decided to limited our house tours to this one. It is a beautiful house, though.

After the tour, we ran back along the trolley tour route and caught the trolley again. It took us close to the city market so we hopped off the trolley and walked down to the market to see about some lunch. We ate lunch at “Tapas” in the market. It was really good and not nearly as expensive as Ithaca. It was very reminiscent of “Just a Taste” in Ithaca.

We hit the hotel and the mall for about two hours after dinner and then drove out to the island to see the family for the evening. Michael is really into Anime and got Joe’s girlfriend Brittany yesterday watching Princess Mononoke and Serial Experiments: Lain. So Min and I picked up Ah! My Goddess: The Movie while we were at the mall so that we would have something new to watch. We watched Kiki’s Delivery Service but near the end the movie stopped playing (I am hoping that it is the player and not the DVD itself) so we didn’t get to finish it. So we started watched Ah! My Goddess instead.

Today was a short day. Min and I slept in really, really late. We didn’t get up until early afternoon. But at least we managed to get a full night of sleep so we were doing okay once we were up. We drove out to Tybee Island as soon as we were awake and visited with Min’s family for a while. There are a ton of people hanging out at the house that they rented out here.

Min’s dad, Min, Francesca and I went out for a walking “Haunted Savannah” tour. It started from Colonial Cemetary (where the cockroaches run rampant) and winds through the historic district. The tour took about 90 minutes and the tour guide was really good. We had a really good time on the tour. Our guide was very knowledgable about the history of Savannah. The tour was actually very informative about historical Savannah with a morbid twist on the history. Our guide informed us that you have to be licensed to be a tour guide in Savannah. We thought that that was a pretty good idea. It helps to make sure that tours in the city are more reliable and consistent.

Min and I went to Waffle House to have some dinner and then headed off to the hotel.

Driving day. I got up at 8:00 am and did some packing and cleaning around the house. I had a bit that I needed to do before I was able to get on the road. I discovered a lead in the plumbing that really didn’t make my day any easier too. So I had to deal with that the best that I could before I could leave. I went to Taco Bell in Geneseo and got some lunch before hitting the long road south around 11:30. I had been hoping to be driving by 9:00 but I am not so lucky. I took the western route south taking US390 to NY36 to US86. I took 216 into Pennsylvania and then 119 around Pittsburgh and into West Virginia. From Morgantown I took US79 down to WV19 and then US77 all the way through Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina until I could hop onto US95 down to Savannah. The trip went pretty well and the route was easy. I arrived in Savannah at 3:30 am. It took almost another hour to drive out to Tybee Island from the city. So I picked Min up around 4:30 and we managed to get back to the hotel around 5:30. So, I was pretty tired by the time I finally got there. I was really glad to be able to collapse into bed.

The moving is finally over and today is my chance to relax. Last night was my first full night of sleep in weeks. I feel so much better this morning. I spent most of the day working on little projects around the house.