Tuesday October 25, 2011
Today was our day to visit Savannah. None of us had ever been to the historic district before, so we were pretty psyched to go. We had done a little pre trip research so we knew we should take a Trolley Tour. The choice was - which one?
But more on that in a moment. The plan was to leave HHI at 9am so we could be all parked and on the trolley by 10. Good plan, I think. Plus, it gave me time to go running outside of the resort.
I knew P&L had found the path to the beach house. Now I wanted to find it. It's a little hard to find unless someone tells you where to look. I ran out of the resort and straight through a parking lot, but I had to awing a left to find the path. It actually goes underneath the road as you can see here.
I actually don't know if I took the picture leaving or returning. It was a little eery since it was still a bit dark outside.
I like that there is actually a safety mirror here because I suspect this path may get a bit crowded from time to time
That drainage pipe is a bit of an eye sore.
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I decided not to run back towards the beach, but to stay on the main road. I didn't want anybody nabbing me in the early morning dawn. So I ran about 2 1/2 miles total. Of course, I did stop for cell phone pics.
I took this picture just after I crossed the street to head back to the resort.
Such a great view of the resort and I wish I had gone back there with my camera.
Here is the path the leads to the road
Look what I found in the parking lot that morning
Not sure where Shadow 2 through 7 are.
We left the resort right at 9am and before long (45 minutes or so) we saw this.
I don't remember much about the ride except it was rural - really rural, especially for this midatlantic girl who lives in a state with there is no more rural. We barely saw any cars and any building I remember seeing looked like a worn down shack. We did pass a gas station with gas for $3.19 a galloon. That was memorable.
For those of you who plan to travel from HHI to Savannah, the visitor center is pretty easy to find. I'm sure we could have done it just following signs. The visitor center has a huge parking lot which seems to be the main mecca for all the tourist transportation in Savannah.
We pick Old Town Trolley because it had the best adds on the internet.
You can prepurchase tickets, but we didn't because the tour company also offers many combo ticket. The internet advertises a trolley rate of $26 with the online rate being about $2.50 cheaper. However, when we arrived the rate was suddenly $28 despite the fact that the trolley still had a sign saying $26.
We opted for a combo ticket which included two of the Telfair museums and the Owens Thomas house. We check a AAA book on the way there and according to their prices we were basically getting all 3 venues for the price of one. At any rate the combo ticket was about $45. A little steep and you will find out why soon.
Our first stop was the visitor's center.
Where Paula Deen is quite the celeb
I loved this mural. Very cool
The visitor center was in an old restored building and the bathroom has the highest ceilings I have ever seen in a bathroom. I ALMOST took a picture but didn't want to scare the other patrons away.
In the parking lot there were several other tour trolleys:
and
The Oglethorpe trolley was advertising a fair of only $15. I never saw there name on the internet, so my advice to you is shop around for the best fair when you get there. We did not see this BEFORE we purchased our tickets.
See....$26. Better fix that sign.
Old Town Trolley = Price subject to immediate change!
But I soon forgot about my lousy $2 when I saw this fine group of ladies ask the conductor to take their picture. Not being one to miss out on an opportunity, I couldn't resist.
Smile ladies because you going on the DIS boards. See what they have in their hands - peaches. They were so good natured about it, but I didn't have the nerve to get up and take a better picture because I knew the lighting in this one stunk. Anyway - 3 sisters and a mom. They told me when they went to Vegas last year they each carried around a miniature pink flamingo. Love these ladies! They actually have one more sister who couldn't attend this year's trip.
The first thing that we passed were buildings for the Savannah College of Art and Design. The college was started in run down and abandoned buildings. They even bought up motels for dorms....
A typical dorm
I honestly didn't do too well with pictures while on the trolley because it was bumpy.
Here's a pic of the bridge we crossed to get into town.
We actually didn't stay on the trolley too long because we got off for the Telfaire museums. I figured if I bought the ticket I wasn't going to ride right by them and come back later.
If I am not mistaken this was the first African American Baptist Church in the US
We exited the trolley at Julliette Gordon Low's house (the founder of the girl scouts).
There's our trolley....bye trolley
To tell you the truth, our driver wasn't too great at giving us directions to get back to the Telfair museums. We had to ask some people on the street. It was a bit confusing.
No, we did not buy the girl scout lunch special!
Continued......