Our first day in Savannah started with the boys sleeping in as Halle, Rusty and I headed to the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters. It was such an interesting tour. One thing I really liked was the fact that they were very careful with their words. They always said enslaved person instead of slave. They said enslaver instead of Master. It felt good to confront the atrocities of slavery head-on and not try to make any excuses about “that’s just the way it was.” We learned about how people lived in the 1800’s and about architecture and style. I’m glad we got up to go! 

The boys met us at our next stop—First Square Savannah Food Tours. Along the way we got to learn some Savannah history and try some classic southern cuisine. 

22 Square—Shrimp and Grits. This was my favorite. 
Rhett—she crab soup
Little pie society—sausage roll 
Rise—fried green tomato and pimento cheese biscuit (Blake liked his until someone told him it was a tomato)
Mint to Be Mojito—chicken empanadas and virgin mojitos. We tried Passion Fruit and Berry Berry. 
Savannah Bee Company—honey tasting 

We then explored the cute little city market. We had Pralines. We had gummy fruit slices (why do I love these so much??) we tried a slice of pizza from Vinnie Van Gogo. Savannah is so artsy. So many vintage shops and small little handmade shops. Halle bought a darling pair of earrings from a local artisan. It was a mom and daughter pair—the daughter sold her photography and the mom sold handmade jewelry made from vintage beads. 

Halle and I did some splurge shopping at the Savannah Shoe Company. She got a darling blue dress with animals on it, and we both got cute sandals made from lightweight recycled rubber. With doesn’t sound cute, but I promise it is! 

Next we explored River Street. We saw Factor’s Walk, which I thought the kids would really think was cool—but they didn’t care. We went and saw the Waving Girl Statue. Then we went for a ride on the Georgia Queen Riverboat. This was heavenly! The sun was finally out and we were off our feet. To make things even better, we saw a pod of dolphins in the river. We learned a lot about the shipping industry in Savannah and even passed a huge almost 1000 foot container ship. But the kids felt ripped off because not only did the paddle not turn, it didn’t really even touch the water! 

After the host we went to see the lobby of the JW Marriott hotel. WHAT?? A giant chrome dinosaur AND many, many beautiful rocks? I think we just stumbled on Halle and Josh heaven. The hotel is inside the old power plant and the smoke stacks had been turned into little lounges. We got ourselves some Cokes and drank them inside the smokestacks. Blake was goofing around and laughing and all of the sudden he blew snot EVERYWHERE. So much snot. It was so gross it was funny. 

For dinner we walked to the Pirate House. Legend has it that Captain Flint, of Treasure Island fame, died in the upstairs bedroom. This was Blake’s pick for what he wanted to do in Savannah. The atmosphere was really fun, but he ordered Shrimp Gumbo that turned out to not be very good at all. We all enjoyed the cornbread, biscuits and homemade orange marmalade. And Rusty’s honey pecan fried chicken was the run away favorite meal. 

There was more Survivor on the docket for the evening. We are determined to finish the season by the end of the trip. We’ve stayed up till midnight or later every night to accomplish this.