Sugar, Sails, and Cemetery Tales

March 29, 2014

Day two of our second trip to Savannah.

Breakfast. Free breakfast. That is what's great about Fairfield Marriotts. Jason and I slept in but still made sure we were on time for breakfast. Jason found eggs, fruit, yogurt, and milk. I found the Rice Krispies. We both wanted bacon and eggs but a man before us apparently grabbed them all. Still good though. I noticed that all the older people were eating very healthy while all the young ones were eating waffles and bacon. I stole an apple for myself and took one back to the hotel, just in case Jason's blood sugar dipped before we could find food again. Luckily, we didn't need it.

After eating, we drove into downtown Savannah. I have a tendency to freak out when driving in new places, especially with one way streets and drunk people around. It took half an hour to find parking... we tried free parking, but settled on a parking garage that we knew was safe and easy to find. We then walked to Riverstreet and found antique stores. We also found this...

Yes, that brick does say "kill" on it. Savannah has the strangest things. After passing this, we went into an antique store that had the most inappropriate things I have ever seen. They.... well, I'll just post pictures.

Yeah, I hope no one ever buys those. I'm not sure why anyone would want to buy those. Jason says the only way anyone could ever appropriately buy and display these items would be if you had a sign that read "My gallery of [messed] up [stuff]" (this is not his exact wording). I agree. This is only a small portion of the items for sale that were incredibly racist. On a fun note, here is a random trap door....

Jason couldn't get it open. It was nailed shut. We browsed for a bit, then decided to walk to Clary's for lunch. I did not take a picture of the outside because we already took one the last time we were here. But, here is a picture of the inside...

Please ignore the speed demon on the right. She walked in quickly and unexpectedly. The jerk. Those two bar tools at the end were ours. We were told we could wait for a table or take the bar. This option not being outside.... we decided to take it. Jason got eggs Benedict Florentine and I got eggs, bacon, toast, and breakfast potatoes. No pictures because we were too hungry. So good. This time the power didn't go out, so we were able to leave when finished and pay with our card as expected.

We then headed to Colonial Park Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Savannah... I think. Here are some lovely pictures...

The tombstone to the left is from 1803. The picture on the right is just pretty.

 We found this and just thought it was hilarious. We also would like to note that we found a leather thong in the street the last time we visited. Again, this place is strange.

After taking this last picture, we decided to leave. We headed back toward Riverstreet and went shopping. Found some great birthday gifts for some people and then decided to drop them off at the car. Realizing what time it was, we decided we should do a tour or something. On our last trip we had a regular day-time trolley tour and a ghost tour at night. We also may have overheard other tours when randomly stopping for no reason...  Therefore, one of the only tours we had not done was a boat tour/ride.

We boarded the three decker riverboat and sat across from a lovely couple on the top deck, port side. After a few minutes we decided to walk to the front of the boat... better view. Captain Dave began discussing his difficulty avoiding sugar, along with facts about the nearby factories. Apparently they use clay in a lot of things. That's the last thing I remember because we stopped paying attention to poor Captain Dave after that. We began focusing more on these things...

Toward the end of the boat-ride, Captain Dave (not Jack) decided to pick up speed. The wind was crazy! We were going so fast that drinks began to fall over, blew out of the cups and onto the wall, and a man's hat flew off his head and was lost at sea.

After the boat ride, we went back to the Cemetery and grabbed our sample of dirt. We keep tiny bottles of dirt from historical cemeteries on each trip we take. Once collecting the dirt, we headed to dinner. We ate at Kevin Barry's Irish Pub. This is the same one we ate at last time. So good!

 Irish Stew. (Mine)

 "Brown Bread."

 Irish Whiskey.

Rubin Sandwich. (Jason's)

Delicious!! No band this time, but it was still amazing. After dinner we headed over to Riverstreet Sweets! Yum!!! We bought an ungodly amount of sugary goodness. Of course, we got a candy apple. Same kind from our last trip.

Due to lent, I am having to wait until midnight to eat this. Jason is being unbelievably kind and also waiting. I like him. We are currently at the hotel waiting for the heavenly hour to occur. End of day 2.

A Bunch Of Stiffs

March 28, 2014

Jason and I are able to take a vacation without any particular reason for the first time in our married, adult lives. Normally we travel only on our anniversary, but today.... today we travel just because. Jason was able to start the day off by sleeping in, which for him is still far too early in the morning for most people. Our teenage selves would be so upset if we had known 8 a.m. was sleeping in. I, however, woke up for work at my usual time, which for me is 4:45 a.m. The most ungodly hour of the day. As I worked, Jason watched horror movies (not whore movies... as he just explained). He also was amazing and washed our clothes and began getting us ready for our vacation. The moment I left work, I grabbed the great and powerful Jimmy John subs and dashed home. We ate quickly, packed, said goodbye to our sad-faced cats, and left for Savannah, Georgia.

This is our second trip to Savannah, the other being our one year anniversary. As we documented from our previous posts, Savannah was not our most favorite spot in the world. This was mainly due to the Hashers. This time, we hope the Hashers are in some other part of the world. It was either a bad omen or a good sign that our trip began with a rainstorm. Either this was a sign that the Hashers were indeed headed to Savannah (bad things always happen on dark and stormy days), or the rain would keep most people away.

We drove for 5 hours and it rained the entire way. Jason and I listened to an audio book called Stiff for most of the way. It may seem inappropriate to begin our vacation listening to a book about cadavers, but ... [Jason tells me this is where I am supposed to explain how it is appropriate I, however, cannot.] The only thing I can come up with is how this book seems to align itself with Savannah's "haunted" history. Like Savannah's ghost tours, the book Stiff discussed grotesque and unpleasant topics but never failed to deliver humor. Although it is a wonderful book, you have to listen to it in parts (hehehe). There were a few times we opted to turn it off for a break, either because I was getting sleepy (due to the rain, not the boringness of the book) or because the topic began to become too graphic.

After debating for roughly an hour and a half, we chose to eat dinner after arriving at the hotel. We stiffly (hehehe) climbed out of the car and unloaded our luggage. Jason, crashing from lack of food, quickly noticed the coffee in the hotel lobby and bolted toward it. I, being sugar deprived for the past few weeks, noticed the display of cookies and had to restrain myself. We checked in, unloaded our luggage in the room, and immediately returned to our car for dinner. We drove around for a short time, trying to find a restaurant we had never been to before, and settled on Molly MacPherson's Scottish Pub. It was packed. This is probably one of the weirdest dining experiences I've ever had. Jason said this is his second, the first being the time a man quacked at him at Burger King in East Point. Apparently quacking is a thing people do when wanting money for a burger. Oh East Point!



 Here is a picture of Jason waiting on our table at Molly MacPherson.

We placed our name down for a table and heard it would be 20 minutes. She was mistaken. After some time, the host asked us if we would like a table outside rather than waiting. We noticed it had stopped raining and agreed because it had been 7 or 8 hours since we had a bite too eat. We found a table outside and waited for our server, while listening to a man nearby say he had to "hammer the dogshit out of the car." We're not sure what that means. The man next him didn't seem sure of what that meant either. Eventually a waitress came and took our drink and appetizer order. Not long after receiving our drinks and having made our order, rain droplets began to fall. I believe Jason said "Uh oh." I agree.

We moved tables in order to sit closer to the building and hopefully avoid rain. As we rose from our chairs the man discussing hammering dogshit yelled out "You two aren't going to abandon us, are you?!" Now we have to stay outside or he'll beat the dogshit out of us. As the rain started to pick up, the waitress came out with our appetizer and Jason's whiskey. We asked her to make our order to go since it had been so long and now was raining quite a bit. She offered to find a table inside, stating "that's just shitty." We like her. We went inside and stood by the door until she eventually returned. She asked if we wouldn't mind sitting with another woman. Hungrily, we agreed. She reassured us the woman would be leaving soon, having only ordered a meal to go. The waitress also asked Jason to grab a chair for himself and follow her. She led us over to a table where a kind-faced woman sat. She introduced us to her and pointed to our food, which she had already placed on the table. We said hello and quickly ate. We were really hungry. I got Guinness Stew with a role and Jason a grilled turkey, cheese, and apple sandwich. Eventually the woman left and I took her seat. We were sadly not much company for her. We were too hungry to talk. 

After dinner we returned to the hotel and went to bed. End of day one.

It's not just a gas station... it's a Seven Eleven!

October 12th, 2013

Today is the last day of our vacation. Today we return to Georgia. We woke up before normal breakfast hours for the B&B, hoping to return to Georgia at a decent hour. We quietly dressed, packed, and walked downstairs for breakfast. Juliette said she'd leave milk in the fridge for us so we could have granola cereal before we headed out. Jason grabbed and apple and we both at a small bowl before leaving. Right as we finished eating, we heard Juliette in the kitchen feeding her cats. We decided to drop off our bowls in the kitchen and say goodbye before heading out. She wished us a good trip and then we left.

Once on the road, we decided to find a Seven Eleven to stop at. I've never been in one. I had seen one when we went to the zoo, but wasn't able to stop because, to be honest, there wasn't a reason to stop at the time. I've had numerous people tell me how amazing Seven Elevens are, and I've always been curious...what's so special about them? I know they have the slurpee machines, but so do Burger Kings and Quick Trips. Today I could finally find out. Jason had been in one before and told me not to expect anything amazing... it was, after all, just a gas station. Well, we found one... the only one on the way home actually. Here's a picture, just cause:

Well, we went in and got the famous slurpee, cherry. We also grabbed some almonds and then left. Have to say... wasn't impressed, as far as gas stations go. I have definitely been in fancier gas stations and their slurpee was the same exact thing as a freezie at a Quick Trip. Don't get it. At least it gave us a fun laugh and a good drink. The next half hour Jason and I started coming up with fun, ridiculous commercials about seven elevens. Since everyone talks so highly about them, as though they are the Ritz Carlton of gas stations, we decided the commercial should be super fancy. Maybe a man with a red, velvet smoke jacket as the star. He slicks back his hair, takes a puff of his giant cigar while holding a whiskey glass, and says in a British accent... "it's not just a gas station....." (he puts down his whiskey and trades it for a cherry Seven Elleven Slurpee) "....it's a Seven Eleven!" Jason says the actor should be the guy from the movie Hot Fuzz who they call "The Slasher!" Haha, good times with Jason on a road trip :^)

Slowly, as we left Virginia, the colorful leaves begin to return to their evergreen state and the outside air thickens with the North Carolina heat. We both felt our vacation slip away as the colors fade. Always sad. The trip was so amazing. Jason and I both have always felt the south was just not for us... but in Virginia, although it's still a southern state, they are so different. They love their southern routes and are very proud of their southern history, but they don't have massive cars that are extremely loud, nor do they carry massive guns while speaking in a thick accent. They just are who they are, respect their past, and are still respectful of others. They're a perfect southern state. Plus, they still have tea and they have an actual cold, colorful fall here. Definitely going to miss it.

Once we reached the edge of North Carolina, we decided to stop for lunch. We found the restaurant called Cook Out. I ordered and awesome corn dog with fries and Jason got a chili cheese dog with chili cheese fries. We also split a peanut butter fudge milkshake. Amazing. Here's a picture... last vacation meal:

So good. A few bees showed up though and made it difficult to eat. For some reason they really love Jason on this trip. This time they didn't sting him though. After eating lunch we hopped back in the car and headed home. The closer to home, the worse the traffic got but we finally made it. When we walked in our cats were waiting for us by the door meowing at us. They missed us so much. We asked Jordyn to watch them while we were gone but our garage door wasn't working so they couldn't get in the house. They were fine though. Had water, liter was good, and still had food. I think they were just lonely. They did really well though... nothing was broken at all. They had obviously gotten on the counter but they refrained from getting into the food or knocking over glasses. We have such great cats!

Nothing special once we got back. Just brought in our luggage, watched some tv, went to Panera, shopped at Target, and returned home to watch the Office. The usual. Although vacations are wonderful, it's nice to be home to normal life too. We really missed our cats and now we can just enjoy life at home and relax. I love my life with Jason. He makes even the boring days amazing.

The Beardicle And The Beardless Go A Cavin'

October 11, 2013

Friday, our last full day in Virginia. Tomorrow we'll head back to Georgia, but not today! Today we head to the Virginia mountains and explore some caves. Of course, no one can go cave exploring on an empty stomach. Therefore, we met Juliette for breakfast at the regular time, and were welcomed with pears covered in raspberries. Jason also accepted cranberry-grape juice from Juliette, where I simply followed my regular hot tea with two lumps of sugar. I can say things like that because a British woman was serving the tea and food. After finishing the fruit, Juliette brought us some broccoli-cheese quiche, sausage links, and toast with her homemade wine jelly. Looking forward to trying the wine jelly at home, since we bought a jar from her a few days ago! Yum! During breakfast, Juliette told us that we had been a challenge for her. Apparently, most of her guests stay only 2-3 nights, so she usually just prepares three breakfast dishes. Since we stayed 6 nights, she had to create more dishes than usual. Luckily, she didn't seem to mind. She's an excellent cook and did really well. We informed her we wouldn't be eating breakfast tomorrow since we were going to be leaving before breakfast hours to return to Georgia. She said she's leave us some milk in the refrigerator in case we wanted a quick bowl of homemade granola before we left. She also encouraged us to take some fruit from her fruit bowl by the window as well. We thanked her. She told us to just leave the bedroom door key in the door on our way out, and had us sign a receipt. We thanked her and told her she had been wonderful.

Just as we finished eating, the new couple that arrived yesterday came down for breakfast. To avoid being rude, we said hello and asked where they were from. They apparently are from West Virginia and were simply stopping through to visit Monticello. We told them it was beautiful and wished them a safe trip. Jason and I then went upstairs and planned our day. We packed up our things and headed out for Luray Caverns. It was exactly an hour away. I love driving around in Virginia. While driving, Jason and I kept humming the tune that Abed and Troy sing in their morning news program on the show Community. We always can somehow have fun together, even in the moments where you can't really do much. However, even when driving you can still sightsee. It's so mountainous here and the farmland is just beautiful! Both Jason and I agree that we would love to move here one day. The weather is lovely, the people are nice, and it's just beautiful! Once we arrived at Luray, we bought our tickets and waited for the tour to start. It was a misty day, still trying to rain, so we staid inside and browsed the shop.

Once they announced the tour was about to start, we formed a line at the entrance so they could scan our tickets. After doing so, we headed down some stairs and waited for everyone else to join us. We waited in a large room surrounded by stalagmites (the ones coming from the ground) and stalactites (the ones from the ceiling). Here is a picture of that room:

Once everyone arrived, a young woman began to give us instructions. Both Jason and I were having trouble actually listening to her words because we were distracted by how robotic she sounded. It was as though we were listening to our GPS guide us through the caverns. She added weird inflections when she spoke, without any emotion, and paused in random spots. "Here...we have... the STALAC....tites! To..our...left... there is a formAtion that is 700.......MILLION... years old." Hard to write it exactly out how she spoke, but, like I said, just go listen to a GPS and you'll get it. It became funnier and funnier the farther we went into the cave.

Here are some things we saw:

 The fish market (looks like fish hanging down in a row).

 Just a bunch of them. Looks like a giant face of a man with a very large and long nose.

 More just random pictures of inside the cave.

 This is called dream lake. The lake on the bottom of this picture is only 18 inches deep, but the reflection makes it look so much larger! It's so pretty!

 Here we have Pluto's ghost. They called it this because it apparently looked like a ghost to the first people who discovered the cave. They weren't able to have flashlights, just candles and found themselves believing it was a ghost due to the size and the way it appears to be cloaked.

 This is what they call Skeleton gorge. It's the giant stalagmite on the right. Apparently they found some bones from an Native American girl. They didn't find all her bones, just some. They believe she was buried in the ground above, but due to the cold and rainy weather, her bones were pushed lower into the earth and some fell into the cave. They found her bones by the stalagmite on the right. We walked right past it... kinda creepy.

 Picture of me and the stuff behind me... couldn't get it to work at the same time.

 Picture of Jason and the stuff behind Jason, still couldn't get it to work right.

 This is the flying camel. I was at a bad viewing spot, so it's not the best but it does look like a camel in the sky.

 This is the shaggy dog. As you can tell, the top left looks like the head of a dog and you can follow it's back across the top. There also appear to be two large feet that go down to the floor. Pretty cool. This was massive.

 Just thought this was pretty.

 This is what National Geographic calls the best example of drapes in the world. They are actually called Saracens Tent. It really looks like someone folded curtains . . . very large curtains.

 This is apart of the curtains above. I took this picture because they placed a light behind it, making it look like a decorative towel that was hanging. It's apparently only 1/8th inches thick due to the water that drips down. Really does look like curtains... very cool.

 This is what they call "The Fallen Stalactite." They call it this because... you can obviously see it fell. It fell 7 thousand years ago from some earth disturbance. Still in tact because it was cushioned by mud and water when it fell. It's huge!

 They call this the Virginia Bacon. It's the part with the light shinning behind it. They call it this mainly to go with another stalactite in the cave that they say looks like scrambled eggs.

 This is the Giant's Hall. They call it this because it is the deepest part of the cave, 164 feet deep. There are also two giant stalagmites and stalactites (in the middle of the picture) here. They call these two the Bride and Groom due to how many weddings they have here.

 This is the Moose. Looks like a moose, if you couldn't see it.

 Next we listened to the coolest "rock music" ever, as our tour guide said in a flat voice. It was actually amazing! They have hooked up an organ in the room and each key is attached to a stalactite with wires, like the ones shown in the picture below...

 Once the key is pressed, it causes the wires to move that round thing on top and hit the stalactites, creating a sound like an organ would make. They played us a song... it was beautiful!

 More of Pluto's ghost, up close.

 This is the Wishing Well. It appears green, not because the water is green, but because the pennies that everyone throws in for wish-making has turned the stalagmites green. We threw in a penny and a nickel. I wished for something and Jason said wishes aren't real. He's wrong and admitted it, but then he said they are real but just pointless. He's wrong about that too, he just doesn't know that yet.

 This is a picture of what they call... the Beardicle and the Beardless," according to Jason.

 Fried eggs. They call it this because it looks like that. It apparently formed due to some stalactites falling over. We thought they were going to be huge, but they were literally the size of eggs. Disappointment.

After we left the caves, we worked our way through zillions of children to leave the store...we have decided the kids here don't ever go to school... instead they are on field trips every day. Once we left, we headed over to the museum and then the car exhibit. Below are the cars we saw. I know nothing of cars, so just enjoy the pictures:

 car

 car

 car

 black car.

After visiting all we could, Jason and I decided to quickly find a place to eat... we were super hungry. We drove for quite a while until we finally saw something open. Things here don't open like normal places. We parked and then walked down the sidewalk of this small main street until  we found a restaurant called Kathy's. This is not the same place as last night's dinner. Here's a picture of us eating, cause that's how we roll.

After eating, Jason and I walked down the street to an "antique" store. There were no antiques in there at all, but it had a lot of super cute fall decorations. We didn't get anything but it gave me a lot of fun ideas of some fall projects I can do, like make a wooden pumpkin or a scarecrow or make ghost pillow. Should be fun! After browsing a little, we headed back toward Staunton.

Once back at the Inn Jason and I decided to relax a little and just read reddit. Okay, well, Jason read reddit and I napped cause I can always fall asleep at the drop of a hat and Jason can always reddit. After relaxing a bit, we started looking up places for dinner and what else we'd like to do for our last night here. We decided to head toward the oldest church in Staunton to sightsee. I took a picture of it yesterday, just in case it was raining and we'd miss it. Today, however, we got to actually go inside. Or rather, we went inside the fence to look through the church grounds. Apparently, the church was established in 1746. Jason said he had read that they buried so many people in the churchyard that they could dig a grave without striking and old one, so that's when they made Thornrose Cemetery across the street from the cottage. It's truly a lovely church. Here are some pictures of the church and the graves:

 Yes, that does say 1794.

After visiting the church we decided to walk down to the Clock Tower for dinner. I posted a picture of the restaurant before, but didn't note it. Here is another picture of it. The restaurant is, of course, right underneath the building with the clock:

 When we walked in, a British man (who looked very similar to Ricky Gervais) showed us to our table and then introduced himself as our waiter. Jason ordered a flight of beer and then we both also got waters. The waiter took a long time with his ID because Jason always looks so young and we were from out of town. He finally agreed he was old enough and took Jason's order. Jason got the following: Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Apocalypse Ale sixth seal, Spaten Oktoberfest, and a fourth he can't remember the name of. After he brought our drinks, we ordered our food. Jason got spinach and artichoke panini and I got a half order of the chicken Parmesan with a cup of beef and barley soup. Here is a picture:

Jason and I had the best time at dinner. We laughed so much and really enjoyed the food. The waiter was also super kind and really awesome to listen to since he was British. We talked about our trip, the zoo, the crazy llama, and all the amazing vacations we've been fortunate to have. We also had a fun conversation about me one day being a "right, proper housewife." Haha. Apparently to be a right proper housewife I will also have to train our cats to ring a bell when dinner is ready and have the other one bring slippers and food! Haha! Never boring with Jason. After Dinner we walked over to the Split Banana again for gelato. Here is a picture:

 Mine is the left one and Jason's the right. I got chocolate and coconut and Jason got cinnamon and Virginia peanut butter. Both were very good. We let the other taste what we got... so good! Below is a picture of the ice cream shop:

You can't see it but to the right of the door was a piano that said "play something nice," and there was actually a Split Banana worker who was playing classical music. He was really talented! We had a great time! After ice cream, we walked through downtown and headed toward the Inn. On the way up the street we heard a group of random Asian kids who said "Nachos, nachos, nachos, nachos, nachos" about a billion times with no explanation as to why. I assume they don't know English very well and that maybe they were discussing how the word Nachos seems very strange? Another strange American phrase we learned today, "Yuck nuts." Haha Jason and I laughed a lot! Now back at the Inn, we're finishing this blog post and enjoying the wine we got at the grocer the other day. It's been a wonderful trip. Sad to see it end. Tomorrow, the open road back to the Georgia hotlands. I'm so thankful for weeks like this and for an amazing man to share life with... both the rough moments and the wondrous ones! Three years and so many, many more!