The drive from St Augustine to Savannah was not all that long. I played Ray's tribute to his home state about four times in a row as soon as we crossed the state border. We stopped at a drive through ATM, only to park and walk through the drive through...Drive through's are prominent in the States. You have your obvious selection of fast food (well, when I say obvious, that doesn't cover the range really) then there's the drive through Starbucks, then the drive through pharmacy, then the drive through ATMs. I'm sure there are more, but we were impressed enough with this lot. But my point is that the drive through ATM was our first really good sighting of the majestic Live Oaks covered with Spanish Moss. I love this stuff, but not enough to pocket it, its crawling with little bugs called chiggers, and I did hear say, that the original colonists used to put it in their beds, only to awake irritated by bites, and hence came the saying "sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite". Apparently.
The night we arrived in Savannah, we were slightly apprehensive about getting around after dark. Like New Orleans, there are areas sweet, unsuspecting tourists should not go. We were downtown looking for Southern style chicken - chicken fried chicken actually - and dang nab it if we couldn't find any. The best we could manage was chicken tenders I do believe. We all cancelled our side of fries, in favour of the broccoli, if I remember correctly, as we wanted the great southern gastronomical experience, but were craving a bit of the green stuff but this stage.
Next day was the only day we had that it just rained and rained. After breakfast we jumped on one of those town bus tours that tells you loads for you to later forget, but its a really succinct way to see what any good tourist should. About 90 minutes later and we were done. We wandered down to the river to take a look, but I was a little disappointed with the lack of interesting placed down there, really only housing tourist shops full of the usual stuff you don't really want. The rain was bucketing down by now, so we turned tail and headed for the hostel. I was keen to jump in the car and head out to the Bonaventure Cemetery. Like any other sicko around, I'm kinda fascinated by these places, and add in the Spanish moss covered oaks, I was ready to be impressed. We got out there with only about half an hour before closing, so we did a quick drive around - it was right up against the Wilmington River, not quite the gator infested river I was expecting, but it did enough to get the "I do declare!" from me.
The locals say that Savannah is the most haunted place in North America. I didn't personally experience any such otherworldly visitations, but I wouldn't want to wander around this place at night, despite all the angels watching over these resting souls. I would have liked to see more of Savannah - two days was not a long time to spend there.
Once we left Savannah it wa kind of like we were on the home straight, but not in that great way that mean's you're gonna win the cup. We were closer to saying goodbye than we cared to ink about, so we didn't. Instead we concentrated on finding a place to lay our heads in between Savannah and Nashville, without it being Atlanta. We ended up in Chattanooga, just for the hell of it.
I don't know what I was expecting, maybe that 40's attire yet again with everyone singing in the streets before a backdrop of railway steam. Needless to say that is not what we got. We found a really nice larger town with a newly developed centre and river walk, as well as some of the prettiest country around, showing of the best of its autumn colour.
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