Instead of returning home on Friday, we did decide to stay one more day in Savannah. Vacations are fun and there was just no way we wanted it to end. Staying one more day delayed the inevitable, but there was more we wanted to see and do.

There is always so much to do in any one area, we’ve decided that when we go on our next vacation, we won’t plan to be there for any less than a week. We thought we’d be bored after a while in Northeast Georgia and that we’d have to fill the time with sitting on the beach. We were wrong and couldn’t have been farther from the truth. We needed more time.

So today, we started off by gathering some sand from the beach. We like to save sand from all the different places (beaches) we’ve been to. Then we headed downtown to see the Savannah Botanical Gardens. We thought it would be some large professional place. It was pretty, but it was just two older ladies taking tips and spending a lot of time asking me about how to set up a web site for their place! I had told them that we had a hard time finding out information and that a website would give them a lot more visibility.

We saw a water moccasin in the pond out by the rose garden! Laura was skittish after that. The flowers and roses were certainly beautiful, though.

Then we headed to the 8th Air Force Museum. There were lots of planes, war memorabilia, and facts to read and see. There was a nice chapel in the back of the museum with stained glass of different WWII images. It was very cool.

That afternoon, we took a stroll through downtown Savannah and saw some of the beautiful homes that sit near parks and old streets. Laura’s dad is a fan of the novelist Flannery O’Connor, so we saw her house as well.

We ended up in a Hampton Inn for the night and dinner at Longhorn’s Steakhouse. It was a great day topped off by a great dinner!

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There was an original plan today to go Kayaking. But, you know how plans go. We decided, because it was our last day, just to sleep way in, eat breakfast whenever we wanted, and then head down to the beach for as long as we wanted.

So, that’s just what we did. It seemed that every time we had something planned, it was in the middle of the day, where we’d have to leave the beach. We would just be settling into the sun and then it would be time to do the dolphin tour or head to downtown, etc. So we just stayed on the beach. Of course we look like lobsters, but who cares?

When we first arrived, we bought some food, so I’ve been having coffee every morning, and making bacon and eggs. Laura will have it sometimes, but she is very easy: a glass of chocolate milk. Her breakfast is simple and will sustain her small frame until lunch. Needless to say, the whole notion of ‘breakfast in bed’ changes dramatically when one only has a glass of chocolate milk for breakfast!

Have you ever tried to cut a frozen pizza in half, while it is still frozen? Without a very sharp knife, I don’t recommend it. Frozen pizza’s need to be cooked from a frozen state, so I guess we could have thawed it, cut it, re-frozen it, and then cooked it, but for lunch, we were a little too hungry for precision like that. I just started hacking away and parts of it crumbled onto the floor. Why cut it in half in the first place? The house has no oven, just a cooktop! There is a toaster oven that we used, but it was so small, I had to cut the pizza in half. I guess the price of a range over a cooktop is too great for the owners of this place.

I’m guessing that any beachfront property is going to be expensive to buy, even if it is small like this place, because of the potential returns of renting it out and the view, of course. We saw a house down the road that was 4 stories: Parking on the first level and living on the next three. Kitchens on two levels and an elevator for the floor changes if you are unable to do stairs! Wow. The cost to rent? $4,000 a week. If that is split between four families, like in a reunion or get together, then that doesn’t sound to bad, but then again, who gets the top level bedroom with the jacuzzi tub and sunrise view over the water? Better bring your boxing gloves.

While on the beach, I saw something that amused me. Two guys were walking along, and one held a large conch shell. As he was walking, he put the conch shell up to his ear to see if he could “hear” the ocean. He probably couldn’t hear it over the roar of the real ocean 20 feet from him! Why would someone try to listen to the fake ocean when the real one is right there? This question has a lot of theological implications as well, like, why do we turn to our own wisdom when God is right there to help us? Why do we try to solve our problems on our own when He is offering His help right next to us? I’m reading a book this vacation, called: I don’t have enough Faith to be an Atheist. It is a great read, and it is attacking the idea that comes so naturally to us here on Earth: That we can do it on our own. We don’t need God. It obliterates the ideas that Atheists have come to hold onto so dearly and I can’t wait to finish it so I can be even more ready to do what 1 Peter 3:15 says we should all do: Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence . . .

We cooked pork chops tonight for dinner and they were great. We had mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn too. It was quite the feast, and I dare say, it was nearly as good as going out and spending $50 bucks on dinner.

We took a long walk along a pier that extends out from the southern tip of Tybee island. It was nice to be over the water and feel the breeze from the cool Atlantic. There were lots of fisherman (fisherpeople — come on Toby, it’s 2008) along the pier, looking down to see if they had caught anything. I was surprised how many people were fishing around the island: near bridges, over bridges, off piers, and so forth. Some of it may have been recreational, but by the look of the people doing the fishing, I think they were doing it partly for regular meals . . . I could be wrong, and hopefully so.

Going back home, we saw a boardwalk that disappeared toward the water. It was dark now, and we could only see by the lights of the distant hotels and the stars. We followed it, as the roar of the ocean grew more thunderous as we walked. After a minute, we arrived at the soft sand and could just make out the view of the waves in the light of the starry evening. The gentle rush of the waves was almost enough to put me to sleep. Silhouetted against the night sky was the shape of a bench swing for two! We walked over and swung for a while, watching the waves roll in. Directly overhead was the large red planet of Mars, and we could see the Big Dipper and the North Star above us as well. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. We didn’t want to go home. Paradise is just too relaxing! So, we are staying in Savannah one more day, just to do it. Will that be it? Will we go home after that? Who knows? Good night . . .

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After a while on the beach, we headed out for a dolphin tour, to see if we could get a little closer to these shark-killers. “Captain Mike’s Dolphin Tours” sounded good enough for us, so we paid our cash and headed out!

Ah, there’s not much better than the salt air in your face, the sounds of waves crashing, the hum of a diesel engine, the hopes of dolphins leaping out of the air in front of you, the warm sun on your shoulders, the gentle rhythm of the ocean under you, and the raspy voice of a tour guide. “Huh,” you say? “Everything was good until that last one.” Yeah, I know. Our very nice tour guide was a sweet lady, but probably smoked 20,000 packs too many. Oh well, show me the dolphins, right? As long as this three hour tour didn’t end up like Gilligan’s and I saw a dorsal fin or two, I’d be happy.

Actually, it was a fun time, and we saw an old lighthouse and lots of dolphins. They are pesky creatures, though. They don’t hold still, they splash your expensive camera lens with salt water, and they torment photographers by doing this arching, humped-over motion (porpoising) so that once you see them and lift your camera to your face, they are gone! Now how nice is that? I told Laura to tell them to hold still, but she wouldn’t do it — she just chuckled at me! If you want pictures of dorsal fins or an ocean wave that seconds earlier had a dolphin in it, just let me know — I have plenty on my hard drive to share with you!

Come on Flipper, just show me your eye! Or at least, stand up on your tail fin and go backwards through the air by standing on your tail, like you do at SeaWorld! Oh well.

Dolphin tours, like whale tours (sometimes whale tours are known as Toby Tours! Seriously, click the Toby link for some fun!) are usually best with the camera left in the car. See them, enjoy them, and remember them. I used a long telephoto lens: 200 mm, and the dolphins were still small in my pictures. So, imagine what they look like in some disposable camera or digital point and shoot. You’d have to get out a microscope to look at the little speck in the middle of your picture! Besides, they are gone by the time you aim and shoot your picture anyway. My advice is just go and enjoy it — and then buy a postcard of a dolphin to show your friends. I mean, hey, who doesn’t know what a dolphin looks like, anyway? Take your cameras to SeaWorld, but not on an ocean tour.

Afterwards, we got some ice cream at the Sugar Shack. Since I’m not watching what I’m eating because I’m on vacation, hence, the Toby Tours link above, I wanted to go all out and get a banana split. If I’m going to eat a bunch of calories, I might as well eat A BUNCH of calories! Well, to my heart’s chagrin, but my triglyceride level’s glee, they were out of bananas and thus not serving them. Laura and I went with our old stand-by: chocolate for her, mint chocolate-chip for me.

Later, we saw the lighthouse we visited the other day, this time at dusk, and then rented the movie: Hitman. Good action, terrible acting.

Tomorrow’s plan is to follow the advice of the Eagles band, and “Take it easy.” We might go kayaking, we might sleep on the beach. It’s vacation, so who knows!

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Today was a beautiful day. Sunny, clear skies, but a little breezy. It rained off and on yesterday, but today was gorgeous. It was nice to be outside, however, it was just chilly enough that it took some getting used to when getting in the ocean, instead of just leaping right in.

I frolicked in the waves while Sweet Pea observed from the warmth of the sandy shore. We took it easy today, just hanging out by the water, soaking in the sun, and doing whatever we wanted.

In the afternoon, we headed back to the Fort Pulaski, because we weren’t able to see everything that we had wanted to because it had started raining. We saw another civil war reenactment by a southern soldier discussing the building (and then destroying of) the fort we were in. He was fascinating to listen to, as he slowly and purposefully spoke each word.

Robert E. Lee as a young officer, designed a way to drain the swamp that Ft. Pulaski was built upon. The Union army, stationed a few miles away, on Tybee Island, couldn’t penetrate the masonry walls of Pulaski. There was a large stalemate — with 10,000 Union soldiers on the beach, and less than 350 Southern soldiers in the fort. (Alamo, anyone?) As a side note: I’m a Texan — and I’m now upset that my spellcheck on this laptop doesn’t recognize the word Alamo. Disgusting.

Anyway, I digress. The Union soldiers were safe because anytime canons were fired at them on the beach from the fort, they just hit sand and nothing happened. The Southern soldiers were safe because nothing was breaking down the walls of their fort.

An interesting side note for any Buckeyes. The volunteer telling us all this asked if anyone was from Ohio. We “raised” our hands, a little bit. He said to us all, “I don’t mean to offend with this next joke.” “Cool” I thought — looking at my wife! He told us a joke about General Sherman — Born in Lancaster, Ohio and the nemesis of both Atlanta and the entire South.

As Sherman was ravaging and burning Atlanta, he wanted to take some time out and go see Stone Mountain, and take a little break (and see the laser light show!) When he got there, there was a southern soldier at the top of the mountain, screaming down to him, “Sherman is a sissy!” Well, the General didn’t take to kindly to this, so he asked for ten brave soldiers to go and “take care of him.” A few minutes later, everyone heard a lot of gunfire, and then silence, and then, that same southern soldier was hollering away at Sherman again! This was unacceptable! Sherman said, “This cannot be allowed to happen. I need 150 brave men to go up there and get rid of this pest.” So, 150 brave Union soldiers climbed up the mountain to get the soldier. A few minutes later, Sherman could see all 150 men walking back down the mountain, single file, with their hands on their heads! When their leader came up to the General, Sherman asked, “What happened?” The soldier replied, “Sir, it’s a trap. There are two southern soldiers up there!” I think everyone but Laura was chuckling! Maybe not.

But back to Fort Pulaski. A Union officer asked if he could use their newest weapon, a rifle canon, to attempt to break down the walls of the fort. Since the larger canons had no effect on the wall, his superiors felt like he would be wasting his time. Nevertheless, they allowed him to fire at the fort with the new, smaller canons. He and his men fired three rounds a minute, every minute of every hour, for thirty hours! Do you know what happened next? Can you see where this is going? The smaller rounds are what did the trick, and the southeast corner of the wall of fort Pulaski was breached. The first round to go through the wall skipped through the open courtyard and missed the gunpowder room by just a few feet. 40,000 pounds of ammunition and powder were stored in this room and if it had gone off, everyone inside fort Pulaski would be dead.

The moment that wall was breached, the U.S. got out of the fort building business. See, masonry walls were no longer good enough to protect soldiers. The lessons learned that very hour have guided our military strategy into WWI, WWII, and on. After that, we dug into the ground with trenches and bunkers were built, instead of forts, because the tremendous amount of sand in front of them is what can absorb the shock of mortar rounds and canon fire, not bricks and concrete. The Union army was safe on the beach with sand protecting them, but it was only a matter of time before the masonry of fort Pulaski would give up its secrets and precious cargo it held inside: Southern soldiers. History is fascinating . . .

After the the fort, we headed downtown to see what Savannah looked like and get something to eat. We walked around the planned downtown of Savannah and took in several parks and shops. We ate outdoors, at one of the many outdoor restaurants and had some great Italian food.

I haven’t sweat a drop — the temperatures have been in the high sixties to high seventies, and the humidity has been below 20% so far. What a great week. Tomorrow, we’re headed out to see some Dolphins . . .

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As I type this, Laura and I are in a beach house that looks out to the Atlantic Ocean, here on Tybee Island.

A Google map should appear above with our location. Our vacation started out a little dicey, but as usual, it turned out o.k. I was in Texas for my grandfather’s funeral (more on that in another blog). Because of that, Laura had to travel from Columbus all by herself! I left from Texas and we met in Atlanta, where we both changed planes. All was well, except, when Laura boarded her plane and pushback was eminent, she could hear the captain saying loudly, “No, no, NO!” Sure enough, there was a maintenance issue that caused her to be four hours late. So much for getting up at four a.m. to get to Tybee early.

I was in Atlanta waiting impatiently for her delayed flight to arrive. We had two first class seats waiting on us, and all we had to do was get on, but Laura wasn’t to be found. “Final call for Savannah.” The gate agent told me to leave her and head for the beach! I said that definitely wouldn’t work. I called her mobile phone, and it went straight to voicemail — her phone was still off. Again, I called, and again, the same results. Five minutes to the closing of the flight to Savannah. Again I called, and again, straight to voicemail. I knew her flight was arriving in a different terminal, and if any of you have ever been to ATL (Atlanta) you know that plane changes in different terminals don’t happen like the rapture (in the twinkling of an eye). I knew our case was lost. The agents closed the flight, and it pushed back without us, and with it went two empty first class seats. Oh well, there was another flight leaving in a couple hours.

Five minutes later, Sweet Pea called me! Ah, the timing of us Clines. She was able to get first class out of Columbus, but we ended up in coach on our way to Savannah. No big deal — it is only a 45 minute flight from ATL. Flying for free has its perks, however, in today’s climate of faltering airlines, open seats are harder to come by. We were just glad to get seats on the same flight, together.

Savannah is beautiful. The weather was nice when we arrived and we grabbed our PT Cruiser rental and headed for the beach house. 30 minutes later, I realized, when there was no beach in sight, that I had missed a turn somewhere. After 30 more minutes, and we finally arrived at the beach house.

We got to the beach house at around 5 p.m. and were hungry, so we ate at a local Applebee’s and did some grocery shopping for our beach house kitchen. We didn’t want to branch out at a new restaurant that night because we were both so hungry, that if the place was bad, we’d be in trouble. We also planned on cooking about half our meals to save money and enjoy the experience in the beach house.

The following day, Monday the 28th of April, 2008, it was supposed to rain, so we decided to skip the beach and do a few “tourist” things instead. We saw a lighthouse, bunker complex, and old fort, all from the 17th and 18th centuries.

It did rain, so we finished off the day eating at The Crab Shack (.com) and then taking in the movie Expelled, with Ben Stein. Both were very good. Laura doesn’t do seafood, so she ate from the “landlubbers” menu while I feasted on Snow Crab and shrimp.

Well, it’s off to the beach, so I’m outta hear, but we’ll upload pictures into our Tybee Pictures page when we get home.

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