Savannah, GA

Business travel to the southeast extended for pleasure.

Trip Report 20080322

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Suspension bridge over the Savannah River.

The Experience

I was recently presented with a business opportunity that required me to travel to Savannah, GA. Since I had never spent any time in the southeast in general, or Savannah in particular, I happily accepted the opportunity and took Kathleen with me.

The photos below are what we saw.

We stayed at the Savannah Marriott, right on the river. I was somewhat surprised to see the sign above. In retrospect, I should have known better.

From the river-side deck of the hotel, one of the several ship loading facilities was visible down river.

One of the small charms of the city is the water taxi that ferries tourists and locals among several river side docks along the riverfront.

Not all the traffic on the river was commercial. This group came cruising by at high speed.

Spring had arrived in the area and birds were building nests. This fellow was engaged in some home renovation.

Savannah has a nice river front walk with several statues.

There was a commercial tug boat dock next to the tourist area. The large suspension bridge that spans the Savannah River is visible in the background.

A number of the trees along the riverfront were in bloom. I think this is a Dogwood tree.

The park had nice flowers in bloom in addition to the various trees. The whole area was very well tended and clean.

This is the start of the riverfront tourist area. Note the cobblestone walkways and trolley track. Most of the buildings are original, some dating to the late 1800's and some were Civil War survivors.

This prop from one of the Moran tugs was on display near the river.

Kathleen was engaged in reading the local tourist map to figure out where to go.

A lot of the buildings along the waterfront were quite old, but in seemingly good repair.

The area along the waterfront were alive with activity and street performers on Saturday evening.

The restaurant scene was in full swing.

Waning daylight profiles the suspension bridge in the distance.

The tourist river boat cruises were leaving the dock area.

This was a large, stainless steel replica of a paddle-wheel steamer.

Note the stone work on this building.

Next morning, with the sun behind me, I got a solid view of the bridge. This is an engineering marvel.

The paddle-wheel boats were in service early in the day taking tourists up and down the river.

The Moran tugs service the large container ships that come upriver to unload at the Savannah container facility. Many ships passed by us in the several days we were in Savannah.

As I walked down the riverfront again, I noted that not all the spare tires were attached to the hull of the tugs.

During the night, another cargo ship docked at the facility just down river from the hotel. The ship in the foreground was not there the previous afternoon.

As part of our visit, we decided to a bit of area recon, so we headed east toward the Atlantic Ocean at a place called Tybee Island. Above is one of the homes nearly on the beach. The homes are protected from the direction action of the waves by a set of coastal dunes.

A view looking east from the dunes.

By San Diego standards, the beach is not that wide. At high tide, the water comes right up to the base of the dunes.

Some of the homes in the area were large and very nice.

Interestingly, many of the homes on the inland waterway side of the island had their own docks.

The local flowers were in full spring bloom and the colors were breathtaking.

Near the leeward side of Tybee Island were saw grass marshes and wet lands.

Many of the trees in the area were covered with Spanish Moss.

Some of the marshes provided substantial open area for animals and birds

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On one of the backwater roads on Tybee, we came upon this shack.

Many of the "back country" areas had their own local color. The Crab Shack was one of those places.

If you are going to do tourists, you have to have alligators. In fact, they had a whole pond of them.

One of the local pelicans got close enough for a pretty clear shot. Note the reflection in the calm water.

A parting shot of a Lesser Blue Heron.

Savannah is an interesting area and has many beautiful things to see. We were unable to see even a small part of the sights and would look forward to returning.

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