Oh fuuuuuddddge!

What was THAT??? As it turned out, “THAT“, was a blown tire and yes, you guessed it…on the fifth wheel. We had just left Mississippi heading to Georgia through Alabama when we heard a muffled “bam” and what felt like something had a hold of the truck and trailer for a minute second then let go again. “Pull over, I’m not feeling very comfortable with this. We need to check it out.” So Brian pulls to the side of the road. We get out and each walk down our side of the truck and trailer. “I don’t see anything wrong over here,” Brian yells to me. “I see the problem.” He wanders around my side of the trailer and there you have it, a blown tire. Not flat, but shredded to smitherings. As I’m standing there watching him change the tire his favorite movie, Christmas Story, popped into mind. “Time me!” “Oh fuuuuudddddge!”

Savannah and Charleston are both towns surrounded by a boat load of history. Between the two cities, there’s over 600 years of history which equates to a lot of zzzzz’s in history class.

Johnson Square

Savannah, “Georgia’s First City,” is known for it’s park like squares originally intended to provide colonists space for military exercises. To this date, 22 of the original 24 squares still exist, all of which are part of Savannah’s historic district. Charleston is known as “The Holy City” due to it’s many churches for the fact it was one of the few cities in the original thirteen colonies to provide religious tolerance. Charleston is also known for The Battery and Ft. Sumter.


The movies, Forrest Gump, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Something to Talk About, and Forces of Nature (just to name a few) were filmed in Savannah. The Patriot, Cold Mountain, The Notebook, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and Dear John (again, just to name a few), were filmed in Charleston.

Lady & Sons

Both cities are situated on the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean. They both have beautiful historical districts and they’re both fun cities to visit. But Savannah has what Charleston doesn’t and that’s Paula Deen and of course, all I have to say is “food” and Brian’s up for a good meal any time of the day!! We arrived at Lady & Sons at 11am. Now Paula has become so famous, her restaurant no longer takes reservations for parties under 10. You submit your name to the hostess and she’ll tell you when you can return to eat. It‘s a first come first served basis. At 11 in the morning, the only times left for a party of two were on the second floor in the bar at 2:15 or 3:30. Or we could come back at 9 o’clock that night for a table on the ground floor.

At 2:15 we were escorted to the bar where we were placed, not at a table in the bar, but at the bar itself. Now, eating at the bar wouldn’t have been so bad in itself, but Brian sat through the entire meal talking to the gentleman next to him while the wives, who where to the outside of their husbands, sat and ate in silence. Brian wasn’t at all impressed with the food and thought it over priced. For the most part, I enjoyed the food and also thought the prices a little high but given the fact it was Paula Deen’s restaurant, it was all relative. I can now mark that one off my Bucket List.

Tybee Island, GA
Lighthouse

While in Savannah we stayed on Tybee Island which we both thoroughly enjoyed. Every evening was spent bicycling on the beach and watching Georgia’s sunsets. We toured Tybee Island’s lighthouse which is the oldest lighthouse in Georgia. The bottom 60 feet of the lighthouse date back to 1773. The upper 94 feet were built in 1867. What I was amazed to learn is the walls of the tower are over 12 feet thick at the base of the lighthouse! The light from the lens is the original Fresnel lens and can be seen 18 miles out to sea. From the top, are beautiful views of Tybee Island and the Atlanta ocean. During the day we strolled through the streets of Savannah, ending up on River Street which is one of the oldest areas of Savannah and where you’ll find original cobble stone streets.

The Marsh land at
James Island

In Charleston we stayed at the James Island County Park & Campground on James Island which happens to be one of the most family and dog friendly park we’ve yet to see. They had just about everything you could possibly wish including a lake, climbing wall, water park, crabing & fishing, bike paths and dog park. Again, our evenings were spent on our bikes with our days touring Charleston. To get a feel of the city, we took a carriage ride which neither Brian nor myself thought was as good as our carriage ride in New Orleans. We chose the Palmetto Carriage (you’ll recognize them by their big red barn) for the hour long tour which seemed to wander aimlessly through the streets of Charleston. We felt they really didn’t show us much, missing a lot of the sights we noticed the other carriage companies toured. Our guide was great and the company itself was great but we would definitely recommend another company should you ever decide to tour Charleston by carriage.

Lunch was at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company which has the best hush puppies, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say they have the best hush puppies in the world! I tried to con our waiter into giving me the recipe but he wasn’t about to fork it over. I’ve tried looking for the recipe on the internet but I’m not that lucky. Oh, I found their recipe but it’s an old recipe. They’ve changed their ingredients and they’re not giving out the new “secret?” recipe. Drats! Because they’re THAT good!

While in Charleston, we toured Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens and Ft. Sumter. Boone Hall is touted as being “America’s Most Photographed Plantation” and I can certainly understand why. There’s a half mile allée of live oak trees leading to the plantation which were planted in 1743. The moss-draped branches meet overhead creating a natural corridor and a scene which one will remember for quite some time. Nine of the twenty seven slave quarters still exist on the grounds. The gardens of Boone Hall Plantation which are home to antique roses that date back more than 100 years are a little unkept but are still worth viewing. The plantation itself is still a working plantation continuously growing and producing crops for over 320 years. Today, the plantation produces peaches, strawberries, tomatoes and pumpkins as well as many other fruits and vegetables. We were only allowed to tour the ground floor of the house since it is a privately owned home and the owners still occupy the second floor. If you’ve ever seen the movie, The Notebook, you might recognize Boone Hall. The front of the Calhoun house is actually the Boone Plantation and a couple of scenes were filmed at the lake and grounds of the Boone Plantation.

Ft. Sumter is where the first shots of the Civil War began on April 12, 1861. When constructed, it stood 3 stories tall and was practically reduced to rubble due to the war. What’s most interesting about Ft. Sumter is not only was it used during the Civil War, it was also used during the Spanish-American War along with WWI and WWII. Today, you can still see some of the original cannons and there are also shells from the Civil War which are lodged in the walls.