Savannah Dan's Tour

For Brynn's birthday, we scheduled ourselves to go on a tour of downtown Savannah. After some research, the tour I chose was Savannah Dan. It was a walking tour, and was extremely interesting.

Savannah Dan models himself a Southern gentleman, and definitely looks the part. It was a windy day here on Saturday, and he walked up to the meeting area wearing a long overcoat, with a seersucker white pin-striped suit underneath. And of course the Havana hat to complete the outfit.

His tour was extremely interesting, and he was extremely knowledgeable about both the history of Savannah and some of the people that helped to tell its story.

The picture to the left is of a monument in Wright Square. The monument is to honor one of Savannah's more important residents, William Washington Gordon. However, they came to find out shortly after it was built that the remains of the Indian chief who had welcomed to the colonists were actually underneath the monument. Oops.

The story actually becomes more interesting at this point. One of Gordon's relatives (a grandson I believe) had "married a Yankee", and was insulted that the Indian chief Tomochichi had been so ignored. Apparently she didn't like her in-laws, and that was one of her main reasons for complaining so vehemently about this.

As a result, she did this. This giant piece of granite is in the same square, and is from Stone Mountain outside of Atlanta. It apparently riled up her in-laws to no end. When the seller of the stone found her what she wanted the stone for, he set the price at $1, payable on Judgment Day.

Now this, is a dirt mound. Among the many movies that were filmed in Savannah was Forrest Gump. That dirt mound is where the bus bench was that Forrest sat on while telling his story. You'll notice that there's no bench. And apparently there never has been. It was only there for filming. Something else that's odd is the fact that the traffic on that street (a one-way) actually flows in the opposite direction of the way it is shown in the movie.

For those familiar, this one is a picture of the Mercer House from the book and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I actually just finished reading it, and I highly recommend it. The book is considered a non-fiction novel, and it's interesting now that we're here to see some of the places that the author mentioned during the book. It was really interesting, as Savannah Dan used to be a policeman here, and has actually talked to the main detective from the book. You'll have to come visit and take his tour to find out what he said!

There are a ton of old churches here in Savannah as well. I chose this picture because it came out the best, but I also have pictures of half a dozen more as well. Savannah is home to the church which has been having Sunday service for the longest consecutively. The First Baptist Church in the downtown area has had Sunday service every Sunday since 1833. The most unique time was when they had Sunday service one Sunday to a group mostly made up of Confederate soldiers, and the following Sunday to a group made up mostly of Union soldiers.


The city is extremely interesting, and we are both looking forward to doing more exploring of it!

Atlanta and Savannah

We spent the majority of last week in Atlanta, staying with friends while we waited for our housing in Savannah to become available. I had never been to Atlanta, so it was definitely interesting to me to see another large city.

One of the first things we saw as we drove into town was a giant peach. It sat atop a tower, and apparently there are quite a few across the town. Peaches are a big deal in Atlanta (not really that much of a surprise), and there are apparently quite a few streets named Peachtree as well.

We did not really visit a lot of the tourist traps (like the Coke Museum), but did see quite a few things. It was interesting to see what buildings had been used for the Olympics in 1996, and the torch platform is still there to this day. Our friend Audrey gave us a brief driving tour of the city, and the downtown as well. The city definitely seems like it would be interesting to explore over time, but honestly it was just nice to hang out with friends from college.

One of the places we did visit while there was the Cyclorama. They don't allow pictures to be taken in there, but it was still a very interesting place. They are a museum to the Civil War in general, but specifically to the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. They have a lot of maps and historical pictures from the battle, but their crown jewel is the 3-story mural depicting the battle. The mural is on the rounded walls of a theatre that was built specifically to show the battle. There is seating inside the room, which rotates in time with a narrator telling the story as well.

After leaving Atlanta, we stayed for one night in a hotel on Hilton Head Island. When I looked at the map to book the hotel, it appeared to be pretty close to where we wanted to be. Whoops. It was not terribly far, but we must have passed at least half a dozen hotels with the same group along the way.

We didn't explore the Island too much, simply because we wanted to get situated at our new apartment on Friday. We're planning to head back there sometime while we are here.

After getting situated in Savannah, we did some exploring this weekend, and I'm hoping to have that written up in the next couple of days. The city is extremely interesting, and we're really enjoying it so far.

Weekend Thoughts for 2/20/2010

I had written this rather long post about the Olympics, and how unhappy in general I am with the coverage that they're getting. Apparently I was pretty angry when I wrote it, because it reads like I was. Needless to say, I decided not to post it. But I will include a few of my thoughts with my weekend thoughts today.

The Olympics

• Bob Costas annoys me. It just doesn't seem like he's a good fit for the coverage. 
• NBC, take note: Sporting events generally do not need drama added to them. So please stop trying to create it in some of these events. 
• Curling is surprisingly entertaining. Since I now understand some of the strategy and rules a little better, it actually looks like a pretty difficult sport to play.
• Short-track speed skating looks like the most dangerous and also most entertaining sport that is in the Olympics. 
• The U.S. and Canada are quite a bit better at women's hockey than everyone else. A LOT better.
• I'm not thrilled with the tape delay on things that could be live. Apparently there's not a lot of people who are. Especially the people in Seattle who could go to an event in Vancouver, and potentially be home in time to watch it on television.
• Cris Collinsworth should stick to reporting on football. Or not do that. Either would be fine with me.

Murray State

• We went to the Bracketbuster game today for Murray State. For those that aren't familiar, essentially ESPN takes a whole bunch of the better mid-level Divison 1 college basketball teams, and pits them against each other. A majority of these teams will not play in the March tournament, but in many cases it can give some really good games. 
• The game was televised on ESPNU, and as a result had an 11 AM start time, which was unusually early for a Saturday. 
• The arena wasn't sold out, but it was easily the biggest crowd of the season. The place was electric, and it was a very unique feeling.
• Murray State won their game, and extended their winning streak to 17 so far. They are going to be the favorite to win their conference's automatic bid into the March tourney.

We leave Murray on Monday, and have enjoyed parts of our time here. The weather today decided to show us what it could be like, with 66 degree weather most of the day. Stupid winter.

On another note, I've mentioned before that I have been writing another blog about baseball to help fill my time. The blog is doing well, as I've been getting between 20 and 30 visitors a day. Something good has come of this as well. I will also be writing for a fantasy baseball blog called FakeTeams. It's a member of the SportsBlog Nation, which is a group of blogs that follows nearly all major teams and leagues, both professional and college. It's not a paid job, but they are pretty well-read, and the exposure will definitely be a good thing for the blog as well. I'm looking forward to it, and we're both really excited about it. It should help to fill some more of my time too :)

Weekend Thoughts for 2/7/10

The Super Bowl was a really good game last night, and congrats to the Saints for winning. Undoubtedly, the party down in the Big Easy will continue for a few days, running into Mardi Gras next week potentially.

Some thoughts from this weekend:

• Commercials during the Super Bowl weren't bad, but it seemed to me like every segment had a Bud commercial. Probably would have been better off for everyone if they would invest that money in improving the taste of their beer as opposed to advertising it. 
• The Volkswagen commercial with Stevie Wonder was pretty funny too.
• It's supposed to snow here in Murray again this week, and I'm a bit over it. It doesn't snow a lot, but it does seem to bring a large portion of the city to a stand-still in spite of this fact.
• Anytime there is going to be a fair amount of snow, everyone here in town (and apparently all over the South as well) stocks up on three things: Bread, milk, and eggs. I'm not entirely sure where these three items came from on this topic, as I am used to earthquake preparedness, which is water and canned goods.

We have locked in our next assignment: Savannah, GA. It's a really good size city (over 100K in population), and has quite a bit of history to it as well. Savannah is located right on the Atlantic coast of Georgia, with a lot of other destinations nearby:

• Atlanta - 4 hours
• Jacksonville, FL - 2 hours
• Charleston, SC - 4 hours
• Charlotte, NC - 4 hours
• Orlando, FL - 4 hours

The city really should be interesting, as we are both really big history buffs. And Paula Deen is there too! More excellent food :) We will be there from the first week of March until late June (hopefully anyway!)

Weekend Thoughts - 1/31/2010

Well, as many of you probably saw on the news, the Southeast was hit with a pretty good size snowstorm on Friday. Initially expected to hit overnight between Thursday and Friday, it didn't really start snowing until mid-day Friday. And then it just kept on snowing. When we woke up on Saturday morning, it had gotten to somewhere between 8-10" of snow.

We also had some friends visit over the weekend, getting into town before the snowstorm hit. All in all, a very fun weekend. You've got Brynn and Audrey feeding the giant cow outside of Sirloin Stockade here. (It wasn't quite as hungry as you would think a cow that size would be.)

The state of Kentucky and all the local groups did very well with clearing the roads of snow, so we actually took them around a bit of western Kentucky and southern Illinois. Right across the border from Paducah, KY is Metropolis, IL. The town of Metropolis is best known for being the home of Superman. So they have gone for it, with a Superman museum and a statue in one of the town's squares.

Strangely, this statue (which is about 25 feet tall), is not even the tallest statue in this town. There is a giant statue (probably about 50-55 feet tall) in front of a grocery store of a giant grocery clerk. It was a bit strange to see actually.

Metropolis is also home to a riverboat casino (Harrah's), which was fairly standard of a casino. (Also got $20 of our money as well, so definitely a standard casino).

We also made our way back to Paris, TN, in search of their Eiffel Tower that we had heard about. After a bit of searching (and following the signs), we did find the Tower in a park in the center of town. It was not nearly tall enough to be seen from anywhere else in town, which wasn't really a surprise. The town is hilly, and the park was in one of the small valleys of the town.

All in all, a very fun weekend for everybody, in spite of the snow.