The End of Vacation

In which I squeeze the lemonade out of one more day

Photo by Vicki Schofield on Unsplash

We took a short trip to Savannah. As we were looking for a lunch place, we passed by the Flannery O’Connor house. I studied O’Connor quite well long ago, but I don’t recall her being from Savannah. Unfortunately, tour hours are limited and it was hot so leaving Herman (our dachshund) in the car wasn’t an option. We live close enough, so we may be able to go back another time. I think I’l have to sell a book or two and take a literary tour of houses and estates at some point. I’ve lived near the Hawthorne house, Melville’s house, Walden pond, the Dickenson house. We’re quite close (within 5 hours) of Faulkner’s house and museum.

It was warm in Savannah, the kind of heat and humidity that wears on you and makes all your clothes slightly damp. It seems all we did was walk from place to place to find food to eat. We celebrated the gf’s birthday with an amazing seafood dinner. We watched the paddleboats on the river. We drove over the Savannah river on the bridge to turn around in front of a gentleman’s club, just to say we went into South Carolina.

We took a walk at a park around a lake and saw ducks and turtles and these duck-like chicken-like turkey-buzzard like geese. I haven’t looked them up yet, but they walk by struting their heads forward almost like an old hand pump for a water spigot.

On our last day, we drove to Tybee Island so I could put my foot in the Atlantic. We left early in the morning to beat the crowd, hoping to find a breakfast place. Unfortunately, dogs are not allowed on the beach anywhere, nor on the pier, so we couldn’t really do anything at all. We also didn’t find a restaurant with outdoor seating, so back to Savannah for a last meal before driving to Atlanta.

We made one stop at a scary looking Southern gas station off the road with a cast of characters hanging out out front, looking a bit like a scene from a Flannery O’Connor ghost story.

Our big event for Savannah was a ghost tour, a walk at night with a guide to see some of the haunted places in Savannah, a city literally haunted by its past. It’s a land of churches with placards announcing who, what, where, when a place was famous. We happened upon a placard proclaiming a church to be the place for the music director of 40 years who wrote “Jingle Bells.”

One of our hikes was in the low country, the Big Ferry Loop at Skidaway State Park, an island just southeast of Savannah. The land was low and covered in palm trees and pines at the same time. There was a civil war earth works, mounds of dirt that were erected to prevent Union soldiers from sneaking in. The low country was porous and the gun runners of the union army found their way through. There was also evidence of old stills from the prohibition days.

Our last full day was spent walking. I think we logged 10 miles or so and by the end of the day were wiped out.

Today, we have a chore list, a little in town running around and some relaxing before we get back to it tomorrow.

I’ll resume talk of the memoir on Friday. Also, “Story Club with George Saunders” on substack has changed a bit with office hours for paid subscribers. I look forward to interacting more with George. I’ve fallen a bit behind because of the conference, but I have so many questions. I finished CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and am now onto Pasoralia.

Stay tuned. The stories that make up my memoir start to take center stage.

Until then….. stay well. For me, I’ll …

Just keep writing!