Savannah, GA: Vacation Monday

At this time exactly two weeks ago, we were in the Nashville airport. We don't often fly from Nashville - usually from Memphis - but I was totally impressed with several things about the experience. (Well, once we got IN the airport, that is - we had to park approximately 17.9 miles away in Long Term B and catch a shuttle. Luckily, it wasn't a horrible experience...just one that made us uneasy because we didn't know how often shuttles visited Long Term B.)

The first thing that was impressive about the Nashville airport were the obviously-new Dyson Airblade hand dryers in the restrooms. I know this may be a silly thing to be excited about, but we both thought it was pretty stinkin' cool. I wasn't able to take a picture, but please check out their webpage for 10 seconds. When you first see the contraption, you wonder what in the world it is. Then you realize that there are no traditional hand dryers on the walls (you know, the kind that instruct you to "Push button, get bacon, eat bacon"? My friend Ashley totally made that up first, YEARS ago) and then you look around to see if other people are in the same conundrum. They are. And then you figure it out. And it is awesome. And you and husband have an actual discussion about Dyson perhaps donating these Airblade hand dryers to the Nashville airport for marketing purposes as you head to the nearest Starbucks.

Speaking of Starbucks, the Nashville airport Starbucks had a 100 for their restaurant rating. We were duly impressed. And then we got bacon/egg/cheese biscuits from the Neely's BBQ place. You know, those Neely's on the Food Network? Them. If either of us had an iPhone, there would be pictures to document all of this minutiae, but dragging out a camera with a big lens every time seems to be overkill in some cases.

So then we actually get on a plane - if possible, I always let Jeremy have the window seat. He took flying lessons for awhile and even solo'd, so he still has an avid interest in flying in general. It's pretty cool to fly with someone who actually knows what's going on. Except when he says things like, "Oh, that wasn't supposed to happen." True story.

We arrived in Savannah in the mid-afternoon, got our luggage (it wasn't lost! Hurray!) and our rental car. It was a pretty cute Dodge Caliber. And we headed to the hotel - the Four Points Sheraton in the historic district. Which we wouldn't really recommend, for reasons which will be revealed at a later time. Or partially revealed now. See, we got a good deal on Expedia, but found out that we still had to pay for parking ($15/day) that wasn't included in the previous price. And that they would put a hold on our debit card of $50/day for "incidentals." Um, what? Incidentals = movie rentals, room service, etc. so that people can't charge a bunch of stuff and then run off in the night. Sigh! Why do "Those People" ruin things for EVERYONE? Sigh again. Also, one more thing - they DO have a continental breakfast, but it is not a free continental breakfast. It's $10.00 per person. I think not. Spoiler alert: we didn't eat breakfast there, not one single day.

It is a nice-looking hotel and in walking distance to many things we wanted to see, but we wouldn't stay there again. Just so you know. And you don't even know what happened there on Friday night yet! =) Be patient. All will be revealed...

We had found out from the Weather Channel that Monday would be the warmest, sunniest day of that week, so we changed clothes immediately and headed to Tybee Island to take a few pictures at the beach. As I mentioned before, we didn't do the traditional "white shirt, khaki shorts" thing. I don't really do khaki or even a whole lotta white...so we did blue. And Jeremy did have khaki shorts. We got to the beach and had about 15 minutes to take pictures before it became too dark to do so. Jeremy set up the tripod and we set the timer and ran back and forth from our picture setting to see how it looked on the camera.

Then we walked down closer to the water and waded in, feeling our feet sink down in the sand after each wave reached us. I remember saying a little prayer to thank God for oceans. If you don't live near the water, walking on the beach is a rare and beautiful experience.

We both wished we could have stayed longer. But it was past suppertime and we had to make sure nobody stole our tripod.

Our GPS is very handy usually, but sometimes she (we call her Susan) has no idea what she's talking about. When we were trying to find a restaurant after going to the beach that night, well, that was one of those times. She lead us in a big circle, which ended up by a darkened residential house. We're pretty sure they weren't serving supper to the public. But then we remembered something!

We remembered that we had seen the lights from Uncle Bubba's Oyster House on the way to Tybee Island. It did, indeed, look like they were serving supper to the public, so we headed back that way, past the cute pastel beachy-looking cottages and shops and such on the island. For those of you who don't know, Uncle Bubba is Paula Deen's brother. Yes, he has his own restaurant. No, we hadn't planned on hunting it down and eating there. Neither of us are huge on seafood, but I had just told Jeremy that I wanted to try some fresh seafood on this trip, so there we went. And it was totally fun, y'all!

Our sweet little waitress Hallie is not a fan of oysters in general and so when she heard that we had never tried them, but kiiinda wanted to but were kiiinda scared...well, she recommended the chargrilled oysters because they're the only ones she likes. And she had the guy in the kitchen throw a couple on the grill for us to taste.

They were WAY better than we thought they'd be, even though they truly look homely, and I kinda wished I'd ordered them. But we had both already ordered the catch of the day, which was a mild white fish that we had never heard of before - and which I cannot remember the name of in the slightest. Jeremy got his fried and I got mine blackened. The fish itself was great, but there was just a tad too much seasoning on mine. Luckily, Jeremy shared his fried version. =) We also shared a strawberry shortcake (made with Grandma Paul's sour cream pound cake, I believe) that was very good, but technically, I think my Aunt Becky's cream cheese pound cake is better. True story.

Also, I wonder where Bubba got the idea of garnishing his dessert with a sprig of mint? Hmmm....;) I see Paula written all over that!

It was a good first-evening-on-vacation. More later!