Savannah Waterfront

Just a few pictures of the Savannah Waterfront. We decided to head over and walk around since it was a nice day and we were hoping everybody else would be shopping Black Fridays at the mall, NOT.

We're at the Hardeeville RV Park so it's only a ten minute drive to downtown, the trick is to exit onto Hutchinson Island right when you start to cross the bridge and park at the Westin Hotel or at the Convention Center (Free) then walk between them to the free ferry dock. The ferry runs every half hour and it's about a 5 minute ride across the river to the waterfront, you can get off at either end of the waterfront.

It was a little crowded and most of the restaurants and shops were full so we just wandered around for a couple of hours then grabbed the ferry back to the island.

One of the Ferry boats

 Savannah Waterfront

Click to enlarge and read about the Olympic Cauldron pictured below.

Convention Center on Hutchinson Island

Shops and Restaurants

More shops

 and more

Narrow street and it's one way for the cars but the trolley goes both so when it's coming at you, you better get out of its way.  When the cars are right up against the curb there is only about 6 inches clearance
.

 One of the busier restaurants

Fountain, the real ship is in the river and open for tours.

War Memorial

Waving Girl, waiting for her lost Sailor love to return to Savannah, he never did.

Walkway between buildings leading to the second level.

Second level, the stairs take you to the third level and the main streets of downtown.

We walked around the main street area and a few of the squares then headed back to the ferry.  There is so much more to see and do here I could write another 30 pages and post a few hundred more pictures.

Over the years we have spent about 8 weeks in the Savannah area and still always find new things to do and see.

Georgia Southern University or GSU

About an hours drive west on I-16 took us to the city of Statesboro, home of Georgian Southern University, We started out at the visitors center to get our visitors parking pass which you have to have to park on campus. Our first stop was at the Wildlife Center where they have one of the best Raptor displays we've ever seen. They were just finishing up a Birds of Flight demonstration when we arrived so we only saw about 5 minutes of that before heading out on the nature walk. All the birds here are on display out in the woods along the trail, they are tethered in a natural environment.

Peregrine Falcon, the fastest flying bird in the world, can reach diving speeds of 200 MPH.

A barn owl, sleeping in the barn

Bald Eagle, all the bird here are unable to survive in the wild due to injuries.

 The claw of the Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle

How did this little guy get in here, if I recall ,this was a Sparrow Hawk.

Owl with a nice home in a hollow tree.

All of these are out doors along the nature trail, during the summer if it gets to hot in the afternoon they move them indoors.

You gotta problem ?

After about an hour and a half we went over to the other side of the campus to the Botanical Gardens, not quite as impressive as the Wildlife center but a nice 45 minute walk around the gardens, it's getting lat in the year so I'm sure there will be a lot more blooms in the spring.

Remember these, they were using it for a slide show.

These looked like Sea Urchins

Just stuff we liked

The barn had a bunch of farming displays

One more stop while we're here and it's at the University's Museum. Here they have fossilized skeleton of a 78 millions year old Mosasaur, not exactly sure what it is but it's big. Twenty-three feet long it took the archeologist over eight years to uncover the skeleton and get it ready for display.

The Big Guy

A blue Nose Dolphin

Also there was a temporary exhibit “ Archeology of Camp Lawton “ this about the former Civil War Confederate prisoner of war camp, the school and student are conducting an archeological dig at this location in Jenkins County,

And that pretty much took up our day.  Now a week end of Football to relax with.

Road Trip

A little road trip today, starting at the Savannah Visitors Center, not so much to find out about Savannah since we've been here so many times but to see Battlefield Memorial Park which is right behind the visitors center. This is the site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Savannah which took place October 9,1779, it's reported to be the second bloodiest battle of the war. After winning this battle England thought that they would continue on and take back control of the Colony’s. Over 800 were killed or wounded during this battle and the memorial has 800 stones to represent them.

From there it was a 30 minute drive down to Richmond Hill, this was well on it's way to be coming a ghost town until Henry Ford showed up to build a winter home here. He also bought 85,000 acres, built 272 buildings which included schools, churches, a saw mill and homes for his 600 employees.

The small Kindergarten building is now a museum.

About another 8 miles takes you to Fort McAllister, which was also on Ford Property and he was the one that started the saving and reconstruction on this historical fort. What the Fort is most famous for is this is marks the end of Sherman's March to the Sea, this is where he was able to re-supply from ships so he could continue onto Savannah and up the coast. The fort is all earthworks with underground tunnels and rooms, there is a nice museum which explains the fort and area's history along with the story of the sinking on the stockade runner Nashville.

Henry Ford and Fort McAllister

And after all this he lived through the war.

WHAT IS IT?







On the way home we made one more stop at the Savannah – Ogeechee Barge Canal Museum. Nobody was there and everything was closed up but we were able to walk down the tow path to the remains of Lock #5.

The legend of "The Little Lost Girl Of Lock #5"  all they ever found was a single shoe.

WHAT IS IT:  It's a deck prism (it's upside down for display reasons) it would be flush with the deck of a ship and would distribute the sun light into the room below deck.

Another sign we spotted.