Wednesday: I know why the people in the South move slowly--to keep cool! In Savannah today, most of the day was hot and humid. In the late afternoon the clouds came in and by evening it had cooled off to be comfortable (though it was still humid). After breakfast today, we hung around in our room for awhile for Anneliese to finish her final assignment for her online health class. She needed to take a full year and was able to take 1 semester last year and wanted to take 1 semester this summer, but they only offered her 1 quarter this summer, which still puts her one quarter short for graduation and she has to take online phy ed this coming year (it has to do with electives and PSEO). So she asked the online instructor if she could do both quarters. The instructor said that if she completed all of the requirements for the first quarter in the first two weeks of the 3 1/2 week session, she might let her do the second quarter also. So, this morning she completed the last assignment and should know in another day or two if she will be allowed to do the second quarter assignments as well.
Anyway, back to our day. When she was done, we headed out with about three hours before our tour at SCAD. Savannah College of Art and Design, and this one we are allowed to call "skad." To get from the business area of our hotel, we headed on the street the hotel is on towards the river. We soon came to a 1950s area of middle-class homes with well-kept houses and yards and streets lined with "live oaks" (they are a variety of evergreen oak--it does not go dormant in winter, but remains green). The oaks also have moss hanging from them and some sort of moss or lichen growing on the branches. But driving through this area of town, felt very small town, even in the middle of Savannah (a fairly large city). Then, when we got to the old part of town, the oak trees continued, along with some palm trees and the older homes seemed very gracious and genteel. We arrived in the old part of town with a purse full of quarters, because we were told that we would need to feed the meter and that some were 5 hour meters. Well, we were lucky and found a place not too far away on a street with no restrictions or meters! Savannah was a town that was lucky enough to be planned/designed before being settled instead of just growing with the population willy-nilly and it was designed well. In the old town, there are a series of town squares (22 of them) and a large park. Each square has a statue, fountain, or obelisk in the center, several historical placards, sometimes additional fountains, and nicely planted trees, flowers, and grass. Paths criss cross the square and there are many benches to sit on. The squares are arranged in rows in the middle of streets, so the streets have to go around them. There is usually a street in between each two squares. And some of the streets are divided with trees and plants between opposing lanes of traffic. Beautiful. We parked and walked from square to square, slowly because it was extremely hot and humid, and because everyone else seemed to be moving in slow motion. Most of the houses had porches and many had courtyards--ways to stay cool.
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| Savannah square |
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| Historic house |
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| Another square |
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| Look at the palm trees! |
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| Another square :) (look at the dripping moss) |
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| Close-up of the fountain |
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| Moss on the live oak |
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| The children taking a breather! |
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| See the tree-canopied street divided in the middle with trees |
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| historic house |
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| Beatiful, quiet little street |
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| Another quiet street |
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| Old street sign |
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| lichen or something growing on the oaks |
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| They are all wearing flowers they found! |
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| The family at Forsythe park |
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| Another pretty fountain in another charming square |
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| Beautiful old house, less usual a style for Savannah, but still with the side porches |
We found a pedestrian street we had been on last time we were here, when the children were much younger--Joshua was only 6 months old and the girls 7 and 4. The girls had a memory of getting rock candy on a stick. Well, we found the same charming little candy shop and got rock candy. They gave out samples of taffy and a peanut butter bark (?). The man made more taffy as we were watching and they have a cool machine that packaged it and put it up on a conveyor belt which took it to the next room for display. Very cool. If/when I am able to upload photos of it, I'll add them in here. There is also an antique toy train on a track hung from the ceiling. Very cute, going there is a definite experience. The man making taffy gets a handful and throws them to whoever is watching. Fun.
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| The man rolling the taffy on the big machine |
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| Feeding it into the packaging machine after he loaded the paper. It cuts the taffy, cuts the paper, and rolls up the taffy while twisting the ends of the waxed paper before sending it down the chute. |
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| The taffy then goes up in these little cups. . . |
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| . . .on the conveyor belt to the next room. . . |
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| . . . that leads to a chute into the display container. |
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| The train overhead |
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| Many flavors of rock candy |
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| (Scary) Children loving their rock candy! |
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| Joshua outside the Savannah Candy Kitchen |
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| The cute pedestrian walkway |
We made our way to our two and a half hour 2:00 tour. A short speech in a (thankfully) air-conditioned building, then we were herded out to and air-conditioned shuttle bus for the tour! The campus is spread out over a two mile long, 1/2 mile wide stretch of old Savannah. The college buys hotels and historic buildings as they come up for sale so everything is very spread out. The hotels become dorms (some apartment-style are available for upper-class students). Each room is a double with beds that can be bunked, two dressers, two drafting desks, and two stools. Each room gets it's own en suite bathroom (which means that they also have to clean their own bathroom!). And dining halls are attached. I must say I wasn't wowed by the tour. Though I was wowed when they presented in Minneapolis. Maybe I have more to compare it with now.
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| A view of the bridge from one of the residence halls |
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| Joshua trying out a nap pod in the student center. The white top spins around to cover your upper body, you use the buttons to raise and lower your body and legs, then 30 minutes later it gently wakes you up with soft music and vibration! :) |
After the tour, we checked on the car, went into some shops, and found a place for dinner. Then we walked back to the car in a roundabout manner to see more of the squares. Back to the hotel to swim and wash clothes--we are down to the end of our clean clothes once more. To Florida tomorrow. We will be stopping for a visit with a Blog pal of Randy's and they've graciously offered to make dinner for us! Then on to Tallahassee where we have our last college tour on Friday. Wow, it's gone fast!
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