Ahhh, Savannah. If you have never been, you should go, and you should be prepared to want to stay. Forever.

Our first night, we were fairly beat and decided just to stroll across Forsyth park (just at the end of our street) to Bull Street, the main north/south street in town that takes you all the way to the Savannah river if you let it. Bull St. is full if small cafes, pubs, coffee shops and boutiques and has a square about every two blocks. Each square is just a lovely little haven of oak trees laden with Spanish moss, grass, benches, people reading or walking their dogs and a statue at least or fountain at most in the center.

We walked a few blocks up Bull, taking in the idea that we were in the South and that the temperature was still about 80 at 8:00 p.m. The humidity was far less than here in CR, so we were happy and comfortable when we found a little pub (turns out it is the original English pub in Savannah) where we had a simple meal and a couple of glasses of wine while sitting at our table on the sidewalk and watching people stroll by.

We stayed at the Catherine Ward House Inn and our hostesses; Bea and Leslie were just fabulous. Our room was downstairs from the main floor and had its own little hallway to the hidden garden patio in back, where we enjoyed the evening before our dinner stroll, and where we had Mark and Anne over for wine the next night.

Thursday morning saw Steve sad to have missed the 5:30 a.m. fishing trip with the wedding party, but at least mildly rested as he and I bumbled up the stairs barely in time for breakfast (it ended at 9:00 a.m. and I think we sat down around 8:58 a.m.). We had a lovely (and huge) breakfast of fruit, French toast, coffee, juice, bacon AND sausage. After that, my big ambitions for the day dwindled to taking a nap in my fluffy bed downstairs, which is just what I indulgently did. Meanwhile, Steve got some work done by mooching internet from somewhere close by.

Awaking for the second time at noon, I found Steve patiently waiting, but slightly restless to see Savannah. We opted for the uber-touristy hour-and-a-half trolley tour around town. We had a great young guide who knew his history and his biology and gave us a super tour, until we got off to walk through an old house that’s been restored to its 1820’s original look. The tour was short and sweet, which was good, as we were starving. So after marveling at the tin tub in which the entire family bathed, one after the other in the same water starting with the father on down, and the intricately detailed crown molding, we scooted off to a nearby café for lunch. Both our eyes landed upon the black-eyed-pea cake sandwich and lunch was decided. We took it to go and ate in the park, by a fountain, in the middle of Savannah! I was thrilled. Another trolley pulled up just as we were finishing, so we hopped on for the rest of the tour. This time our guide was born and raised in Savannah and he was a hoot! He told us a story about a fairly unknown battle in Savannah during the Civil War with enough clichéd adjectives and trembling tones to make us both giggle, but we swear, we did so very quietly.


Back at the ranch, the Innkeepers were still concerned that we weren’t sure where the rehearsal dinner was on Friday, much less where the wedding was. Having learned that Savannah is tiny and knowing that Brian and Carrie could tell us where to go, we were not the least bit worried, but I do believe our laidback attitude was perhaps even too much for these Southerners! What we did know, was that this night, B and C were having a little get together at the Westin on the east side of the river and we were invited. We showed up a little late, owing to our nap that went a wee bit longer than we meant it to and were greeted warmly by Brian saying, “What does it take to get a Broyles around here?!” Obviously, Steve’s presence had been missed during the week. We did the meet and greet and got to see Carrie for the first time since July! Carrie and I hadn’t seen each other in two full months and mind you, when she’s here we see each other just about every day.

We enjoyed meeting family members and close friends for a few minutes and then everyone headed out for dinner at a place called Tubby’s on the west side of the river. The name really should say it all as there are only two things on the menu that aren’t fried and that’s the sautéed vegetables that come dripping in butter and the shrimp. Holy cow, we’ve never tasted such flavorful shrimp in our lives. I also discovered hush puppies. As I quietly leaned over to my new friend Lou (the wedding photog) and said, “What are those little fried balls on your plate?” (They really didn’t seem to go with her steamed crab and were just sort of plopped there on top, looking for all the world like they were about to roll off.) Well, Lou thought this was about the funniest thing she’d heard all week and proceeded to tell a table full of people from Georgia, North Carolina and Kentucky that I didn’t know what hush puppies were. Now, if _you’re_ not from Georgia, North Carolina or Kentucky either, let me tell you what hush puppies are as learned from two southern girls who had presumably been eating them all their lives: They are dough and sugar and maybe spice and maybe onions, but if Heather’s grandmother is making them, they don’t have cinnamon, but usually they have sugar, and sometimes too much sugar for Heather’s taste, but maybe if it’s Christmas time they’ll have the onions, or maybe it was at Christmas that they were too sweet and didn’t have the onions. Or maybe the onions were only at Christmas, but the take home message was absolutely that they always have the dough and they are always, always, always fried. Try one. They’re, well, hush puppies.

That, thank God, was the last Southern faux pas I made all weekend. I think. I should ask Lou.

Friday morning came all too quickly, but we made it on time for breakfast, just barely again, and then I retired to my room for my morning nap. I needed to be at the Westin at 11:30 or 12:00 p.m. for Carrie’s ladies luncheon by the pool. It was a rough weekend, I tell ya. I got to meet more of her friends and got to see some whom I’d met in Atlanta last April. It was fun to see some familiar faces and great to meet friends about whom Carrie has been talking since I met her. We sunbathed and drank Bloody Mary’s and generally had a very loungy time of it until about 2:00 p.m. when the bride and most everyone else decided that it was time for a nap. I managed to stroll through Forsyth park and read a book on the grass, as well as by the fountain. Yes, I moved. You’ve got to sit in all spots of the park while you can if you’re only there for three days. Then I got tired and went back to the room for a pre-rehearsal/rehearsal dinner nap.

Whew!             Made it to Savannah, GA.

Sure is a long straight drive from Atlanta. Plenty of pine trees.

Savannah is beautiful!           Pictures to follow after the sun comes up.

California river rocks

While we've got plenty of fun stuff about which we want to write- spending time with friends and family in the Bay

Steve, Bb and our close friend Keith

Area- at the moment we are sitting out in front of a Panera Bread shop, sipping coffee, waiting for one of Jocelyn's accounts to open up for the morning.

Oh, and we are in Georgia.

Our introduction to the area hasn't been all that great so far. That could be on account of the fact that we took the redeye out of San Francisco last night (this morning?) so our bodies are feeling like we got up at about 3 am after getting about two hours of really uncomfortable sleep. That could be it. Or it could have something to do with the fact that Steve took a somewhat devil-may-care attitude about getting us a rental car reservation but failed to take into account the notion that there wouldn't actually be any people in the rental car kiosks in the airport at 5:45 am (local time). Or it could be that despite having signs at the rental kiosks saying "we have cars", the only "car" that Alamo had is a Minivan that costs about twice as much per day as a smaller, more comfortable, more fuel efficient vehicle.

It just might have something to do with the fact that the very nice woman behind the counter at the Alamo (actually National, but same building, same counter, same cars...) couldn't (wouldn't?) do much for us in terms of giving us something that resembled a deal on the car and thus we opted to save ourselves about $50 and just put Steve on the contract, so now he is the official chauffer of this leg of our journey.

It is just as likely that the cause of our initial discontent is Steve's inability to effectively merge and therefore completely miss our exit on the highway, which resulted in a few extra miles of driving and an extremely slow-speed viewing of five or six cars which had crashed earlier. Slow because we (and a hundred or three other cars) were stuck in stop and go for 10 minutes, all of which would have been avoided had Steve been paying attention to where he was supposed to be driving.

And speaking of accidents, we've seen more of them in the last hour than in the last month. Crazy. Must be something special in the air today.

If all of the above isn't enough, when Jocelyn finally found us coffee (mmmmm, coffeeee) the girl behind the counter shortchanged Steve a dollar. She coughed it up when he pointed out the mistake, but the whole situation gave the distinct impression that it might not have been a mistake. Taking advantage of people before they've had coffee is just plain wrong....

But now, coffee in belly and correct change in pocket, we are sitting here enjoying free WiFi, getting directions to where we need to go next, and looking forward to heading off to Savannah. Pictures to follow as soon as we take some.

One of the best things about this trip to the states has been seeing family. Jocelyn got to see her father and spend a whole day with her sister, we both got to see all of Steve's family on a few occasions. We'll add some more pictures to this little post later, so check back if you are so inclined.

At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I just wanted to take a second to encourage people to actually type words in their emails and websites. I can understand that people who are doing text messaging have a real advantage when using abbreviations such as "ur" or "l8r" or similar not-really-english words... but email? C'mon folks! [that was meant to be ironic, for those of you who missed it] Does it really take that much longer to type two characters on a full size keyboard?
Ok, rant off. Thanks for playing.

After the wedding (which I haven't really written about, but will) we had a nice little family reunion with all the cousins. Mostly we took a big group photo then had a great breakfast- lots of hangovers needed some greasy chow- while the youngest generation played in the trees around us. Beautiful morning.

Just in case you are feeling a little guilty... you can pay for a littlePurgatory Removal. Unless you are a car thief, in which case you have no hope.

It's enough to make you wonder if there isn't some unseen force (Spaghetti Monster?) out there trying to convince us not to spend time in San Diego.

Steve's father very generously loaned us his Ford Explorer so that Jocelyn could drive to LA for a business appointment. Since she was all the way down there anyway, she included a visit to an old college friend, where she spent the night.

Unbelievably, when she got up this morning to head up to LA for said business appointment- the Explorer was gone. Fortunately, there wasn't much in the way of personal possessions in it other than the clothes that Steve was planning to wear to two upcoming weddings, which is pretty inconvenient for Steve, but hardly something over which to get really upset. Jocelyn lost some clothes too, but mostly stuff that she kept stored in California for cold weather and nothing that can't be replaced.

Of course the whole situation brings back terrible memories of what happened several years ago to our Landcruiser full of everything we owned, and those memories are pretty unpleasant. This theft also makes us feel like terrible custodians of the car that Steve's dad loaned to us. It's bad enough to have our own vehicle stolen, but someone else's car? That is even worse, at least in part because we were reliant upon that car for our transportation while visiting California for the next two weeks.

So if anyone out there sees a white explorer... Ha! how can you drive more than fifteen minutes and not see a white explorer?

So if anyone out there happens to run into a car thief... make sure you back up and run over him a couple extra times for us.

In addition to all the fun we have playing with friends (we'll be repeating our normal Sunday dinner later, Caly is very excited)we also work some. Steve's work results in many photographs, but most of them aren't all that exciting to look at, here is a beautiful home for sale down the coast. Part of Steve's other jobs include photographing Jocelyn Broyles Jewelry.

Sometimes it is a fun mix of hobby and honey-do. He's always looking for tips on jewelry photos, so please feel free to opine. Just remember, studio materials aren't an easy purchase here... think "do it yourself" not "run to the camera store" and you'll be on the right track.

Whoa! Just when I was settling in to the unpleasant reality that there are just some good things with which we have to go without...
Bam! My lovely wife tells me that there is actually a Craigslist for Costa Rica.

How nice.