Day 104 - Savannah

Pop quiz:
Q: How does one survive a 7 mile walk around Savannah in August?
A: With a lot of water and frequent air-conditioning breaks.

I left Hilton Head this morning at 9:30 and drove down to Savannah. I wasn't sure whether I would do a volksmarch or do a trolley tour around town. I left it up to the weather. And when I say that, what I mean is that I left it up to whether it was going to rain or not. Low chance of rain today, so I went with the volksmarch. It was a really good walk, but as previously implied, was a bit warm. I did survive though.

The city is beautiful. I love how it's set up with the squares throughout. At first I thought they were going to be weird and cause traffic issues, but it's so nice having so many mini-parks throughout the city. Each one has its own character. Some really beautiful architecture here too. I went into 2 houses - the Isaiah Davenport House and the Andrew Low House. Isaiah Davenport was an architect and designed and built his house before getting business around town. It's a nice house, but not over the top. And it didn't have pocket doors, which was weird. Andrew Low was the father-in-law of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts. His house was built about 20 years after the Davenport house and the house is definitely more upscale. The house also has many more pieces of furniture that are original to the house. The Davenport house doesn't have any original pieces, where the Low House has many.

Savannah very obviously relies heavily on the tourist trade. There are trolleys, carriages, and tour groups everywhere. But the difference between a city like savannah and a city like Las Vegas is that firstly, the tourism is built on actual history, and secondly, I feel valued as a human being, not just a wallet. Call it southern hospitality or whatever, but I like when random people on the street say hello to me without trying to sell me anything. 

I finished up the walk around 4:45 and drove over to my apartment for the night - another airbnb reservation. After a much needed shower, I was looking for some dinner. After a little Internet research, I decided on the Lowcountry Boil from Bobo's Seafood Market. The place is one of those hole in the wall places that only locals know about. No tables - only to go food. But cheap and good. Check out the picture. It was a total of $8, and that includes tax. 

So much food! Shrimp, potatoes, corn, sausage, there's even a whole crab buried in there. Highly, highly recommend. 

Tomorrow I'm making the drive down to Disney World. Super excited!!!!

Day 103 - Charleston to Hilton Head

Most touring days (as opposed to travel days), I arrive the night before, wake up, tour, and then spend the night in the same place. Today was different. I toured in Charleston all day and then traveled an additional 2 hours in order to get down to Hilton Head. This was a change from my original schedule. I had forgotten that I have family in Hilton Head, so I didn't factor that into my original schedule.

But backing up. Mac, my friend's dad who I stayed with last night took me out to breakfast this morning. I hadn't factored that into my schedule, but I figured it wouldn't make much difference. Wrong. I arrived at the ferry terminal for Fort Sumter at 9:45. It was then that I realized why I had planned to get there at 9:15. The ferry left at 9:30, 12:00, and 2:30. There are additional departures from the Point Pleasant location, but that was a 15 minute drive in the wrong direction. So last minute rearranging of schedule, no big deal.

Original stop #2 was about half a mile away and opened at 10:00. Perfect. So I walked over there. It was the Aiken-Rhett House. The house is different from most other historic homes I've visited because they aren't working to restore it. Rather, they're working to preserve it. There is a distinct difference. It's interesting to see the actual state of the house when the preservation society got a hold of it rather than what happens after the paint is restored and fixtures are replaced, etc. They do an audio tour at the house, which I like and I think is a very smart way to do it. It may be a bit cost prohibitive up front, but I think it ultimately is a smarter way to run these tours. You can get more people through without having to staff tours. They do staff a few docents around the place, so if you have questions, they're there to answer them. Well, during the tour of the house, I noticed that it started raining. Not hard, but definitely steady. So when I was finished, I whipped out my umbrella and decided I could brave the half hour walk back to the Fort Sumter ferry terminal. And then the torrential downpour started. And didn't stop for a while. I ended up walking up and standing on some random residential porch for a while until it let up a bit. A tiny umbrella can only do so much.

So, I made it back to the ferry terminal right around 11:30, bought my ticket, toured the museum and boarded the ferry toward the island where Fort Sumter is located. They started with a "historic talk", which went on too long, and then everyone had time to explore the island. For some reason (well, let's be honest, it's pretty obvious why), I was reminded of a class that I took in college. It was third year and all engineering students were required to take one Technology, Culture, & Communication class. There was a very wide range of the classes you could take - things like "Technology and Music", or "The Technology of News", or "The History of NASA." For some reason (probably because it fit into my schedule), I took "Technology in War and Peace" or something like that. Well, I don't actually have much of an interest in military history, so I quickly realized that I hated the class. Walking around Fort Sumter, I had a bit of the same feeling. I like historical monuments, but military history doesn't cut it much for me. So it wasn't my favorite stop of the entire trip, but it was fine.

After taking the ferry back over to the mainland, I drove down Market Street and went the the Calhoun Mansion. Interesting place. It was built sometime (seriously - I can't be expected remember all these dates), the owner had to sell it cause he lost his money, and then the navy used it during some war (World War I, maybe?) as a hospital. And then it was abandoned for a while during the 60's. And finally someone bought it and restored it. And then the current owner bought it. He still lives there, but it's open for tours. Now, it's another one that's not restored in the classical sense. The walls, the ceilings, the light fixtures - all of that is restored. But the furniture and the decorations? Well, he's done his own thing. And his own thing is apparently antiques - lots and lots of antiques. The place is reminiscent of the Hearst Castle in that there is stuff everywhere and it doesn't all go together. There are themes in some of the rooms, but the themes are like "wildlife" and "religion," so the items in a given room are from a variety of time periods, and a variety of places. Definitely a little bizarre. The house still is pretty amazing though. And I'm sure some people love all of the antiques. I just find it overwhelming and disjointed. Oh, but scenes from The Notebook were filmed at this house, so that was cool. It functioned as Ally's parents' house. Now I want to go back and watch the movie again.

From there, I drove along South Battery, just checking out the pretty houses and then out to Ashley River Road. There were two places back there that I wanted to go and knew I probably wouldn't have time for both. My first choice was Drayton Hall, but they had closed about half an hour before I got there. Oops. So I went to Magnolia Plantation instead, just down the road. Easy enough. The big draw of this place is the gardens. I'm not one for gardens, but they were pretty. If you like gardens, I definitely recommend going. I did take a couple pictures of the lake and whatnot. I think scenes from The Notebook were filmed here as well - definitely should have been. The plantation house is actually the 3rd house on the grounds. The first one was struck by lightning and burnt down in 1811 (see how I am capable of remembering dates?), then the second was burnt down by those damn yankees in 1865. And this one has stood there since. There was a significant expansion in 1918, so you can still see the original portion and the expansion. You know, a lot of people think that most southern plantation mansions are like Tara in Gone with the Wind. They're not. They don't have that huge stairway and huge ballroom. They're nice, but much more like working farm houses. Maybe with a nice big parlor and beautiful dining rooms, but they're not "party" houses like the Newport Mansions are.

I finished up at the Magnolia Plantation and started my drive down to Hilton Head. It was a pretty easy drive expect that the rain showers followed me. I definitely drove through some pretty heavy showers. At one point, it was really weird - I just drove beyond the edge of the shower. One second it was pouring, the next second, nothing. Odd.

So I arrived here around 7 PM, right on time. I'm staying with my dad's cousin and his wife. And it just so happens that their daughter, my second cousin, who is about 2 months older than I am, is here visiting too. So I got to catch up with them and we went out to a local seafood place for dinner. Tomorrow, I'm driving down to Savannah and touring there. I've never been, so it should be interesting.

Days 101 & 102 - Wilmington, NC to Charleston

I'm getting a little lazy with posting, aren't I? Apparently, I can't be bothered to post 2 days in a row consistently. But I have a good excuse for not posting last night - it's called wine. Lots and lots of wine. But I'll get to that.

So I stayed Friday night with Diana in Wilmington. She had such plans for us for yesterday - the beach, a historic tour, out dancing, all sorts of stuff. But then it rained. And rained and rained and rained. Did I mention torrential downpour? So instead of heading to the beach, we slept in. We finally made it out to a local tavern for an early lunch, with mimosas, so we decided it counted as brunch. In the torrential rain, we walked around downtown briefly before we both called it quits.

We went back to the house, dried off, called a cab and headed for a water-front bar. That's where the wine started. Now, among cruise friends, everyone has things their known for. Diana is known for champagne parties. I'm known for red wine. Oh, and secondarily, we're both known for the other (Diana for red wine, me for champagne parties). On the Halloween cruise last year, our "official" champagne party totaled 37 bottles, and our unofficial, "low-key" champagne party totaled another 19. True story. So when we decided to hit the wine yesterday, we all knew where it was headed.

We went through 2 bottles of wine at the water front bar and then called the cab to take us over to a local tapas-style restaurant. We ate a bunch of food there and got through one more bottle of wine. One of our mutual cruise friends somehow suggested via facebook that we start making phone calls, and we totally jumped on it. We made about 20 phone calls while at the restaurant before both of our phones died. We then took a cab back to Diana's house, charged our phones and made about 10 more calls. I promised a special shout out to Phil for providing us with at least one missing phone number. We didn't get to call everyone we wanted to because we didn't have their numbers. But it sure was fun. Got to talk to a bunch of friends, even briefly.

Since we weren't able to do everything we wanted yesterday, we made up for it by going out to breakfast this morning, which pushed my departure time back 2 hours. I ended up cutting out a vineyard and one historic home I was going to go to, but I still made it to the Boone Hall Plantation. A very well done destination. I took the house tour, then the plantation tour (on a trolley that proceeds around the entire still-working farm), and then the self-guided slavery life tour. Lots of great stuff to see. There were a couple things I missed cause they were closing.

I'm staying tonight with my friend's father in Charleston, SC. After I arrived, we visited for a bit and then went out for dinner - how I missed Greek food!! And then he drove me around Sullivan's Island and the Isle of Palms. Some super neat houses out there. I'm only staying here one night - spending tomorrow in Charleston, but then leaving tomorrow evening to head further south. Hopefully this big rain storm won't derail my plans too badly.

Day 100 - Asheville to Wilmington, NC

Day 100. Who can believe it. 100 days on the road. I know it's cliche, but in some ways, it feels like forever, and in some ways it feels like yesterday. Mostly, it feels like a really long time. I feel very disconnected from my life back in Austin. I know that it's there - not waiting for me, but continuing while I'm gone. It just feels like I've been experiencing this nomadic lifestyle for so long that a sedentary (that's not really what I mean, but I think you get the point) lifestyle seems so foreign to me. In some ways, I'm looking forward to getting back to a more settled life. But it's going to be weird leaving this all in my past. I'll always keep it with me though.

So around 5:30 this morning, I woke up out of nowhere, overwhelmed with anxiety. About what, I have no idea, but there it was. My heart beating fast, mind racing a mile a minute. After a few minutes, a feeling of nausea and lightheadedness overwhelmed me. Took me a little while, but I breathed through it and after 10 minutes or so, it all passed. So weird - and not fun. I got back to sleep and ended up deciding to sleep in an extra hour in order to calm my body. So I got out of the house about 45 minutes later than planned. I also wanted to get to my final destination earlier than planned, so I skipped my first planned historic site and my first two wineries for the day.

I did end up going to the 3rd winery on my list for the day. I kinda wish that I had skipped it - the wine wasn't good and it was out of my way. I also went to the James K Polk birthplace, which was "eh." It was raining, so they weren't doing tours of the restored home. So I just saw the video about Polk, the museum, and took a picture from outside the restored buildings. I've seen enough historic homes - I can imagine what it was like inside.

The Polk site was just outside of Charlotte and the traffic getting out of the area was a bit of a nightmare. Plus it was raining. But I eventually made it out of there. A bit of a long drive, but I made it to my friend's house in Wilmington around 6:30. We went out to a local wine and olive bar for a wine tasting and then dinner. Lots of wine, a little yummy food. Perfect dinner.

Good day. Oh, I also hit 70,000 miles on my car today. That's total, not just for this trip. I think I'm at about 11,000 for the trip so far. Maybe more. I didn't keep track of what it was when I left.

Days 98 & 99 - Abingdon & Asheville, NC

Somewhat laid back day yesterday - after sleeping in until about noon, Eric showed me around Abingdon and the surrounding area. We drove up to the top of the 2nd highest mountain in Virginia. It was a pretty view. We also drove through Emory & Henry.

I left Abingdon this morning and drove down to Asheville. Only thing on the schedule was to check out the Biltmore Estate. I stayed at the Inn on the Biltmore Estate about 12 years ago for the end-of-summer celebration of my internship program with PricewaterhouseCoopers. But, for some reason, I don't think we ever did a tour of the house. That seems odd to me. Anyway, the estate is still privately owned by the Vanderbilt family, but is open to the public in order to generate the revenue to maintain the house. It's a $59 entrance fee and then an additional $10 for the audio tour. I did do the audio tour and I'm glad I did. There was very little information about each room without it. Now, I had an option to do a Volksmarch around the grounds, but from my research, it seemed pretty strenuous and was all about the gardens and whatnot - not my thing. So I skipped the Volksmarch and just toured on my own.

The house is gorgeous - one of the largest I've visited. And since it's stayed in the family since it was built, all of the furniture is original. Some of the fabrics are reproductions since the originals deteriorated over time. Only a fraction of the rooms are open. Apparently there are about 250 rooms in the mansion, but the tour only takes you past or through about 50 of them. There are some additional guided tours that go to other areas of the house, like the behind-the-scenes-life-of-a-servant tour. But $70 was expensive enough for me.

After I finished my tour of the house, I drove over to the little village that they have created on the estate. Pretty sure that none of that was there 12 years ago. There's a little museum, the wine shop, a bistro, a pub, a creamery, and a little park, in addition to some stuff for kids. It's a cute little area, definitely revenue generating. The museum, wine tasting, and kids activities are included in the price of admission. If you so desire, you can taste up to about 20 wines with your admission. I tried 8. There are an additional 12 or so premium wines that you can taste for an additional fee. I tried 3 - one of them was a Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. I absolutely fell in love with Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs out in California.

I visited the museum, which was an interesting history of this branch of the Vanderbilts, and then went over to the pub for a local beer and some fried cheese curds. I hung out there for a while chatting with the bartender for a bit and then finally headed over to my airbnb reservation for the night.

I have this cute little cottage all to myself - 2 bedrooms, one bath, kitchen, laundry facilities, and living room with cable. It's super adorable. But it's cold here at night! It was actually pretty chilly here during the day too - I don't think it ever got above 70 degrees. But I'm looking forward to curling up and sleeping well tonight. Tomorrow I get to see one of my cruise friends!!

Days 96 & 97 - Charlottesville to Abingdon

Not a ton to report over the past couple of days. I slowly made my way down to Abingdon, VA to visit an old friend of mine. On the way down, I hit a total of 6 wineries and went to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library. It's not part of the national presidential library system, which is a little weird, but it's definitely totally different than the others. His birthplace is there, but they have no original furniture, just stuff from the time frame. So it basically just seems like another historic house. There's also the attached museum, which has President Wilson's car, an exhibit about World War I trenches, a gallery of President Wilson's first wife's paintings, and an exhibit detailing President Wilson's life in chronological order. So it's not huge. It was fine though, just nothing spectacular.

Stayed at a bed & breakfast in Roanoke last night. My last official B&B on the trip. I'm staying a couple of nights with my friend in Abingdon. I totally crashed when I got here tonight for a 3 hour nap - apparently I was tired. Just hung out for the rest of the night. Good to relax.

Day 95 - Charlottesville

Charlottesville is one of the spots that I've most been looking forward to on this trip. I haven't been back here for about 10 years. I had a great day revisiting a lot of my favorite places. I encountered a lot of ghosts, some happy, some sad, but all ultimately positive.

I started out with a trip to the Corner. I got a bagel at Bodo's. Bodo's Bagels is a Charlottesville "chain." There are a couple of stores around town. The entire time I attended school here (and the 4 years prior to my attendance), the corner location had a sign on it saying "Coming Soon." So they had the property, but it took them almost 10 years to actually open. It was a long-standing joke that it would never open. So when I went there this morning for a bagel, it was pretty bizarre. I also stopped at Mincer's to buy some UVA gear - I limited myself to a pair of pants, a sweatshirt and a t-shirt. I also used this opportunity to pick up my favorite sandwich at Take-it-Away, smoked turkey and house dressing on french bread. This was the sandwich I ate on graduation day back in 2002. Yes, I remember these things. FYI - my second favorite sandwich from Take-it-Away? Tuna fish and sprouts on french bread. They also sell bags of bread ends and to-go containers of house dressing. This was one of my go-to snacks back in school.

So after I loaded up on food and supplies, I headed over to the start point for the volksmarch. Oh, one note about this particular volksmarch. About a week ago, I emailed President Sullivan (have I mentioned this yet? I can't remember) to let her know that I was coming to town and would be doing the volksmarch - she does volksmarches as well, so that's not completely random. But it was just a simple note to say hi and let her know that I was looking forward to it. And she emailed me back! She said she had just done the walk, and if she was going to be in town, she'd walk it with me, but unfortunately, she'd be out of town today. How great is that? And when I emailed her again after the walk today, she returned my email again within like half an hour. She must get a ton of emails for her job and it was great to know that she took the time out to respond to mine.

Ok, so the volksmarch. I apparently had difficulty reading directions at first and ended up doing the first serpentine pattern basically backwards, but it all worked out. The first section was historic downtown Charlottesville, which I'm a little ashamed to admit that I had never been to before. Then I walked down main street, where I used to go see Carbon Leaf play, and then through the Medical Center. The ghosts started there. My fourth-year boyfriend is, I believe, a resident at the UVA Medical Center, so there was the slimmest of possibilities of maybe, possibly, running into him. So, of course, I had to have one of my patented imaginary conversations with him regarding how our relationship had impacted the rest of my life, etc, etc. Good to think about these things - definitely giving me more to write about.

I walked past the South Lawn extension where my 4th year apartment has been torn down in order to make way for newer buildings. That apartment was so interesting - 7 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, one living room, and a spiral staircase. And yes, this was an apartment. I deviated slightly from the planned course in order to detour through the engineering school. It being a Sunday during the summer, the buildings were all locked, so I couldn't get in to see my old classrooms, but I could still walk through the courtyards. I walked past the steps where my parents took my picture after I graduated, past the spot where a friend of mine told me that the twin towers had collapsed on 9/11, through the courtyard where I received my diploma, past the place where I was loaded into an ambulance after almost passing out due to dehydration, past the loading dock where I was loaded onto another ambulance after falling down a set of stairs and cracking my chin open on the concrete landing.

I walked down past the chemistry building to the new dorms, which have been completely transformed, back past the old dorms, the physics building, and the education school. I went into the building that houses Clark Library, where there is a copy of my 4th year thesis. Again, the library was closed, so I couldn't go home to find it. I walked past the amphitheater where I saw one of my roommates get hypnotized by Tom Deluca and down past Edgar Allen Poe's Range room. I finally made it over to the Rotunda and the Lawn. I sat on the south stairs of the Rotunda, looking over the Lawn as I ate my turkey sandwich.

Side note - I'm currently watching Army Wives and in this episode, one of the women's daughters is moving into college - it happens to be UVA. And this campus that they're walking on is OBVIOUSLY not UVA. What the hell? Seriously - if you choose a Unesco World Heritage Site as the setting for your show, you can't fake that location.

Ok, back to it. The Lawn. One of my great regrets in life is not applying to live on the Lawn during my 4th year. It was partly a logistical issue - leases for off-grounds housing needed to be signed in September for the following year, but applications for the Lawn weren't until January or so. So if I waited to sign a lease in hopes that I'd get accepted, I might have been SOL in terms of housing. And if I applied for the Lawn after having already signed a lease, I'd have to find someone to take over my spot and potentially screwed over my roommates. Living on the Lawn is one of the University's biggest honors. There are 54 rooms where students originally lived when Mr. Jefferson envisioned the University. Distributed among those rooms are 10 pavilions, where staff or faculty members live. They used to also house classrooms, but all of those classrooms have been moved at this point. Some Lawn rooms are designated for specific University leaders - the president of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, etc - and most Lawn rooms are decided via the application process. So I didn't apply partially because of logistics, but most of it was because, at the time, I didn't think I'd get selected. Looking back, I wish so much that I had at least applied. I really think I would have gotten selected. I was a female engineer with a 3.6 GPA and was Tech Director of my student run theatre group at the time, and ended up being Producer my 4th year. I was basically the definition of a student-leader, but I underestimated my worth (as I've done my whole life). There's nothing I can do to go back and change that decision not to apply, but oh, how I wish I could.

I walked down the length of the lawn, to the spot where I stood at commencement. I said hi to Homer - the tradition is that before you graduate, you're supposed to streak the Lawn, starting at the Rotunda, run down to Homer, kiss his rear end, run back up to the Rotunda and look through the key hole to see the statue of Mr. Jefferson. I never did it, and that's one thing I don't regret.

I walked back up the length of the Lawn, passed around the Rotunda and sat on the steps where Rob (that 4th year boyfriend of mine) and I sat when we were either breaking up or getting back together at one point (I can't remember which, it happened so many times).

Oh hey - it's close to the end of the episode and it turns out she wasn't moving into UVA at all, so it makes sense that they don't know what it looked like.

I made a stop in Starbucks on the Corner in order to recharge my phone before walking back to my car at the downtown mall. I passed by a movie theatre where Rob and I went on a date to see Monster's Ball. PS - not a date movie.

So, overall, a great volksmarch. But I still had a couple places that I wanted to check out. I drove over to Beta Bridge. This is a bridge where students (generally) paint whatever message they have on the walls to promote or advertise. After the Virginia Tech massacre, the "Hoos for Hokies" message stayed up there for about 2 weeks, but it usually changes almost daily during the school year. I did paint it once to advertise an FYP show (couldn't tell you which one though). I drove over to Lambeth, my 2nd and 3rd year apartment, and the only housing that I had that is still standing at the University.

Next stop was the University bookstore, which I knew would be a bit of a minefield. I managed to get out of there with only $250 worth of goods, including a wine glass, a camp chair, a couple shirts, a photograph of the Rotunda, and more. I did resist buying a water bottle or a thermos, because, seriously I have enough of them. I also saw a desk where students order their class rings. I never got one, so I asked the girl at the counter about getting one for a previous year. After coming "home" tonight, I looked into it online and I'll definitely be ordering myself one just as soon as I can figure out what size my finger is (I never buy rings for myself).

A couple more stops - the site of my first year dorm, which has been torn down as well and a new, huge, air-conditioned dorm has been built in its place. Then, the Student Activities Building. Ah, the SAB. Where I learned to love theatre, I learned how to lead, and learned about teamwork. Now, I bet I would have learned these things without the SAB, but I wouldn't have learned them without First Year Players. And without the SAB, FYP likely wouldn't have had a performance space, so it stands to reason, that the SAB helped to shape me. It's a hell of a space in which to produce a show, but that's part of its charm. Only the first 3 rows of the audience can actually see anything and the house lights take about 10 minutes to warm up, at which point, it's time to take them back down to half. And we all remember the story about when clothes were hung on the water pipes in the "dressing room" and the weight of them caused the pipes to burst, flooding the building and almost forcing the show to not open. FYP could have lost everything, but the 7 Society stepped in and provided us with the funds for the repairs. (This was before my time, but it's a story of legend now.) Also, the 7 Society? One of UVA's secret societies, but that's a whole other story. If you're interested, you can check out more information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_societies_at_the_University_of_Virginia
And no, I'm not a member of any (not that I could tell you if I was for a few of them).

Final stop of the day was back to the corner to pick up my favorite sandwich from Little Johns: the Nuclear Sub with no cole slaw. Yummers. I ate it back at the house where I'm staying and then relaxed for most of the evening (and apparently took 2 hours to compose this post - I think it's my longest, but it's UVA, so that's to be expected).

So I'm leaving C-ville tomorrow. I'm sad to leave, but I hope to come back more often. I'm vowing now to make it to Reunions in 2017. I've skipped both the 2007 and the 2012 Reunions because I didn't know if any of my friends would be there. But I vow to come back regardless.