Weekly
Update 3/15/2020
I
had a visitor this week.
Caroline Cuff, daughter of friends from my past life, decided she’d
like to go someplace warm for her college spring break. I don’t
know if she doesn’t have any friends, or what, but she asked if she
could come to Savannah. Well, ok. Luckily I had just entertained
Jack and Sarah, so I had an inkling of what young people do. But
lets face it, Allen is probably the youngest visitor I have, and
whatever I do with him seems to be ok, because he comes back again
and again. But college kids? I haven’t a clue.
So
I planned the usual: historic places and sites. We took a tour of
Bonaventure cemetery with my friend, Don. I thought is was grand and
I think Caroline thought it was ok. We went to the SCAD Story
because she asked many questions about local colleges and
universities. She couldn’t quite understand where SCAD “is”,
and to try to explain that the city is it’s campus is confusing.
So we did that. We took the water taxi, because that’s one of my
favorite things to do, and as we were walking along the river after
the boat ride, we saw a dolphin in the river. That doesn’t happen
often! We took an evening ghost trolley tour, too, and she later
told me that was her favorite thing that she did when she was here.
Wednesday,
we drove to Jekyll Island. We took the tram tour around the historic
area and went into two of the “cottages”. We went to the Georgia
Sea Turtle Center and visited the hospital where we learned a little
about some of the turtles being cared for (most are Kemp’s Ridleys
and Green, only one Loggerhead; I was disappointed – well, not
really, if they’re all healthy and don’t need special care). And
we went to driftwood beach. Caroline had hoped to go swimming, but
it was too cold. It’s way too early in the season for me to even
think about struggling to get into a swim suit, so she would have
been on her own. We walked along the beach and picked up seashells.
I was surprised that I could see the huge container ship that
capsized last September, and still can’t be removed because of
environmental hazards.
We
were back in Savannah on Thursday. She had read about the UGA Marine
Center that’s on Skidaway Island, and wanted to know if we could go
there. Well, I assured her it would take about 5 seconds to go
through the “aquarium” there, but she was able to stretch it into
almost 2 hours. When we got downtown, I made her walk through
Forsyth Park to see the green fountain, and then we went to Massie
Heritage Center. She enjoyed the native American exhibit that is
there. We also went to the Cathedral because it’s lovely and I
hoped she would like to see the inside of that. We had reservations
for Tea With Mrs Davenport in the late afternoon, so we did that. We
arrived too early, so I could take her through the house, just like I
was a regular tour guide or something. The tea was interesting, and
I think she liked it. And following that, we took the Savannah for
Morons trolley tour. I think that’s the best tour in Savannah, but
I know she liked the ghost trolley better. For our last evening, we
had chocolate martinis at Lulu’s – that was a great treat!
Her
airplane back home was Friday morning, so I dropped her at the
airport and went to do my normal Friday routine – DH and The 90.
Kay wasn’t able to get to The 90 this week, but I felt bad for my
favorite Savannah bartender, Martha, because everything is canceled,
and this would be the week end where she would make a LOT of money in
tips. I wanted to support her, so I went for one quick Jameson before
going home.
The
rest of the weekend was pretty boring. Everything is closed. Hotel
reservations at most of the hotels were canceled. Museums are
closing left and right. The parade was canceled. On St Patrick’s
Day weekend, generally you can’t even walk down the street because
of the crowds, but it was like a ghost town. There’s also nothing
for me to do, because so much is locked up. BC Visitor Center will
not be staffed until April, and tours are canceled or postponed. I
did go and open up on Saturday and Sunday, but there were so few
people, it wasn’t worth my time to stay, and I left. Mostly, I sat
home and watched movies on tv and ate. At first, I was skeptical,
believing it was the media or the government that was fueling the
massive fears. But now that we are all taking precautions, and more
and more people are becoming sick, I wonder if this is truly a
pandemic. And I wonder how long it will last.
I
think it might be like this for a long time.
So, to ease my boredom a
bit, I bought a new tv – a Smart One for the bedroom. Naturally, I
couldn’t get it to work, but after online chatting with an
associate, I was able to connect to Netflix, Youtube and tv, and I
also got my DVD player attached successfully. If I had a microwave
in there, I’d never have to get out of bed!
One
thing that wasn’t canceled was the Harry O’Donoghue performance
at the Tybee Post Theater on Sunday night. He always has such a good
show, and it still is almost March 17, in spite of what germs there
are out there. They sold Guinness at the snack bar. I was able to
keep up on Whiskey in the Jar. The jokes were really funny.
Everything about the evening was great.
