Hilton Head - Days 2 & 3

On Thursday morning, we took the plunge, and, like almost every other holidaymaker on this island it seems, we hired bikes. It's as flat as a pancake here - no hills at all - and the bikes are all the same - no gears and no brakes - just pedal back a bit to slow down and/or stop.

It is hot, however - and very humid, so any outdoor activity is draining. We might have been a little adventurous on our first outing - especially given that this was Jo's first time on a bike since her disastrous falls last year in Oregon. She freaked out a bit at the start - the bike lanes were very busy here and she was concerned about crashing in to someone. To be fair, the bikes aren't that easy to handle either, but, eventually, Jo got the hang of things and relaxed a bit.

We cycled up to the main shopping mall 4 miles away and stopped for a coffee and a bite. Suitably refreshed and strengthened, we headed to the South Beach through the Forest Preserve. From there, we made it out all the way to the South Beach marina for more much-needed refreshments:

The journey back to our apartment wasn't too far and soon we were both down by the pool at our resort - although we didn't last long there - partly due to the fact that it was pretty busy, but mostly through the noise of all the machines repairing the hurricane damage. I'm now in touch with Marriott about the amount of work going on here - it's way more than usual maintenance and I believe they should have closed the resort to guests until the work is completed.

Our apartment is lovely and the resort would be too, if there wasn't so much work going on. It would normally be a nice tranquil spot overlooking the water:

Today, we took another short ride on our bikes - out to see the Stoney-Baynard ruins:

In the afternoon, we went on a short Dolphin cruise, which, to our surprise, was hugely successful. We must have seen 30 - 40 dolphins and on so many occasions - hundreds - and so close to our boat. It was fascinating - I swear they were playing with us. I also spotted a shark leaping completely out of the sea. We had a nice time:

Independence Day and beyond

We celebrated July 4th by setting out on a series of walks round Savannah, taking in as many of the lovely little squares as we could. In the morning, we headed towards the river and walked along the shore line as far as we could before returning to our hotel to shower again - and, in my case, have a quick dip in the pool.

We found a nearby coffee shop for lunch and then headed in the opposite direction towards the largest patch of greenery that the city has - Forsyth Park. Then back to the hotel, shower again and then hang around for a while before heading out for the evening, when we headed towards the river again - albeit by a different route, taking in more of the squares. Geometrically, of course, some of them are oblong, some circular, oval etc. (That one was for the pedants out there). We reckon we did about 15 of them, but probably missed another 9 or 10 - all of them within a short walking distance.

By the time of our evening walk, I figured I might be well enough to face a beer again - and it was July 4th, so it would have been rude not to. We tried a couple of pubs - one brewpub, Moon River Brewing, and adjacent Churchill's, which had a nice rooftop bar outside.

We'd had enough beer by now and it was time to eat before the fireworks began at 9:30 pm. We tried a couple of place along River St but the waiting times were pretty long, so we ended up in the Hyatt, where we had a lovely meal and a fine rooftop view of the fireworks.

So, time for some photos then - here's a few that didn't appear on Facebook:

This is the square where Forrest Gump sat waiting for the bus

So that was Savannah - a very pretty city indeed. Just a pity I wasn't feeling too great when we were there, but it was now time to move on to our next destination - Hilton Head Island - just an hour's drive north east across the state line in to South Carolina. We arrived there about noon - way too early for our room to be ready, of course, but we parked our car and then walked out for a bite of lunch at Harbourside Burgers and Beer at the yacht marina, adjacent to the lighthouse.

It was hot and steamy so we bought ice creams and sat on the shore front under the shade of a tree before taking a short walk along the shore. There were shells everywhere - oysters, razor clams, mussels, scallops.

When we got back to our resort, our apartment was ready so we took in our luggage and then drove off to the grocery store to stock up for our 5 nights here. It's like a building site as they rush to repair the damage from the October hurricane before the next hurricane season. Thankfully, the workers knocked off at 6 pm and didn't start again this morning until 9 am, so we had a peaceful evening on our balcony looking out towards the ocean, albeit through some trees.

The staff tried to make light of the building work with a gift for us:

Jo bemoans the quantity left in the bottle:

USA 2017

Greetings from Savannah, Georgia on the eve of Independence Day. I'm sitting in our room, feeling a bit sorry for myself as I've got a bit of a dicky throat, which I initially thought was just a reaction to the air conditioning in our room in Atlanta and/or the flight over here, but I now think it's some kind of bug I've picked up. I'm dosing it with throat sprays and lozenges and hopefully it'll disappear soon - like the red marks on my legs from the bites I've had. Anithistamines, paracetomols and my usual array of drugs - I'm a walking chemical factory.

A feature of our visit to the south west has been the afternoon rain - some of it pretty heavy, with the worst yesterday - we had to take shelter in a multi-storey car park as the lightning and thunder crashed round about us and the water poured everywhere with the storm drains backing up, unable to cope with the huge deluge.

Anyway, in chronological order, here's the story so far. Flight over a little delayed, but otherwise OK. The seats in World Traveller Plus were fine for a daytime flight, but I'm not sure about the return overnight trip. Slow immigration clearance, but the taxi ride to our hotel was short and quick and we checked in, dumped our bags and went for a quick beer before bed.

Friday morning was a short stroll through the Olympic Centennial Park to Coca-Cola World, which was much more entertaining than it sounds. We managed to spend virtually the whole morning there without getting bored. Atlanta was the birthplace of the product and the locals are very proud of that fact. Jo said here best bit was the sampling of all the different Coke products from all round the world - each continent had a feature of maybe a dozen different drinks. I liked watching the old adverts - including probably the most famous I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing from 1971.

We had lunch at the Hard Rock on Peachtree - some translation problems - the waiter thought Jo said Red Bull when what she wanted was Rebel (IPA).
In the afternoon we went to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which was a bit of a harrowing experience, especially the bit where you sit at the lunch counter, shut your eyes and put the headphones on and hear - and feel - the sort of abuse that "coloreds" used to have to undergo in the South - in our lifetimes too. Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis, but, as a native of Atlanta, his funeral was held there and there are many memorials around the city.

We had dinner at a nice brewpub - Max Lager's - in the evening. The plan on Saturday was to stretch our legs and walk to Piedmont Park and the Botanical Garden. It should have been about 3 miles there and the same back, but we couldn't find the Botanical Garden at first and must have walked at least 7 or 8 miles in the steamy heat. At least we had a nice brunch at the street market first of all:

Dinner on Saturday night was at the Juke Joint, just around the corner from our hotel. We were one of the few caucasians there. We had a good seat and Jo enjoyed the "fashion parade" as the customers filed past us.

On Sunday morning, we packed and took a cab back to the airport to pick up our hire car to take us on the 4-5 hour drive to Savannah. Fairly uneventful and not a lot to see - just miles and miles of tree-lined dual carriageways. We stopped at Subway somewhere to grab a sandwich lunch and also stopped at a place called Metter to use the facilities:

It was Sunday and it was a holiday weekend, so even the visitor centers/centres were closed.

We have a nice room at Springfield Suites and it seems everywhere in Savannah is walkable. Once yesterday's storm abated, we had a couple of beers - one at a Scottish pub (awful), and another couple at World of Beers, where we got chatting to a nice couple - Kyle and Kelly, I think? He was a "soccer" fan who follows Man Utd and, would you believe, Glasgow Rangers! We then walked down to River Street and chose a seafood restaurant for dinner.

This afternoon and evening have been a write off, spent in our room, but we went on one of the historical trolley tours this morning., taking in a short stroll along River St, where the paddle steamer was loading up:

Hope I'm feeling better for tomorrow's big celebrations.