Vacation 2015 - Part 1

We did something a little different from our past vacations and added a few days in Savannah to the front of our normal trip to Myrtle Beach. 

My parents also like to take relaxing vacations. And going to a new destination and trying to find new places to stay and eat is not relaxing. Do this means we have a pretty identical vacation every year. Which is fine, but over the past few years Molly and I have had the itch to go and do and see more things when traveling. The problem is we LOVE the beach, so we don't really want to get rid of the beach trip and we don't want to take away a day of beach time to drive or do something else. 

When I'm at the beach I want to sit on the beach for all of the hours of the day and never leave. I do not like to take an afternoon and go to the mall, or the soccer store, or the teacher store, because I only get 4-6 days a year to be on the beach. I want to be out there in the sand, sun and water for all the time I can. Sometimes I don't even go in for lunch!

So for the past few years, she and I have been doing little trips in the spring. We've been to NYC, St. Pete Beach, Disney World, St. Augustine, Savannah, and Charleston all in one road trip, New Orleans, Charleston, Niagara Falls and Canada and we have so many places on our bucket list for future travels. 

Mom wanted to get in on a road trip with us and since she refuses to fly anywhere, the tropics weren't an option. We decided on a few days in Savannah and Mom booked tours and dinners and a bunch of fun things for us to do. Dad got in on the trip too when we all realized there wasn't any other way for him to get to the beach part of the family vacation without going to Savannah first. He was pessimistic about it, but ended up enjoying the tours and the history of the city and already has made comments about wanting to go to Charleston for a few days next year prior to the beach. Yay!

We left early on a Wednesday morning and traveled straight to Savannah. Molly and I took over the back seat and I can't really remember any problems. Molly likes to take advantage of being the baby of the family and take up all the room. Complete with 29,394 pillows. 

We stayed at the Embassy Suits and it was wonderful. So clean, the staff was wonderful, and they had free drinks and appetizers every day from 5:30-7:30pm! FREE! 

On Thursday, we walked down to River Street, looked at the river, visiting a few different shops and had dinner at the Cotton Exchange Tavern (awesome sweet tea, btw), went to a market, etc. About halfway through the walk, Dad headed back to the hotel and we visited Forsythe Square and a bunch of little shops. Some of my favorite shops were Saints and Shamrocks and the adorable Kitchen on the Square. 

Molly being "waving girl" along the Savannah River. 

On Friday we had tours scheduled in the evening. We had already walked a lot, so we rented bikes from their bike share program and rode around town. We went down to Forsytle Square and rode along the river too. We had to make a pit stop for sweet tea back at the Cotton Exchange Tavern. This was probably one of my favorite things we did.

Friday afternoon we went on our Paula Deen tour. I mean, what's a visit to Savannah without eating at Paula Deen's restaurant? The tour took us around the city and the driver/guide told us all about Paula's life, showed us her original home and restaurants and then the best part was that we got to eat at her restaurant at the end of the tour! The food was great. My favorites were the macaroni and the green beans. And then I had her Gooey Butter Cake for dessert. OMG....(insert angels singing here!). It was delicious.

Mom and Molly - sweet tea in hand, of course.

Daddio and me. (Paula Deen Tour - #girldadprobs)

Family Selfie

So much deliciousness on one plate.

Our waiter captured us about to explode after dinner.

After the tour ended Molly and I went back out on the town, while Mom and Dad cooled off at the hotel. It was 359 degrees outside in Savannah. I have never been so sweaty in my life. We visited the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low (founder of Girl Scouts) and the Forrest Gump bench, which actually isn't there.

A bench in the same park. 

My pretty sis.

Just a random trellis that was pretty. 

That night we went on a ghost tour of Savannah. It wasn't scary at all, it was more historical with a little ghost stories thrown in there. We visited the site where slaves were sold and how no Spanish Moss grows in the square because it doesn't grow were bad things take (took) place. We saw the "caves" where slaves were taken if they were too sick to be sold, and ultimately died. Some of the stories were about socialittes who hanged themselves because they'd blown all their money, but still haunt their old house. There were a lot of cool stories. We never got any orbs or images in any of the photos that we took, but Molly and I both saw something on her screen when the flash went off, but nothing showed up in the actual picture. 

ghosts all around us?

The picture where the 'thing' was, but then wasn't.

Sisters on a ghost hunt.

Saturday was the 4th of July! We went on a river boat cruise for lunch along the Savannah River. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it was fun. The captain told us a lot of history while we were on the cruise, which was cool.

Official Photo

Molly and Mama

Me and Papa

Mama with her girls

After the cruise, we went to Tybee Island beach and just spent a few hours in the sun. The beach was totally different from Myrtle Beach in that it was just a beach - no hotels, no lifeguards, no rules. There were also no waves, so everyone was just hanging out in the water with their drinks and then had tents set up with flags and streamers (so many Georgia Bulldog tents, yuck!).

Georgia Beach selfie.

 We had to leave the beach because it started to rain. So then we stayed in the hotel all evening. I got fidgety because I just wanted to do something. Molly and I eventually decided to walk to this train museum, but then when we got outside and realized it actually wasn't raining, just looked like it, we walked to the river to watch the fireworks. We were so frustrated because we had cute red, white, and blue outfits to wear and we were in Ohio State clothes. The fireworks were nice, we went back to this haunted tunnel where Molly freaked out on me because I wanted to go down the stairs and she was afraid of ghosts killing me, then we went back to the hotel.

Supporting the #1 football team in SEC country is American!

Sunday we drove from Savannah to Myrtle Beach and did a little pit stop in  Charleston. It was an adventure of a drive, and after lunch at Fleet Landing (so good!) and a quick walk around Battery Park, I got to drive the rest of the way to the beach. A real miracle that someone other than dad was behind the wheel. ha.

We also found this fixer upper to buy. For $5.5 million.

The haaaba (harbor) behind us, I do declare.

That's all for the first part of our vacation. The 6 days at the beach were pretty uneventful, but I have a few pictures to share later.