Travel Time: Atlanta + Savannah

Sorry I’ve been MIA over the past couple of weeks! The week of Memorial Day flew by with our time at the lake, working, and packing for vacation. We left on June 1st for our yearly Fripp trip with my family, but first we made a couple of stops in Atlanta and Savannah.

I had scheduled a follow-up visit at Emory (where I had my back surgery done) for June 1st at 2 PM, so I figured while we were stopping in Atlanta, we might as well check out the Bodies Exhibit. Travis wasn’t all that excited at going to see a bunch of dead bodies, but he appeased me and even woke up at 5 AM so we could leave the house by 6:15! What a great husband I have! We drove to Atlanta and headed straight for Atlantic Station where the Bodies Exhibit was. It was so cool! Of course, Travis wanted to read everything, so we spent close to 2 hours going through the exhibit. It’s really amazing how our bodies work!! Especially to see human cadavers and real organs and blood vessels. One of the neatest parts of the exhibit was seeing a “healthy” lung and a smoker’s lung in side-by-side displays. Of course, the smoker’s lung was black and nasty looking. In the middle of those displays was a glass box for people to throw away their cigarettes, and tons of people had thrown theirs away! I think the exhibit was worth waking up early for, and Travis agreed!

We grabbed sandwiches at Which Wich (it was our first time eating there, and we just found out that one is opening in Madison…yay!!), and then we headed to my appointment. That didn’t take too long (and they said everything looked good), so we were on the road headed for Savannah by mid-afternoon. Savannah is about 4 hours from Atlanta, so we got there just in time to eat a late supper before crashing at our hotel for the night.

We left our hotel Saturday morning and headed for Savannah’s Historic District. We spent all morning just walking around and checking out the area. It was such a nice day! There were lots of people out walking around and sitting in the parks. We loved looking at all of the old houses and buildings.

It was so nice walking in the shade of those trees!

Old Cotton Exchange building

One of the squares

Owens-Thomas House

Garden in the back of the house

The part of the day I was most looking forward to was lunch, of course! We had an 11 AM reservation at The Lady and Sons, Paula Deen’s restaurant. When we walked up to the restaurant, there were a ton of people standing on the sidewalk across the street. Apparently, they all had reservations too! We stood around until our names were called, and then we were given a ticket to go inside.

There were multiple floors of dining inside, and we were told to go to the first floor. We both decided to get the buffet, and it was definitely the right choice! Oh. My. Talk about yummy, fattening comfort food. It was everything you think of when you think of Paula. Fried chicken, baked chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, lima beans, candied yams, biscuits, hoecakes, etc. Plus, a salad bar and dessert. We were SO FULL when we left, and I didn’t even feel like we’d eaten that much. I guess it was all the butter!! It definitely lived up to my expectations, and I’d love to go back again sometime :)

YUMMMMMMMMM

After lunch, we waddled out of the restaurant and tried to burn off some calories by walking to the other parts of the historic district we hadn’t seen yet. We found the square where Forrest Gump’s bench used to be. We also walked over to Forsyth Park, which seemed like a bigger version of the Quad. People were everywhere just enjoying the nice day.

After hanging out in the park for a while, we started walking back to our car. We found a really pretty building on our way back. It’s actually one of Savannah College of Art and Design’s buildings. My pictures don’t do it justice!

Finally, we got back to our car and left Savannah behind. I wish we’d had more time to look around, but that just means we’ll have to go back a second time!