Savannah Bucket List

There are like a million pros and cons to living in a place that people love to vacation in.  One of the pros is that at any time, you can do a staycation and not even have to pay for a hotel (even though it's more fun to stay downtown, it's way cheaper to just pay for parking and come home to a cute puppy!)  Since we dropped the ball on going out of town and gas costs 4 bucks a gallon anyways, we decided to make a bucket list of things to do in Savannah and try and do them all with the money we wouldn't be spending on a hotel and gas.  Here's our list:

Yesterday morning, we took Jake to the dog park first thing and got him plum tuckered out since he'd be alone for more than a few hours.  He has a bff named Lucius that seems to be there when we're there most of the time and they have a ball.  Yesterday, it was a ball over a blue squeaky ball.  Jake ended up victorious...

He likes to close his eyes when I take pictures of him. It's like he knows exactly when I'm taking them. Anyways, we ventured out after that and found the best parking in Savannah.  10 hours for 3 dollars! It wasn't even far from everything! 

We decided our first stop would be the Temple Mickve Israel.  This place is in my favorite square (Monterey) and we go by it pretty much every time we go downtown.  I didn't even know they did tours til I went on TripAdvisor after a Saturday night fiasco with a "haunted tour".  We learned so much about this great place and the women there that run the tours are amazing!  I also learned a thing or two about Judaism which was cool.  Here are a few pictures:

Our second stop was to have tea at the Gryphon Tea Room.  We decided instead of doing high tea, we thought we'd just share a pot and have some dessert for a mid afternoon snack.  The hostess, who turned into our waitress, was really nice and informative on the different teas and desserts.  We had a lovely time relaxing and people watching.  

One lump, or two?

Pinkies out!

Cute way of presenting the check

Beautiful Building the Gryphon is in

After that, we hopped on a pedicab and took a 30 minute tour of the city.  Our bike driver was cool, I couldn't hear half the things he was saying because he was facing away from us and paying attention to traffic. (which is good!) But it was nice to just sit back and enjoy the perfectly awesome day we'd had.  

We ended the day with a trip to Isle of Hope where Hubs helped FIL with pressure washing the boat while Jake and I took a leisurely run through the neighborhood.  Jake was a little bit of a brat, but we had fun nonetheless.  

How can you not smile at this picture?

Mega Update

I know it's only been about 5 days since my last post, but I feel like a million things have happened!

First things first, I'm on spring break! Well, the kids I watch are on spring break and traveling so I have the week off.  Hubs and I had grandiose ideas of what to do during our mutual week off and have ended up staying in Savannah.  The Georgia mountains didn't happen because by the time we got our schedules together, the cabin we were going to rent had been rented out already.  <Sad face>

Saturday was my first run with the Savannah Striders.  I was super nervous that I would left in the dust and completely lose the fact that part of the reason I joined was to meet people.  While a 10:30/mile is exceedingly good for me, most people I know go at least 2-3 minutes faster than that.  My fears couldn't be farther from the truth.  Everyone was so nice as I walked up and introduced themselves.  We started our run through Isle of Hope and I was starting to be left in the dust.  But I ended up running with a really nice woman who had about the same pace, and wanted to go 6 miles like me! I'm not normally a talker but for some reason I talked a lot.  It made the time go by so fast and we were keeping up a great pace.

Afterward, I was invited to the after run breakfast at the Mid-Town Deli.  I decided to join them and had a great time talking with everyone and chowing down on a breakfast sandwich and drinking my chocolate milk.  Overall, I'm already feeling like the membership fee has paid for itself.  I know that I will do at least one run a week with them and it will keep me motivated during the gross summer months that feel like they'll never end.

The next day, Easter, was awesome.  Hubs and I went to church in our Easter Sunday best and our favorite restaurant (ie the one we got married at) was open for a Sunday brunch! Here's a couple pictures from the day... sunrise and after brunch.

That's about all I want to update for now. Hubs and I had a great day downtown yesterday, but that deserves it's own post so it will follow shortly after! 

Dear Charleston, We're Through.

It's been fun. Really. Two years ago when I first visited you, I thought we were going to get along great.

You were ok.

I didn't really love you, but you weren't horrible. I even thought, "Doing the Cooper River Bridge Run would be a great second trip to Charleston, surely they would roll out the red carpet for this event." Well, maybe it was just the year or maybe I just have high standards, but this race was not my fave.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:50.  We were about two miles away from the starting line so I figured this would be more than enough time to get up, eat, and get myself pumped up.  It was great. I never felt better about my morning routine.

Ready for the race!

Breakfast of Champions

Traffic to the start line was pretty heavy... I still wasn't deterred. I was excited. This was the biggest race I've ever run in. All these people were just gonna help me on the way to bridge run greatness! I walked around, found my corral: I. Then I jogged a bit to run off some nervous energy and waited in the corral starting at 7:45.  

That says 9:30.

And I am about 400 meters from the start line.  After a series of a very annoying woman saying, "30 seconds to go" "1 minute to go" "We'll start in 10 minutes", and a man saying "Put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care!" repeatedly, we finally got started... An hour and a half late.  I was hungry, annoyed, hot, dehydrated and had 6.2 miles to run, 3 of those over a very tall, very steep bridge. 

I decided to just run my own race. There wasn't much I could do about it now that we had actually started so I just ran. Around the top of the bridge, I started feeling gross. We were almost to the 4 mile marker and had only had one water stop. In 80 degree weather. 

 

                                                        Soooo Thirsty

I understand you don't want debris in the river, but we didn't want to start an hour and a half late. I just pushed through it and got water at every station after that. There were misters which were really helpful near the end too.  I finished at 1:09:46 which is pretty respectable for the shape I was in at the start. 

My plan was to go to the finish party and then take a shuttle back to Mount Pleasant.  I didn't even care at that point.  I saw some ladies from the Savannah Striders. (They wear bright orange shirts, it's hard to miss them!) Introduced myself to them and headed straight for the shuttles. I wanted to get home, take a shower and a long nap.  Which is exactly what I did.

Smiling after all the crazy. I earned this shirt!

Later that night, Hubs and I were able to spend some time with family to celebrate FIL's 65th birthday.  It being March 31st and all, it was a perfect night to enjoy the steak, scalloped potatoes, rolls and an amazing Tempranillo before the dreaded April 1st came along and all that stuff would be off limits.  This is the view FIL and his wife have at their house.  It was like Savannah was welcoming me back from the big bad Charleston...

 Not too shabby

 And here is the delicious chocolate cake we partook in for dessert:

Mmmm, chocolate-y

We had a great day yesterday, went to church for Palm Sunday, took the pup to the dog park, got all our errands done and took a nice long nap.  Back to the grind, but we're heading to the mountains after Easter service and I couldn't be more excited! I'm a mountain girl. The coast is cute and fun, but the mountains are adventurous and exciting. 

So, sorry Charleston (and sometimes Savannah) but you'll always be a destination and the place I ran over a bridge once, not a place that's awesome...