Just kidding. Not really. All things considered, I have Florida on my mind, but we went to Georgia next. First stop was a delightful little spot called Polly’s BBQ (exit 58 on Highway 75, Townsend). Polly is an enterprising lady who, with her husband runs a Chevron Station with two big smokers out front and serves up some mighty terrific bbq pork sandwiches with a choice of sides- we chose the baked beans and potato salad. I read about it on yelp, as we were nearing Peach World, where Rick had to stop to buy more boiled peanuts. Anyway, Polly also bottles her own peach salsa, and corn relish and preserves and baby beets, and so many other wonderful looking things. And yes, of course I bought some. Polly was a hoot!

We made it to Savannah, which had a kind of carnival atmosphere with the 4th of July activities. Okay, carnival atmosphere is being kind. It was like Disneyland on a holiday weekend. The hotel prices never came down below the $300-$550 per night range in the Riverfront area. Aaannnddd, we are both way to frugal for that kind of nonsense. So we wandered around, had a cold beer and regrouped. Time to go to plan B. Wound up staying about 40 miles outside of Savannah, which was, I admit extreme, but that blasted city was so pricey for the weekend that Days Inn was charging $200. Uh, no thank you, and Hinesville, here we come. That place was so crowded too, that we got there and they said they ran out of rooms. I was totally stunned. I said, wow, I don’t really know what to do. This has never happened to me before when getting a room through Priceline. The two very nice ladies, said wait, let’s see what we can do, and they released a room that just had a new a/c unit installed that day. (Which was exactly what I needed, as it was ungodly hot and humid) Thank you, Miss Kathrina and Miss Val at Country Inn! You went above and beyond! And you avoided seeing a grown woman cry. They told me they turned away a lady right before I got there, who started yelling and screaming and cursing……whew! The best thing about this hotel, other than the aforementioned nice ladies, was the coin operated laundry. So while the rest of you saw fireworks, we were doing laundry and watching the fireworks on television. As Rick said, I’ve seen plenty of fireworks. Ditto.

We left bright and early the next morning and headed back to Savannah for a full day of sightseeing. The place had already emptied out quite a bit. We had an excellent lunch at the Olde Pink House, which came highly recommended. And rightfully so. I had a BLT salad which was fried green tomatoes layered with bacon which had been baked with brown sugar and mixed greens tossed with a house-made buttermilk herb dressing. Served in a tower….and accompanied by a Pink Lady-raspberry vodka and pink lemonade. I won that round on ordering. Rick got fried chicken, which was good, but he makes a better one himself!  We went to two museums and an old mansion tour. And then it started to rain. A lot. And it continued to rain all the way to Hilton Head where we had two nights reserved at a beautiful resort on the ocean……