Where the White Things Are: Savannah Finale: A Tour and Tybee

Friday, May 13th came in two parts: a tour of a historic building in the morning and an afternoon on the beach at nearby Tybee Island.

On Friday morning, we ate breakfast together at the darling Mirabelle Café (where I discovered that lavender and lemon curd topped waffles and fresh strawberry lemonade go surprisingly well together). After breakfast, we walked to the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters, where we split up. Em and Dani went shopping while Alivia, Mel, and I took the 45 minute guided tour of the historic house.

The Owens-Thomas House

Normally guided tours are longer than they need to be, if you ask me. When I worked as a historic interpreter and gave 45 minute guided tours of the Daniel Boone Home waaay back when, I thought the tour was too long. But a tour was the only way to see the historic Owens-Thomas house, and I was curious how the tour would incorporate slavery into its narrative, so I paid my $22 and took the tour with Mel and Alivia.

The tour was excellent. We didn't stay anywhere too long and the stories that were told did not seem to have the borderline sensational bent that is far too common in historic tours. I felt like I could clearly see the parts that were maybe a tad embellished, so I didn't feel hoodwinked or anything by our tour guide. The honesty in the tour language was excellent. It was refreshing to have a history told equally from both the perspective of the wealthy white homeowners and the people they enslaved. That is how history needs to be taught. We can't ignore or erase slavery by only focusing on the lives of white people in US history; we need to research to learn the stories of all people and then tell all of those stories. This tour did that beautifully.

For lunch on Friday, we went to Huey's down by the river, for some more southern cooking. We had melt-in-your-mouth beignets with praline sauce as an appetizer/dessert, and I'm converted. Who needs donuts anyways? After lunch, we hiked the mile-plus back to our apartment to change clothes for the BEACH! It was supposed to thunderstorm all afternoon, but the sun came out and it ended up being a gorgeous day, so we took advantage of it. On our way back to the apartment, we stopped at E. Scraver's Bookstore to browse the eclectic little rooms that had three cats living among the used and new books. We also stopped at the SCAD Shop, where students from the Savannah College of Art and Design sell their artwork. It was neat to see the local art scene.

We rode an Uber 20 minutes out to Tybee Island and quickly found an open patch of sand to set up camp. We brought ridiculously tiny white bath towels from our rental apartment and laid them down on the sand. We took turns wading in the warm ocean. Mel and I collected seashells and hopped waves. My favorite thing about the beach is how free I feel when I'm there--it just feels so FUN and NEW and vacation-ish! Easy to let go, relax, and enjoy nature. Dani and I went on a short 2 mile barefoot beach jog together on the hard sand right by the water. The sand looked hard, and often was firm under our feet, but every now and then it got all sloppy and sucked our feet in. It was a tiring beautiful refreshing run!

A few hours later, once we had our fill of the beach, we walked into town and got some sushi. I was skeptical because I prefer my meat cooked, but it wasn't too bad. We went to another restaurant to get Alivia some real dinner (she likes sushi less than even I do), then walked and walked and walked on the beach and on the sidewalk back to a place where an Uber driver could easily meet us. It was dark when we got back to Savannah.

Alivia, exiting the Mirabelle cafe with style and grace.

Climbing jasmine vines never ceased to enchant me.

Palm trees and Spanish moss outside St. John's Cathedral.

A Tour of the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters:

Waiting for our tour to begin in Oglethorpe square out in front of the Owens-Thomas House.

This wall in the slave quarters had a block for every enslaved person owned by the families that lived in this house during the years of legal slavery. Historians have researched as many of these people's names as possible, and carved them into the wood blocks. This was an especially powerful wall because even though so many enslaved people's names were lost over time, they still have a space on the wall in the form of a blank wood block. Every person takes up space and matters, named or not.

Pleasure garden, added after slavery ended and this yard was no longer a work area used by enslaved people. Another part of this tour that really stuck out to me was when our tour guide explained the total cost of a human being in modern terms, accounting for inflation. A single enslaved human cost $40,000 in modern money, and over the course of their servitude they generated $400,000 of wealth for the enslaver.

[Side note: I appreciated that the tour made a careful distinction in vocabulary that fit in with all of the study and reading I've done about racism and its roots in America: use the word enslaved instead of slave, because they were not by definition slaves; they were humans who were enslaved. Use the word enslaver rather than master because master puts too much distance between the horrible thing that white men were doing by enslaving human beings.]

View of Oglethorpe square from the front windows inside the house.

Mel, climbing the ornate, original, historic stairs.

We liked this bridge upstairs.

Standing in the first indoor plumbing bathroom in the USA! The toilet and sink aren't there anymore, but the marks on the wall show where they were! This house got indoor plumbing before the White House. The homeowner ended up creating the basic underground pipe plan for the entire city of Savannah. He purchased two enslaved men who were mechanics, to care for his new indoor plumbing. Our tour guide pointed out that these two enslaved men were the first plumbers in US history, and they had to learn on the job!

The first bathroom in the country sure was narrow!

Outside the Owens-Thomas House. I should've taken a picture of the slave quarters, but I was so enthralled by the information and presentation of the tour that I forgot about pictures.

Friday Lunch at Huey's:

Beignets: hot, sweet, and melt in your mouth.

Lunch at Huey's! I tried a muffuletta sandwich and it was enormous.

Even the bathroom door at Huey's was nifty.

As the sun shine brighter and the sky got bluer, the trees became more magical and majestic.

Spanish moss catches and filters sunlight in a very unique ethereal way.

The massive pink wall at the SCAD Shop. I couldn't get a picture of the entire tall wall, but I loved the bright colors and eclectic mix of styles, mediums, and designs on display.

This mixed-media horse painting was fascinating--the more I looked, the more I saw.

Sister picture in Forsythe Park, with the beautiful white fountain peeking between Em and Mel's heads.

Friday afternoon at the beach on Tybee Island

Hello, Atlantic Ocean!

Beach-giddy is a special kind of giddiness.

The last time Mel and I went to the beach together was 17 years ago in San Diego after Em's wedding. Mel was only 10, I was 19. While we were wading in the ocean, we accidentally stepped off of a sand bar into deep water and found ourselves being pulled away from shore by an undertow or riptide. (Is there a difference? The ocean is scary!) I lifted little Mel's hips, launched her like a torpedo back towards the safety of the shallow sand bar and told her to swim as fast as she could. Then I joined her mad paddle and we managed to snag the edge of the sand bar and return to safety. We decided to build a sand castle instead of swim after that. On Tybee Island, Mel and I reminisced and shuddered over that scary memory and felt very happy to stay in shallow water together.

Em and Mel engineered a jumping picture--it took a ridiculous number of attempts to get all of us in the air for this, haha. Even my photo-enthusiasm began to wane with all of the attempts. Also, this picture makes it look like the beach was empty, but it was not. It was quite crowded, a fact that made taking repeated jumping pics even more awkward, haha.

Laughing and acknowledging our own silliness.

My pretty seashells! I brought them home and gave them to my kids.

Vacationing.

Beach run! My feet are still smooth, soft, and extra exfoliated five days later. That southern humidity does awesome things to my hair whisps.

We don't agree on everything, we all have different lives and personalities and careers, but we are still SISTERS and that bond is real. I love these ladies so much.

Virgin daiquiris felt like a good idea after our afternoon at the beach.

A long walk along the beach in the sand. Our legs were all already sore from all of the walking we did in Savannah, and then we went and hiked through soft sand. We seriously walked so much on this trip--at least 20,000 steps per day. We talked about frivolous things but also dove deeper many times. My favorite conversations were about general conference talks we liked, how to fit in husband-time with kids in the mix, and once we took turns each saying 3+ things we love about each other. True sister bonding!

Sunset on the beach boardwalk. I am a true westerner now because it seemed SO FOREIGN when the sun did not set on the ocean.

Goodbye, beach!

Saturday Travel Day

Saturday morning before we left for the airport, we ordered smoothies at a nifty cafe with a double decker bus inside. The cafe was SUPER slow and it took nearly an hour for us to get our smoothies! After that long wait, we checked out of our rental apartment and took our luggage to Forsythe Park to check out the Saturday morning farmer's market. It was a small row of tents selling local foods, but Mel, Dani, and I sampled the jalapeno honey and bought some in adorable tiny bears. We also sampled several flavors of roasted pecans and bought the classic sugared pecans in a tiny cute baggie. It was a little touristy, but also a lot of fun.

We grabbed lunch at Clary's Cafe (the closest restaurant we could find), and then caught an Uber to the airport. While we were waiting at the airport, we crunched the numbers and divided up the shared costs of the trip so we all paid equally for plane tickets, lodging, and Uber transport. It came out to $826 per person. Not cheap, but not horrible for a 4 day trip across the country--100% worth it to spend fun carefree time with my sisters!

My trip home was lengthy. I had a total of six hours on two planes, plus a 3 hour layover in Denver and a 1 hour drive home from the Pasco airport. I got home at 11pm local time and felt like a zombie after 4 days of late nights and travel. This trip was SO FUN. It came right after the peak of the busy track season, and it felt amazing to just get away for a few days. Even though I came home physically exhausted, I was emotionally refreshed. As much as my family relies on me, they were just fine while I was away from home.

We are already looking forward to next year's sister trip!