Burned out but beautiful, home stretch

So we rolled into Savannah at a half decent time, about 5:45 which isn’t bad considering we again hit multiple episodes of dead stop traffic on I-95.  Cindy booked us a room at a Clarion.  It said it was newly renovated and it definitely was.  The lobby and public areas looked really nice.  The room looked pretty overhauled as well, except for the smell.

The second you entered the room it just felt moist with a distinct mildew smell.  Otherwise the room seemed ok although Cindy found a stray pube in the bathtub and a few gross spots on the shower curtain.  At this point I could care less, it was our last night on the road as long as the bed and tv worked, great.  Oh wait, the tv didn’t work either, oh well.

We were only in the room briefly before heading back out to ride and sight see around the historic Savannah area.  We parked around the largest park in Savannah called Forsyth Park, it looked like a great spot to roll around in.  We immediately were accosted by a group of kids that wanted to know about the wheels as well as “ride” them.  Cindy and I took turns letting about 6 or 7 kids get on the wheels while we held them and the wheel upright.

The park was very beautiful with huge oak trees covered in hanging moss.  Once again we found ourselves inadvertently riding in sections of the path that were marked as pedestrians only.  We rerouted ourselves to the outer portion of the park where there didn’t seem to be the same restriction.

We also ventured a little out of the park down some of the nearby streets.  Cindy really enjoyed the old architecture.  Everywhere you looked there was something worth seeing.

After the ride Cindy wanted to go park near the waterfront and walk around.  I was without a doubt lacking enthusiasm about the prospect.  I told Cindy I was pretty burned out at this point by the frustrations of the trip.  However I knew Cindy really wanted to see this stuff so I did my best to just mellow out.

As we walked to the waterfront I felt my mood lightening.  The area was just very cool with a mix of brand new high end hotels with 150 year old brick buildings that creates quite an interesting landscape.  There were a number of street performers , all of which seemed good in their own way as they hoped their performance would inspire onlookers to throw a buck in their tip jars.

We enjoyed a great dinner in the Boar’s Head Grill and Tavern which was in one of those very old buildings.  Seeing the old structure inside, repurposed for dining was just very interesting to me.  Before the food arrived I passed the time just looking around between sips (gulps) of my Miller Lite.  The beer helped me chill out further.

It was getting a little late and we planned to set an alarm to push out early this morning for Naples.  We returned to our damp room and did our best to get a pseudo-solid night’s sleep.

So we woke up as planned and got everything packed up, figuring we could load the car and then take advantage of the free continental breakfast that starts at 6AM.  There was one problem, it didn’t start at 6, it started at 7.  Every other hotel we stayed at on the trip had their breakfast service start at 6 so we made a faulty assumption it would be the same this time.

Well we weren’t going to twiddle our thumbs for an hour so we decided to just grab breakfast along with our coffee at Dunkin Donuts.  As we sat at our table there was a weird situation where some woman stood at the front door and was saying negative things about one of the employees, including something about not patronizing the location as long as that employee was there.  After the disgruntled woman left Cindy heard the DD staff saying something about that woman being a prostitute, wow.

We have been in hammer down mode for today’s drive, sacrificing MPG for speed.  We now sit about 90 minutes from home base.  It can’t come soon enough.  Even though there have been many memorable, important, and cool aspects of the trip, overall, the trip was the worst Cindy and I ever have taken.  We went into it knowing going this route during summer could be problematic, congested, and expensive, I just didn’t think it would be to the degree it turned out to be.

I ALWAYS take at least one or two days after returning from a road trip to get life back in order but due to work responsibilities that will not be the case this time.  I will be back in the office bright and early tomorrow morning.  Another adventure is in the books.

Today is the three year anniversary of my mom’s passing.  It’s ironic we finally spread her ashes so close to the sad anniversary in our lives.  Hopefully she is happy, wherever that may be.