I should clarify, Savannah is not sleepy, we are. After spending an adventurous day traveling through two of our nation’s busiest airports: 4 gate changes, one security gate closure, circumnavigating the entire Phoenix airport before 5:00 am, a vending machine sandwich, which was one day from expiring, as our only meal, well you get the idea. We were glad to arrive, meet up with our friends Cat and Mark, and have a traditional southern dinner of take out Thai food.

We spent the day with our infrared cameras in hand, walking through Savannah’s many squares. We didn’t walk through ALL 22 historic squares, but after 3 hours it felt like we came close. We started not in a square, but the large Forsyth Park. Peter had a fountain and a few statues he wanted to see, and I took about 352 photos of the large oak tree lined sidewalks. Walking through squares with children playing and throwing footballs, and people watching life go by, and oak trees hosting large drippy fragments of moss, made me wonder if my suburban life-style is missing out on some communal element of life. But who am I kidding? As the baseball hat we walked by later insightfully declared “I like wine and three people”.

As with all things on vacation, we quickly acclimated and started to get picky. Not all squares are the same. Some squares felt like enlarge sidewalk surrounds, which prompted the question, “what does an undeveloped grassy area need to qualify as a square?”. In essence, what makes a square a square? A bench? A stature? A large oak? An old timey lamp in the shape of a lantern? An urn with a fern? It appears finding consensus on this critical question is elusive. What is my definition you may wonder? So kind of you to ponder. I think to receive the noteworthy square designation, it must be a beautiful grassy area with curving sidewalks that culminate in a central feature (fountain, statue, obelisk, I’m not picky), shaded by large oaks with a couple of park benches. QED.

We took a detour from the park parade, and explored Colonial Cemetery. It was like walking through a thin slice of American history. Many soldiers from the revolutionary war are buried here. The burial sites were 18th century brick table tombs. Strangely cylindrical shaped, but not terribly photogenic (I forgot to snap a picture of them). If I’m being honest, I was too busy looking for angel statues and the famous “Bird Girl”, but there were no statues in this cemetery, and Peter reminded me that the Bird Girl was moved to a museum which is closed on Mondays.

Many other important historical figures that you may not be aware of are also buried here under plain flat unassuming stone slabs – like Edward Green Malbone, American’s foremost painter of miniatures, and James Johnston, Georgia’s first newspaper publisher and printer.

Access to restrooms can but a bit difficult in this area. When I started eyeing a port-a-potty on a construction site, I decided I needed to get more proactive about finding a place that would actually let me use the bathroom even after I bought something. This is how I discovered, and consumed my first bubble tea. How did I live so long without one?!?!?! I’m typically a wine and water type of gal, but this bubble/boba tea thing has opened my eyes to a bevy of beverages I need to try.

I wasn’t able to watch her make the whole thing, I was too distracted by the hair barrettes with large cloth stuffed shapes like hamburgers and Christmas trees… and the extensive fake nail assortment…and a bunch of other quirky things not related to food or beverages. I think she used four different machines, that took their own sweet time making my unique concoction. They came with a clever sealed plastic top that you had to puncture with a weapon shaped straw. I am still trying to figure out how Green Milk Tea can have whole milk, but they use non-dairy milk powder. This is a rabbit hole for another day.

When I told Cat about my discovery, she gave me the “what rock have you been living under look, everyone loves those”, and then informed me my drink had 5,396 calories. Bubble tea “bubble” officially busted. We were off to lunch now that I had desert first.

We went to a traditional southern restaurant on the river. After eating my first friend green tomato on cheesy corn grits, I decided that the southerners know how to do vegetarian right. Mark was the only one brave enough to order the fried catfish on grits, as those fish look downright menacing. He was informed that the restaurant farms their own catfish. I then started to ponder what does that really mean? Does the owner have a pond in his back yard that he stocks with catfish, and then “harvests” them every time a customer orders one? Or did they have a designated spot on the river we were just walking along and they just pulled them out as they needed them? After a somewhat brief mental tangent while everyone else was debating the merits of hiking along the crater of an active volcano in Sicily (next year’s trip), I decided I was meant to be a vegetarian. Peter on the other hand, has officially left the land of the Sonoran hot dogs, and decided to sample every fried chicken dish there is available.

Karma saved us from going to the chocolate desert and wine bar after lunch (it wasn’t open yet. Southerns must have etiquette rules around elaborate chocolate sweets before 5:00 on a Monday). I tried to get people excited about going to the Prohibition Museum (the only one in the US apparently) because you could buy a combo ticket that included a free cocktail (the irony), but after reading some more about it, I decided it was too campy even for me. And I’m the type of person who LOVED The Thing.