Peter bounced back quickly after our slow day, and was using his drill sergeant voice with me before 8:00 AM (is quiet time before 8:00 no longer sacred?). He wanted to be in the car and off to our first stop before 9:00. It does take me a little while to get all parts of my system engaged and firing for the day. The breakfast conversation about, “at what point do the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales cross?”, gave my brain a short circuit and almost sent me back to bed in an attempt to reboot the entire day. The answer, by the way, is -40 degrees.

Note: there will be a lot of “tree talk” in today’s post. Depending on the time of day you are reading this, grab a beverage and a lounge-worthy spot on the couch. Buckle up, it’s bound to be a sleeper and you will want to take full advantage of the insomniatic pull of my “tree droning”.

By 9:03 we were headed to the Wormsloe Historic Site. While the word “worm” brings to mind creepy crawlies wiggling around in the dirt, the name means something much more majestic in 1800’s Welsh. Dragon’s Mound. The State Historic Service knew the meaning of the name, but had no earthly idea why Noble Jones gave this 900 acre piece of land that particular name.

Which is curious, because Noble Jones came over in1733 on the Anne and was one of the first inhabitants of Georgia. His descendants are the only family in the country to reside on one piece of land the entire time they have been in the USA. I kept wondering, “where are all the journals and letters that people used to write?”. I mean you own 900 acres, wouldn’t you have a library or at the very least an old dusty attic full of stuff?

Speaking of 900 acres, in 1973 the family gifted all but 55 acres to the state of Georgia. Similar to what Kayce Dutton did with Yellowstone Ranch. We walked by their house and saw an RV out front and decided “Yep, they must still live here!”.

Peter declared that Wormsloe has the most photogenic tree tunnel he’s ever seen. 404 live oak trees were planted 60 feet apart down the road. The spacing was just perfect enough to encourage the branches to arc over the road to maximize sun exposure, intertwine, and form a canopy. The oaks are almost 150 years old and will live to 500 years, with some as long as 900 years. That is commitment to a landscape design – for generations to come. They dug all these holes by hand. This was definitely not a “Mary wild assed gardening project”, where I randomly throw a few things on the ground – holes and fertilizer optional – and then display some uncharacteristic optimism that something will start to grow in 5 days.

Why 400? Why not 50? Wouldn’t there be the same effect? As stories go, in the late 1900’s proud parents of a baby boy decided to plant 400 trees. No one knows why. And when he turned 21, they created a stone commemorative arch at the end of the road. This makes today’s sweet 16 parties look pitiful and superfluous in comparison.

Enough about trees, let’s talk about the Bird Girl. How can you come to Savannah and not pay a visit?

She appeared on the cover of the book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. There is a common misconception that she is weighing good and evil in her hands. In reality, the sculpture was commissioned for a family burial site at Bonaventure Cemetery. In one hand she is meant to hold a dish of bird seed, in the other, a dish of water. The family burial site was so overrun by people wanting to take pictures of this statue, the family loaned her to the Telfair Academy Museum. At one point the museum replicated the burial scene so that when she was photographed it closely resembled her original location. Today, she is on the basement level against a plain terra cotta wall. I was expecting people to be down there with iPhone in hand. But she is not Michelangelo’s David. We were the only ones there paying her a visit.

Star jasmine plants are in bloom which makes walking the streets of Savannah in the warm afternoon breeze nothing short of idyllic. Even trash cans on the street waiting to be picked up for trash day can’t ruin it.