As we drove down the highway in the early morning it was an undulating silver strip spread out in front of us. The green fields, vegetation, trees and buildings had a frosting of snow. The sky was deep blue. Picture perfect, as they would say. The mood music was Ray Charles singing Georgia on my mind and we were in Georgia and we didn’t mind. In fact the next tune was America the beautiful and we both sang emotionally along. A more perfect morning moment for motoring you couldn’t have dreamed up.

The stereo system in the van is surround sound at its best. Elizabeth also wanted to hear her favourites like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner, all having greater impact when you are travelling in the south and listening to them. She also wanted to hear gospel music so we tuned into a number of groups on radio all obviously local amateurs praising the Lord. Of a spectrum of 30 plus stations 10 of them were gospel, 10 were country and western, 10 were modern rap crap or the likes and one or two middle of road CHFI types. Add to this my 5,000 songs selection on my I-Pod and our van was rocking and rolling down the highway.

We were heading for Savannah passing Atlanta and Macon on the way. This was the heart of the south. Surprisingly in the north part of Georgia it was still the rolling foothills of the Appalachia Mountains. As we progress south the temperature rose and the scenery changed to scruffy pines in sandy soil. We saw our first tree with Spanish Moss and then a palm tree. We had been travelling down I-75 but now took a detour to Highway 16 into Savannah. Tomorrow when we would continue our journey to Ft Lauderdale via I-95 the rest of the way.

The reason we were visiting Savannah is two friends had recommended it as being gracious, interesting and having pleasant people and architecture. We had a late lunch in an old part of town along the river. It was seafood and tolerable. I am dying for something other then the chain food variety or the formula restaurants with their same menus. I would love some Chinese, Indian, Korean, Arabic, Japanese even Italian like real Italian. After lunch I drove up and down the streets and we viewed some magnificent homes and churches all decorated for Christmas. Most were located around squares and they were huge homes many with large balconies or winding or sweeping staircases to their second level entrances. Many had a small English formal garden beside them. These republicans wouldn’t settle for a rose garden or nicely planted variety it had to be an English formal garden with geometric shapes and a central garden statue or fountain at the centre. Their heritage of squares and gardens is directly from the English who they fought and kicked out.

That evening we were to exhausted to dine out so we sought the dining room of our Marriott Hotel for a quick supper and to bed. The waitress spoke two words and after she left the table I told Elizabeth she was Russian. As it turned out she was Polish and when this was discovered she and Elizabeth entered into a Polish quick step of a conversation that I could only identify two words from, Polish and Pope. Talk about six degrees of separation. Here was a young girl all alone in America coming over from Gadansk with no family and no one to speak Polish to waiting on our table in Savannah Georgia. I have a knack for guessing with more certainty then the average person where someone is from. It is one of my gifts.

This is a most pleasant town and I think I will come back here and spend some time walking and riding a bike about. But…they really need a walking tour guide. Maybe I could move here and make a buck during the winter.