Takin’ A Gander at Gators in the Okefenokee Outback

Jim’s right; I had never heard of Okefenokee or the Pogo comic strip. Hard to believe that even after 12 years together, 24/7, we still don’t know everything about each other.

Okefenokee wasn’t on our trip route, but when he told me about it, I knew that I liked the word; Okefenokee. It sticks in your brain like glue, like a mosquito to your skin, like swamp mud on your boots. Doubtful that we’d ever be in that part of the U.S. anytime in the next 100 years, we headed away from the Carolina coast, right into lower south east Georgia’s swampland.

We went looking for gators, and came back with our first adventure feature presentation …

Read more

Ghosts and Glamour at Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery


bonavmercer_0007w.jpgWhen I was a little kid, my Mom would listen to her favorite oldies station, humming along to 1950s hits while she did housework. No doubt that many of those hits were written by Johnny Mercer.

My Dad says Mercer was the greatest songwriter of all time, penning countless songs for Broadway shows and movies. Mercer was also the co-founder of Capitol Records. He is buried in the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, so this week while we were in town, we went to pay our respects to the musical legend.

Read more

Review: Great Food, Nice Prices at Paula Deen’s Savannah Restaurant

If you’re a Food Network viewer like we were (before ditching the TV), you’ve probably watched Paula Deen at some point. She is the southern gal with the snappy wit and great sense of southern humor that cooks up homestyle food like nobody’s business.

When we were Walmarting it on Monday night, a friendly security guard in the parking lot told us that Paula’s from Savannah, and her restaurant, Lady & Sons, is downtown.

Read more

Road Trip Planning; Throw Out the Itinerary and Prepare for Adventure


The Crooked Road to Floyd, VirginiaAre you a trip planner? Before you go on vacation, do you put together an itinerary (“On Wednesday, we’re going to play mini golf and have fun, dammit!â€), and chart your exact course on your GPS (“At Exit 25 we’ll stop and have lunchâ€)?

I used to be a planner. I thought that the more organized I was for a vacation, the better it would be. I would waste hours on the web, researching every detail about where we were going. Then I’d chart out a Plan B, just in case.

This would guarantee that our precious vacation time was the best it could be, right?

Read more