Savannah sunset scene
Time for Richard to take his sleep-deprived body down to the conference room at the Hyatt Savannah for the AASHTO SCOTE meeting, while Suzanne did a wonderfully selfless job of giving up some valuable snoozing & sightseeing time to print and collate the materials for Richard's presentation at the afternoon session. Looks like somebody owes someone else a very nice time for the rest of the week!
The presentation went well, and then we were together again around sunset time to participate in a walking "Ghost Tour" of historic Savannah, where the tour guide led us briskly through the narrow streets and tree-lined squares, dispensing humorous vignettes about all the supernatural Savannans that inhabit the homes and squares, and even a few actual historic facts along the way.
All this walkin' and talkin' had us hot & bothered, so right after the tour we slipped into a Ben & Jerry's (annoying politics, great ice cream) to refresh ourselves. We saw a matched set of cute ceramic bowls for sale here, and couldn't resist making them one of our useful Savannah souvenirs - especially after oodles (OK, just a little oodle in each) of ice cream was plopped into 'em. As we passed the bowls across the table to each other, we relaxed and looked forward to all the fun that was yet to come.
Savannah sunset scene
Another day of meetings for Richard and meandering for Suzanne. Since she had more fun, we'll focus on her story.
She walked the cobblestones of River Street in Savannah, a scenic lane along the waterfront lined with bars, galleries, bars, souvenir stores, bars, restaurants, bars, clothing shops - and did we mention the bars? She (allegedly) stayed out of the bars, but did return with some cute souvenirs.
Later in the day, we took in a dinner cruise down the Savannah River on the Georgia Queen riverboat (see photo). Great dinner with great scenery (although the part by the sulfur plant was a bit fragrant) and a very enjoyable way to spend an evening.
The Georgia Queen
A change of pace today as the AASHTO meetings wrapped up and the NCUTCD meetings began. This unfortunately means that the sessions start at 7 AM (that's 4 AM back home) and keep going full speed until 7 PM - but we did get a brief break for lunch at Bernie's on River Street (surprisingly good food for a bar).
After this, Suz walked the streets of Savannah, having the "Gump"-tion to take in all the "good and evil" of this charming city. She even found a feather on a bench in Chippewa Square! - but no boxes of chocolates were located (they would've melted anyway).
We wrapped up the day with the traditional sit-down dinner with the NCUTCD Bicycle Technical Committee at the River House, where the fine food and fine friends made for a great evening.
Savannah street scene
The meetings continue for Richard, as Suzanne has been finding fun things to do out and about in Savannah. While much was accomplished in the NCUTCD Bicycle Technical Committee (in spite of Mr. Oliver's heckling, but that's another story), the real fun didn't start until suppertime, when the committee reconvened at a riverfront seafood house for more food, fun, and watching the big container ships go by (see photo). Then more entertainment from a rather talented juggler/unicyclist/escape artist caused change to flee from our pockets, and a bit of ice cream to top off a busy, productive, and happy day.
Big boats chugging down the river
This Friday the 13th began reasonably well, with Richard presenting to the full National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices the various changes that the Bicycle Technical Committee has proposed for the M1-9 bicycle route marker. After this, we rummaged through our high-entropy hotel room and tracked down a full two weeks worth of dirty clothes, hogtied and subdued them, and dragged them down to the truck and out the door of the hotel.
Our first destination this day was a laundromat on the east side of town, where we did our loads of clothes while enjoying the entertainment offered by the establishment - which included not only the obligatory too-loud TV and decades-old video games, but a decent coin-op pool table as well! Richard jumped out to an early lead after the break (see photo), but Suzanne "cleaned up" her stripes after Richard had dropped all those pesky solids out of the way. It was close, but Richard put the game away as Suz's last ball watched forlornly.
After all was washed, dried, sorted, folded, and re-stuffed, we looked up at the threatening skies and chose to postpone our trip to the beach for a bit. We went back to the Hyatt and gave Truckasaurus again to the valet staff for safekeeping. Not long later, the weather looked better for our beach trip, so we zipped back to the valet staff to retrieve our truck - only to find out that the valets had somehow misplaced Truckasaurus (or at least its keys). After 30+ minutes of searching (what day is it again..?), the keys and the truck were rediscovered, and we made our way out to Tybee Island, the other end of US Highway 80 (the same US 80 that used to pass right by Richard's old office in Phoenix). Here at the end of 80, we parked and wet our feet in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, and enjoyed the relaxing thunder of the waves - or was that thunder from the clouds sneaking up behind us?
Just after sunset, we cleared Tybee and started back to look for a decent pizza joint - just in time to drive right into that rainstorm we'd avoided for so long. Between the rain, the crazy Georgia drivers, and the myriad routes we took, we somehow managed to fail to find any sort of pizza place and headed back to the hotel to see if the in-house pizzeria could whip one up to our liking.
This went about as well as the bit with the truck - OK, now it's really Friday the 13th! After nearly an hour, we finally had our big round pizza, but not without having to go down after it ourselves, sort it out with the kitchen staff, and comment to the main desk about the happenings of the day (to their credit, the friendly Hyatt folks did waive the parking & pizza charges to make up for the misadventures).
Too late and too tired to begin packing like we'd planned, we just ate our sausage & pepperoni sectors and got to bed, in the hope that tomorrow would somehow go more smoothly than today...
Billiards and laundry - what a combination!
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