Day 22 - Ormond Beach, FL to Savannah, GA

Happy Birthday to me!  (That's important to know because it explains some of our food choices today.)

Home of the Grand Slam.  (and 75% of any city's senior citizens)

Free breakfast!

Denny's is remarkably consistent.  It wasn't particularly good, but you can't beat the price.

The next stop was the former capital of Florida, St. Augustine.  I took more pictures here than at anywhere else so far.  We rode a train around town which narrated our journey.  I would have liked to get out and visit a few of the attractions, but didn't want to take away from our time in Savannah.

That's a really old tree.  600+ years!

A nice shady street.

Fancy churches here.

Another one.

First poured concrete building in the US.

Luxury hotel converted into Flagler college.

One of many colorful houses around.

Perhaps a bit too bright.

A little better I guess.

St. Augustine is loaded with Spanish buildings and is the oldest city in the US.  (Santa Fe also claims that title, but St. Augustine seems to have the better claim.)  The town is hoping the Spanish King and Queen will come visit for next year's 450th anniversary.

Oldest street in the US.

Oldest house in the US.  (Not a creative name.)

Fort built in the 1600s!

We parked at Ripley's Believe It or Not, so we found a few other fun things too.

A house carved inside of a tree by a single knife.

A real David statue from the real quarry.

I just thought this was fun.

After St. Augustine, it was time for lunch and we had to take advantage of the birthday discount so we went to Firehouse Subs.  I actually haven't been there since last year's birthday.  I'm sure that's not how they had hoped the birthday benefit would be used.

Firehouse is famous for their variety of hot sauces.  Normally they are labelled 1-10 with a spice level.  Today they weren't, so I picked one that looked fun.  After pouring some on my sandwich and taking a bite, I decided to look at the label.

One drop?  Oops.

I used about 20 drops, which explained my discomfort.  I switched to a sauce I was familiar with and completed my meal.  Eventually I could even feel my tongue again.

With lunch complete, we drove on to Savannah, which turned out to be a great birthday destination!  In fact, it's now our favorite city!

Horse-drawn carriages and brick sidewalks.

Not the best view of a downtown street.

City Hall.

A little bumpy.

River cruises.

More historic buildings.

One of a huge number of parks downtown.

A few nice looking homes.

Almost looks like NY.

Nice-looking church.

First Baptist.

After exploring the area, we ate at a French bistro for my birthday dinner.  That's not my normal fare, but it was blistering hot and we bought tickets for a theater show.  I didn't want to be late.

My shrimp salad and Erin's cheese plate.

Tiramisu.

The tiramisu was incredibly strong because they used their own espresso blend.  You really had to like espresso.  The quaint little place was a nice change from what we've been eating on this trip.

After dinner we stopped at a popcorn shop and found an amazing array of options.

250 flavors?

Here are a few.

Here are a few more.

We settled on dill, which sounds like a terrible popcorn flavor, but Erin and I both liked it the best out of the five or six we tried.  It's probably the most expensive popcorn around, but where else can you buy watermelon popcorn?

Then it was time for our theater show.

Historic Savannah Theater.

 The theater is the oldest in the country.

Waiting for showtime.

We saw a variety show called Savannah Live.  Expectations were fairly low coming in because we've seen some pretty bad community theater at times.  We went to our neighborhood theater in Dallas which had some questionable performances (and some great ones too!)  Same in Las Vegas.  However, this show was worth it for sure.  While the guitarist was over-the-top, the show was of professional caliber.  It wasn't Broadway-quality, but it was much better than a collegiate performance.  It featured all sorts of music and they had some really talented performers all around.

Savannah turned out to be great.  I'm looking forward to spending the morning here before heading to Charleston.