Savannah: Moon River Land

The back story about Savannah, Georgia is the Back River, a small tributary north of the Savannah River, which in turn is north of the city. Songwriter Johnny Mercer grew up in Savannah, spending his boyhood playing around Savannah’s waters. Enamored of the Back River, or so the story goes, Mercer wrote the song Moon River in its honor, after which the Savannah Chamber of Commerce renamed the Back River in honor of the song.

I found Savannah, established in 1733, a charming small city. It’s less than 75 square miles but packs a lot of homes into the grid that’s composed of the Historical District, the Victorian District and the Thomas Ward District, before branching out into nearby islands and suburbs. Our realtor, a native Savannian, was a wealth of information and we spent part of the morning just touring the city. She is also quite a casual driver, stopping in the middle of the street to point out the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, or twice running solidly red lights while talking a mile a minute. I know Bill saw the hair rise on the back of my neck!

We toured homes as old as the 1800s (I could feel my childhood asthma coming on while standing in the middle of a gutted old building) to new resort-style patio homes. While there were two or three possibilities for land-based domiciles, the marinas were a huge disappointment. The Savannah River has no pleasure craft traffic; it’s solely used for tremendously large container ships, all of which seem to have Chinese registrations. The other rivers are brackish water and affected by the ocean tides, leaving eight to ten feet of muck on the shore during low tide. And yes, there are alligators! I saw one sunning itself on the bank of a man-made pond in one of the resort-like developments. Our realtor casually suggested running in a zig-zag as those creatures can’t exactly turn on a dime.

So, housing was a B. I give the marinas a D (most were geared toward fishing recreation and none really legally able to accommodate houseboats). Job opportunities are also a D; the four primary industries are shipping, manufacturing (the Gulfstream business jet corporation calls Savannah home), tourism and education, most of which is through SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design. Our realtor suggested that Bill look for a job teaching American Sign Language!

We did have two enjoyable dinners there. On Friday evening we drove out to Tybee Island for dinner at Marlin Monroe’s (yes, their logo is a fish in a dress) and on Saturday we ate in the Historic District at the River House Seafood Restaurant. After dinner Bill talked me into buying a cute little sundress so I surprised him by wearing it out of the store. The clerks were amused but I’m sure they’ve seen it before!

Sunday lunch found us back out at the beach on Tybee Island, where we took a nice long hot walk before heading back to the airport, only to find that our connecting flight to Charlotte was delayed by two and a half hours, putting us home well after midnight.

Oh, by the way, the Back River (aka Moon River) is not wider than a mile!