Day 355 (Savannah)

It's a dark and stormy night. And yes, I appreciate the irony that I have just gotten back to a flea-bag motel after a ghost tour in the most haunted city in the United States. (As confirmed through extensive research by the Discovery Channel's Ghost Hunter team.)

(BTW, the rain is practically coming in sideways and the thunder has set off car alarms several times.)

As the memory of the tour guide's descriptions of the American Revolution and public executions linger in my mind, threatening to hinder my sleep, not to mention the fact that Savannah is basically built on top of one enormous cemetery, I think back to the events that have brought me here.

Today started out like any other day. I woke up in a hotel in North Carolina, woken up by the pathetic scratchings of what was supposed to be music escaping from the alarm clock on the night stand. I got up, made myself a waffle, then walked over to the sassy broad behind the counter to fix a problem I had discovered the night before with the room charge.

It was entirely my fault, I hadn't been keeping track of my expenses, and 3 unexpected hotel nights and a Toyota bill later, I had run out of cash. If the charge went through on that card, I was gonna be hit with an overdraft fee. So, I ask her if she can charge it to another one. No problem, she says, and swipes the card, her red fingernails clicking the plastic as she waits for it to process. She hands the card back to me. There is a problem, she says. The bank's gonna hold the funds on the first card for 15 days. Of well, I says, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

So, my moms and I are driving to Charleston...

And, it's as hot as we've seen so far on this trip of ours. When we get there, it's time for lunch, so we stop at Martha Lou's Kitchen, a small out-of-the-way joint serving "soul food."

When we get inside, a quartet of black women is singing gospel music so pretty it's enough to make you cry. We figures they're practicin' fer sumthin' and we sit down to enjoy the show.

We get fried chicken, whiting, red rice, lima beans and corn bread, all the while listenin' to that gospel music. After that, we left for Georgia, where the peaches grow.

I decided that the best way to see the city in the time we had, was to do the Trolley Ghost Tour. This is a picture of the competitor.

Apparently, if you die on the tour, you're all set.

Here's some pictures of the tour. I'll leave out the gory stories...

After the tour, we had dinner. I picked sushi cuz my mom wanted rice and I didn't want to spend the whole night looking for a Chinese restaurant.

It was a pretty sweet restaurant too! This is the yakinku beef that my mom got, complete with wasabi mashed potatoes!

And, I got the Forest Gump Roll! (See the rainbow colored fish eggs on top!)

As we headed towards the car, small flashes of lightning kept shooting across the sky, and while on the road back to the hotel, it started to rain a little. By the time we got back, it was pouring and the lightning strikes were becoming pretty regular. The lighting seems to have spent itself now, but it's still raining pretty hard. Hopefully Hammie will be clean tomorrow!

PICTURE OF THE DAY: