An Evening in Downtown Savannah

For the first time in quite a while we had a Saturday with all the kids and nothing on the schedule, nothing that we HAD to do. We wiped the morning out by being lazy, some of us lazier than others. My original idea was to go see the SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival but there was a steady rain all morning so I wasn’t sure if it was even going to happen and if so when it would start, chalk and water don’t mix well, but once we were all up and dressed we headed to Savannah. Alyssa unfortunately didn’t get to go because she was babysitting a friend’s 3 month old twins, so we had the 3 younger kids only.

It was already mid afternoon when we made it to Savannah and having missed lunch, others missed breakfast too, Erin said she wanted to go to Mellow Mushroom for some pizza. I dropped Kriss off as we passed by to get a table and went on a quest for a parking space. After circling 2 squares we found a spot not too far away on Chippewa. Mellow Mushroom was excellent, although the server could have paid us more attention, and we were in and out fairly quickly for a place with pizza this good.

Kellie in Ellis Square

After dropping the leftover pizza back at the car and grabbing my camera we were trying to decide where to go. We weren’t certain if there was any sidewalk art at all so we weren’t crazy about walking to Forsyth or driving and losing a good central parking place, and we have gotten into a habit of going to Leopold’s for ice cream downtown thanks to Pepa, but we had just eaten pizza and weren’t quiet ready for that, so we just meandered north a bit to Johnson Square until Kriss saw the newly opened Ellis square so we turned west. The kids hadn’t been here yet but we were not prepared to have wet kiddies so they couldn’t play in the fountain, but it was just as well because there was a newlywed couple there taking some pictures in and around the water. We chilled there for a moment and then headed towards River Street.

River Street Trolley

We ended up in a large antique mall which had 3 floors so it took us a while to see it all, and they had a LOT of stuff, I was surprised the kids were good that long in a place with a lot of old stuff that I didn’t think they would be interested in. Finally we wandered down the steep steps to River Street and hit some stores interspersed with me taking a few pics of everyone along the way. It happened to be Fine Arts on the River Festival this Saturday so there were a lot of tents set up with local artists displaying some really beautiful stuff. It had also started to sprinkle again so we hopped from tent to tent to keep out of the drops but it didn’t last long. After some more posing in the park we headed towards Savannah Candy. We sometimes go here instead of Leopold’s and get gelato, which I love, but after getting some taffy and praline samples, Kriss said she’d rather have ice cream so back out and up the stairs we went.

Marc and Erin at Leopold's

It was still a little earlier than usual when we got to Leopold’s, just after 7:00, so not too terribly crowded and we found a nice table outside to enjoy the evening and watch the sky darken before taking off down Broughton St. We weren’t certain exactly what we wanted to do yet but we weren’t ready to go home so we found ourselves back at Chippewa Square and someone said they were a little hungry. I asked Kriss if she would like a cup of coffee so after grabbing the leftover pizza out the car, we headed over to Gallery Espresso. We weren’t there too long though and then off we went to wind around the city a little more.

Erin in the alley

I really like to take pictures at night and it was dark now, so we spent some time taking pictures in alleys, squares, people’s doors and windows, and just experiment with different camera settings. I wish I had brought a tripod though, I missed a lot of neat shots that are just impossible to hold that steady for that long, but I used what light I could and made the best of what I had. I ended up taking exactly 300 pics and got some really good ones of the kids. Unfortunately after all of this walking Kellie was getting tired and we didn’t bring a stroller so we left around 9:30 to try and make it home while the twins were still there. We had a great evening though and I’d really like to go back and do it again soon.

You can check out a lot more pictures from the evening on my Facebook if we’re friends, click on them below, or some higher quality version in my Flickr Stream.