Observations from 1600 miles southeast of home

Today marks the end of a glorious two week trip to Savannah, Ga, with my husband the IT consultant.  He travels 1600 miles from home every week to earn a living. This is his career.  He's had this traveling gig for the past 13 years.  He provides income for us.  To put food on the table and pay bills.  To buy our home where I am the main occupant.  He spends more time living in a hotel than in our home, if I do the math correctly.  If nothing else, this trip has made me acutely aware of the sacrifice required in being a consultant.  He doesn't complain. I believe I might tend to whine a bit if I were in his shoes.  But whining does come natural to me regardless of circumstances.  We all have our gifts.  😃

Retirement is approaching (a little over two years) and I considered this two week period of time a little experiment to see how well we might tolerate living together on a daily basis.  And.....after two weeks I believe we would both agree we'll do just fine.   

Isn't Savannah gorgeous?  And February is a splendid time to visit, meteorologically speaking.  Although the second night we were there, the tornado sirens and our insanely loud weather apps on our phones woke us up at 4am.  I looked out the window, and he pondered what we should do.  We quickly decided to just put adequate clothing on so that rescue and recovery squads wouldn't experience potential mental anguish and visual suffering when they found our bodies.  Then we went back to sleep.  It was 4am, for crying out loud.  Kansas tornadoes generally seem to be more respectful re: time of day.  No worries. Damage and injuries were north of our location.  All was well.  

During this trip I learned some stuff about a variety of subjects.

  Seafood platters at The Crab Shack.  Heap lot of delicious food with one glaring exception.  Crab legs, shrimp, mussels...all delightfully delicious.  See picture number 2?  All that remained was crawfish.  I asked the waitress exactly how one consumes a crawfish and she showed me the beheading process, and what part to eat.  Luckily our first and only bites were small ones.  We were both able to swallow the crawfish meat without making a grade-school child-like scene of spitting it into our napkins while gagging.  And we both agreed it was our first and last bite ever.  Icky stuff. 

For fun on the weekend we drove to St Augustine, Florida for a couple days.  This is the oldest city in the USA and a wonderful place to visit. Go there if you ever have the chance.  

We went to the fountain of youth archaeological park. 

 And drank the water.  

Still waiting for results.  

Not all that hopeful.

Saw our very first drawbridge in action. And our second.  And third. And fourth.   Busy harbor.

 And ate at a fabulous little cafe called Gas Filling Station.  A repurposed gas station with a cool and quirky interior and really really good food.  

And the beach, oh the beach was marvelous.  Lots of long walks on the beach.  Very fun weekend seeing the sites of St Augustine.  You need to go there!

Back in Savannah, while the hubby worked, I found things to do.  Like visiting the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens.   I learned,  maybe you already knew, that the Camelia Senesis (pictured) is the source of ALL tea.  The bushes flower from October to March, and tea is made from the leaves.  Processing varies for black, green, white, oolong, or pu-erh.  Just like all wine is from grapes, all tea is from Camelia Senesis leaves.

Such beautiful flowers...I like tea even more now.

The crapemyrtles of course weren't even leafed out yet, but I learned an important horticultural tip:  Don't prune your crapemyrtle bushes! "An unpruned crapemyrtle produces a longer lasting flower display".  Yay.  Saves me some work on my youngish crapemyrtle bush.

The garden is pretty new and will eventually be quite nice.  For now it's in its formative years.  But still a lovely place to walk.

I would imagine March and April would be a great time to visit.  I should come back next month.  😁 And the month after.  

Found this awesome little quirky BBQ joint, complete with Guitar Pickin' Parlor and Music store.  The owner repairs guitars, and constructs his own guitars.  Very cool place.  The store is jam packed full of stringed instruments.  And the food is southern style barbecue.  Pretty tasty. 

But my favorite scene was this one:

The shadow of me and the man of my dreams watching the waves at Tybee Beach.  Something about the "heartbeat" of the ocean that just soothes the soul.

We're back home.  No oceans.  No palm trees.  Oddly enough, the day we returned to Savannah from St Augustine, I opened up Facebook and discovered "Only in Kansas" posted this picture highlighting beautiful sights to see in Kansas:

Even though I'd just seen all the incredible beauty that Savannah and St Aug have to offer, seeing this picture brought a little tear to my eye and warmed my heart.  Now that's home.   Minneapolis, Kansas.  Home of Rock City.  Site of many fun experiences in my childhood.  Memories of home.    

Home's where your heart is.  Home is incredibly beautiful.  Even with no beach.