Los Angeles, 3 April 2024
The mention in my last post of a possible road trip down Route 66 has made me start thinking again about a road trip my wife and I did long, long ago – in 1979, to be precise – when were young and foolish and in grad school in the US. It was the Spring break, so about this time of the year, and we decided to do something crazy, namely drive down to New Orleans to visit the city. So I hired a car in Boston, where I was at school, drove down to Baltimore, where she was at school, and then off we drove, down the Interstate Highway 80 towards New Orleans.
As I said, we were young and foolish and hadn’t realised just how far it was to New Orleans – the US is just such a damned big country. Google Maps tells me it’s 1,800 km from Baltimore – and that’s just one way, and I would have had to drive another 650 km back to Boston. In the hours that passed as we drove mile after mile down the highway, we did some calculations and came to the conclusion that no sooner had we arrived in New Orleans that we would have to turn around and drive back. By this time, we had already spent one night in a cheap motel off the highway somewhere. Time to revise our plans.
The signs indicated that we were coming to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Chattanooga! Oh my God, we cried, that’s Glenn Miller’s Chattanooga Choo Choo!
“You leave the Pennsylvania station ’bout a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you’re in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer
Then to have your ham and eggs in Carolina
When you hear the whistle blowing eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in, gotta keep it rolling
Whoo, whoo, Chattanooga, there you are
There’s gonna be a certain party at the station
In satin and lace, I used to call funny face
She’s gonna cry until I tell her that I’ll never roam
So, Chattanooga choo choo, won’t you choo choo me home?”
But I digress.
As Chattanooga got ever closer, a rapid decision was made. Instead of keeping going, we would take a left at Chattanooga and drive clear across the state of Georgia.
Georgia … that’s Ray Charles …
“Georgia, GeorgiaThe whole day through (the whole day through)Just an old sweet songKeeps Georgia on my mind (Georgia on my mind)
I digress.
We would spend the night in Atlanta, we agreed, and then go on down the coast, to a place called Savannah.
So it was that a day later we found ourselves driving into the old centre of Savannah. We had no idea what to expect, we had never heard of Savannah until we decided to turn left at Chattanooga. What we found was magic.
The city was founded in 1733, and the old town, the so-called historic district, has kept the layout of the original town plan, with a grid of streets; the potential monotony is broken up by some 20 squares sprinkled throughout the grid. This old map gives an idea of what it looks like.
Here are some photos of what the streets and squares look like today.
But what makes the historic district especially enchanting is the houses that were built along its streets during the 18th and 19th centuries by wealthy merchants, in a variety of styles: Gothic, Victorian, and Greek Revival. I throw in here a gallery of photos.
I could have put a whole bunch more photos, but I think readers should go and look for themselves.
And the cherry on the cake is the Spanish moss hanging down from all the trees along the streets. I find Spanish moss so … exotic, is the only word I can think of to describe it.
We spent several days in Savannah and the surrounding area. Then it was time to move on; like this singer, we were left with lovely memories which we’ve carried inside of us all our lives.
Our trip wasn’t quite over. On our way back to Baltimore, we passed through Charleston, South Carolina.
The older part of the city is actually quite eye-catching, but after our visit to Savannah it was just … nice.
Then it was a time to be getting back to Baltimore. I dropped off my wife, and then raced back up to Boston to be on time for the resumption of classes. All told, we drove a little under 4,000 km. Like I said, the US is a big country.
And we still haven’t visited New Orleans …
the heart thrills 