Midday in the Garden of Good and Evil

Jan. 17-19

The drive from Hilton Head to Savannah is supposed to take about an hour, maybe less.

I managed to get lost, so it took us a little longer than that.

Bob gave me a shorter route than Google had laid out for us.

We passed through the old town of Bluffton again and found South Carolina Highway 46. That led us to SC-170 West and then U.S. 17 South.

The route took us past the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. I pulled into the driveway to find the gate down. It’s a national refuge, duh. It’s closed by the political flap over money for the border wall.

A short time later, we were crossing some marsh country when a high curving bridge came into view on the horizon. It crossed both the Little Black River, which marks the state line, and the much broader Savannah River.

Up to this point, we were doing fine. 

But we had to go back to the original Google directions at the bridge.

The bridge took us to Interstate 516, Georgia Highway 21, and a couple of other numbers too, all on the same road.

That matched Google. So far, so good.

I was supposed to follow GA-21 to Lynes Parkway and then DeRenne Ave. No problem with that until the highway divided and all signs for GA-21 disappeared. Nothing about an exit for Lynes or DeRenne either.

I’ll confirm what you already know: With a 50 percent chance of guessing right, I took the wrong tine of the fork.

We were soon outside Savannah and heading farther away, but thanks to the miracle of suburban sprawl, we came to a CVS pharmacy, where there was hope of getting proper directions.

The lady behind the counter offered to help me find my way. What are you looking for?

The Hilton Garden Inn.

I know where it is.

It seems that I-516 melts away and becomes Lynes Parkway and later changes its name to DeRenne. When it finally does that, you’re close to home.

But wouldn’t you have to be a local to know that? It’s a bit much to put on a highway sign, but maybe Google could have spelled it out.

Maybe it’s another instance of the reason you have to question Google. You ask it for directions and it assumes you know the territory.

The Hilton Garden is a roomy new hotel with a logo that resembles the Hong Kong flag, a white flower on a red ground, but the resemblance is probably coincidence.

We checked in early and then took the No. 14 bus up Abercorn Road to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

It’s in the old town and was one of the few landmarks in the city that I could name for directions.

This was nothing like Hong Kong. The No. 14 bus was several minutes late and took about half an hour to go less than four miles. It was small and crowded.

The church is at Lafayette Square. Abercorn is interrupted by several squares—delightfully shady parks—on the way to its end at Bay Street, about a block from the river. 

We arrived at the cathedral a bit after four, about 10 minutes before closing time. We were coming in just under the wire again, like the Discovery Museum in Bluffton.

According to the cathedral’s website (Savannahcathedral.org), Savannah’s Roman Catholic parish was begun in the late 1700s by French refugees from the revolutions in Haiti and France. 

Savannah became a Roman Catholic diocese in the 1830s.

The present cathedral was built in the 1870s. A fire in 1898 spared only the outside walls and the twin spires. The church was able to reopen a year later, although redecoration of the interior wasn’t finished till 1912. 

So it has that early 20th century feel—old but not too old. 

We explored a nearby commercial strip, Liberty Street, but couldn’t find a place where we wanted to have dinner. We went back to the hotel and did a search for interesting places, all of which were a few miles away. 

We didn’t feel like going far, so we settled on the Bonefish Grill across the road. it was all right. 

Joanna enjoyed her grilled trout. My grilled tuna steak was OK, but I wouldn’t cross the road again for that.

Their house white was La Torre Chardonnay, the same kind that I was drinking the other night in Santee. It’s pretty entertaining for a white wine.

We got out late on Friday after I sent my last dispatch, recounting our stay in Hilton Head.

This time I drove and we parked on Bay Street, near the port.

It’s an interesting setup at that end of town. Savannah sits on a bluff overlooking the river. There’s a strip closer to the waterline at the foot of the bluff.

The strip is much smaller than Quebec’s Lower Town. It largely consists of River Street and some embankments. 

What at one time were warehouses have now become bars, restaurants, boutiques, and hotels.

The buildings stand about four or five stories high. On one side, the ground floors open onto River Street. 

On the other side, at the top of the bluff, bridges connect to the buildings at the third story, which is ground floor up there.

We stopped for a snack at a French style cafe. Roast red pepper bisque for Joanna, which she loved, and a quiche Lorraine for me, which I also enjoyed.

We descended the historic stairs (so called on the caution sign) and explored River Street. We tasted honeycomb at Savannah Bee, dropped a dollar to an a capella blues singer, read several menus, and finally decided to try Barracuda Bob’s, one of the restaurants that we had considered the night before.

We had already had the soup and quiche course and were ready for the main event.

Joanna opted for grilled salmon and I took the Low Country boil. Both were disappointing. 

Joanna found the salmon and everything else too oily. She wondered if the fish was in fact grilled or maybe it was deep fried instead. 

The boil came with shrimp in the shell. A lot of work, but OK. 

The menu said there was smoked sausage in the mix. What I got was like an oversize, very fatty hot dog. The corn on the cob was the best part of the boil.

The absolutely best part of the meal was Hop’lin IPA from Southern Brewing Co. in Savannah. It was fragrant and appropriately sharp.

Saturday we got to do what I came here for. We went to the Bonaventure Cemetery on the east side of the city.

We have already been introduced to the moody Low Country with its spreading trees and Spanish moss. Now we get to see it with Victorian tombstones under the trees and moss.

We saw Johnny Mercer’s grave and Conrad Aiken’s. We parked the car under a live oak near a particularly poignant monument.

It is the grave of six-year-old Grace Watson, who died of pneumonia in 1899. Her father commissioned a local sculptor, John Walz, who used a photograph as a model to carve a statue of the girl, now known as “Little Gracie,” which sits surrounded by an iron fence.

According to a lady at the visitor center, the fence is not original to the site. It was put there to protect the gravesite, which has become a popular stop for sightseers.  

The Bird Girl, the statue made famous by the book cover of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” and then made more so by the film, has been removed from the cemetery, also to protect it. It is now in the Telfair Museum in Savannah.

We had some Jim Crow moments too. Several graves have rusty old metal markers for the Confederate States of America. They look like Maltese crosses with the stars and bars in the center.

Many of the roads through the cemetery have names. Most of them are the names of prominent families who are buried there.

One of the roads, though, is called Confederate Way. And there are several Confederates buried by and near it.

There is a general named Anderson and a few other officers. Hugh Mercer, a Confederate general who may be a forebear of Johnny, has a modest headstone not far away.

We went back to River Street for dinner. This time we were at the other end of the road, at a bar and restaurant called River House.

We shared an appetizer, escargot in a creamy sauce with sun-dried tomato and scallion. It was different, and also terrific and tasty, as snails always are.

 Joanna had a house specialty, called Savannah paella. It mixed chicken, shrimp, clams, crab, and grouper in yellow rice. You can’t go wrong with that.

I had more of that Southbound Hop’lin with dinner.

Good night, all. And don’t let the moss grow in your shadow.

Harry