Tybee Island & Savannah Georgia

This past weekend Sean and I took a trip down to Tybee Island, GA. We had a 2 night stay Sean had won in an auction last fall at The Ocean Plaza, plane tickets were ridiculously expensive so the only option was to do a little road trip.

We left Williamsburg at 1:30 am on Friday morning and started our Trek to Georgia. I took the first leg, since I'm an awful distance driving, and even worse night driver. Being in the car for more than 20 minutes usually puts me to sleep. I drove for 2 1/2 hours while Sean slept, and then gave him his turn so I could sleep. We alternated once more and ended up driving into Savannah around 8:30.When we got into Savannah I was starving and craving bagels, and of course being in an unfamiliar town we didn't know where to go. Luckily for us, we had borrowed our friend Jami's GPS and we simply looked under food and chose The Bagel Place. Perfect, right? We followed the GPS to where The Bagel Place was supposed to be, only to find a Jewelry store in it's place. Not so perfect anymore. Luckily we saw a Panera Bread, which always seems to be our option when traveling (ie. wedding vendors only want to meet at Panera, one weekend we went to 4 different Panera Breads in Maryland...who knew there were so many in such close proximity).

Note: The GPS did come in handy every other time we used it during the trip, and ended up being a big help when figuring out where to go.

We had breakfast, and drove the remaining 20 minutes to Tybee Island where our hotel was. We checked in, showered and then met up with my friend Jess who happened to be in town for our friend Laura's wedding, very much a coincidence that we visited Savannah the same weekend she's getting married. Jess and I were roommates for one week during orientation when we volunteered for Mercy Volunteer Corps back in 2003-2004. She ended up in Savannah, me in Baltimore. I hadn't seen her in over 4 years so it was really nice to see her. We also got a quick visit with Heather, another Mercy Corps Volunteer who met us briefly for lunch. I wish I would have gotten a chance to see Laura, but with her busy weekend and our unable to stop by the wedding it wasn't possible. Hopefully sometime soon!

After lunch we ended up staying in Savannah and walking around the shops and streets. It just happened to be Oktoberfest weekend so we lucked out with extra entertainment.
We were even able to stop in the Paula Deen store and meet Paula Deen herself!
Sean got a little frisky with Marilyn...

and then we played in a park for a little bit.
Seeing that our day had started early (remember our drive was at 1:30...that same morning) we decided to head back to Tybee Island and walk on the beach
We grabbed dinner at a local bar with live music and relaxed.

Saturday morning we woke up and decided to check out The Crab Shack which was recommended to us by a friend. They have live alligators that were born in captivity, not sure what they do with them, besides get people like me to come and take their pictures.
We had fun playing with the fake alligators too.
After lunch at The Crab Shack we had to go and check out The Tybee Island Lighthouse. This is the 2nd Lighthouse that Sean and I have visited together and climbed to the top. The first being The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina this past April. They had a museum across the street and a fort where the picture below was taken.
Being that it was The Pirate Fest in Tybee Island we had to get a couple Pirate pictures. Unfortunately we weren't able to attend any of the events, but we still had fun.
We ended up going back into Savannah for the afternoon/evening. There were tons of candy shops, which made me hungry! Lots of free samples of pralines and taffy. Below you can see some taffy being made. It was a pretty quick process and fun to watch.

I had my candy and luckily I was able to have my beer too. My two favorites. I was happy to hear that you could walk around with your favorite beverage in Savannah. In fact a lot of bars would have the option of pouring your beer into a plastic cup for you to take it to go if you didn't want to sit at the bar and drink it. Not sure if it's true for the entire state, but it made our vacation feel even more like a vacation.
After hanging out downtown we walked back up to the streets and came across a 5K finishing up. I was so mad that I hadn't thought to see if there was a race going on this weekend in Georgia. We stuck around to listen to the awards to hear if I possibly could have placed in my age group. Luckily I wouldn't have placed, although the cute blue long sleeve t-shirts everyone was wearing made me want one. Plus there were about 600 runners, so it was a fairly large race considering the ones I run in Williamsburg don't usually get over 150. Oh well, Sean went and suggested we get some chocolate truffles to make me feel better. It worked a little.

Saturday night we came back to our hotel and I wanted to get a picture of the sign. It was interesting that they were welcoming St. Michael's. I pretended it was a St. Michael's College reunion where I was the only one that attended.
Sunday morning after we checked out we went back on the beach one last time to walk around. This is a view of our hotel from the beach.
We found a stick and played in the sand as well. We found a nice couple to take our picture with our little "drawing"
And finally as we were leaving the island, what did I see but St. Michael's Church. Not sure if this is what our hotel was welcoming, but it still reminded me of St. Michael's College. It was unfortunate that we didn't get a chance to go inside and attend mass, but at least I got a quick photo. Actually I thought of taking a picture after wards, and luckily Sean offered to drive around the block so I could take the picture!
We finally got on the road around 11:30 after stopping at Panera for lunch, of course. The drive back wasn't so bad. Probably because Sean drove the first 4 hours, while I snoozed in the passenger seat. All my rest made it easy for me to do the last 3 hours without being tired.

Now we're back to reality, and I'm hoping we can do another fun weekend getaway, especially considering this was our first weekend away alone in the 4+ years we've been together. Not that we don't love staying with our family and friends, but the whole date weekend was lots of fun.