When I first started running I thought it would be fun to run one "destination" race a year, and this is the first year that I acted on that and finally sat down and found a race to fill that "spot" in my calendar. With my birthday in February and Kyle's in March, we asked Vicki (Kyle's mom) if she would be willing to come for the weekend and watch the kids for a joint birthday present for the two of us. And she agreed. That's a 7 1/2 hr drive to and from. For a weekend. In which she would be watching my three (not the easiest children in the world) kids. She arrived Thursday evening just after supper.
Kyle and I left Friday morning dark and early to catch a 7am flight to Savannah. Tybee Island (which is technically an island because of a river that completely cuts it off from the mainland) is only about 20 miles from Savannah. We arrived around lunchtime and headed to the City Market area of downtown for a quick lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and exploring the area around City Market and checking out the local shops. We stopped into a local popcorn shop that had more flavors of popcorn than I had ever seen. We were allow to sample 3 varieties MAX each. We selected carefully and shared our samples so we really go to try 6 (smart, huh?) Kyle settled on salted caramel and I got a back of loaded baked potato and salt and vinegar mixed. The loaded baked potato was REALLY good...for about 5 pieces. We didn't even end up finishing that kind. But my FAVORITE!! was the salt and vinegar. So good!!! I was afraid that a whole bag of that flavor might be too much, which is why I got a mixed bag. If we ever go back, I'll know exactly what to get....1/2 salt and vinegar and 1/2 caramel, shaken together. The combination of those two mixed together was a WINNER! Anyway, after we were done looking around we drove out to Tybee Island where we went straight to packet pickup and then checked into our hotel room. After relaxing for a bit, we headed out to the beach to watch the sunset. Leaving our hotel, we realized we hadn't really thought it though....the sun sets in the west (duh) and the beach faces the east. Turns out....it doesn't matter. The sunset was gorgeous. We met a guy who used to be a pastor at a church in Norman and ended up talking with him for quite a while so it was really dark and we were pretty cold before we headed to go grab a bite to eat. I got recommendations of great places to eat from a girl who was in Michael's class in high school that lived in that area for about 5 years (Tracy Blair (Ankeny)), so we followed her advice and headed to North Beach Grill. The Tybee Run fest is a series of runs over two days where if you do all 5 events you run 26.2 miles. The 5k was Friday night...and the race ended in the North Beach Grill parking lot. So we scrapped that idea and went with the other recommendation, Nic's Dockside Grill where we both had their super yummy crab burgers.
Saturday morning was race morning and it turned out to be colder than I had planned for. I was nervous about my clothing choices and thought I would have to run in my jacket and would be able to take it off and throw it to Kyle later in the race if I needed to. Well, never under estimate the sun! It was in the 30's at the start, but the sun felt great and my original attire choices were perfect. I took my coat off before the start and wasn't even cold. In fact, I could have run in a tank and shorts and been just fine. I wasn't expecting much of myself since I had just raced and PR'ed in Austin, but I ended up running GREAT and getting another sub 2 hour half. No PR, but a great time for me! 1:59:33 The course was pancake flat, which I am sure helped. After the race I showered and we headed into Savannah. We had a 1:00 reservation for a walking tour, and I knew we would be cutting it close and boy were we! We grabbed Jimmy John's subs for lunch and ate them during the start of the tour. It was a really great tour and our guide knew everything there was to know about Savannah. The theme of the tour was Historical Savannah so he talked a lot about how Savannah was founded. For instance, we learned that Gen. Oglethorpe (one of the trustees and first colonizers of Georgia forbade 4 things when he first came. 1) No slavery 2) No hard liquor 3) No lawyers and 4) No Catholics (because it was feared they might sympathize with the Spaniards holding Florida at the time and be a threat). It was a great tour and we finished and had plenty of time to walk around and check out River Street before heading to our "nice" meal of the weekend, and early Valentine's Day date at Elizabeth's on 37th Street. It was very good and we left VERY full and headed out to a second walking tour of the day, a walking haunted Savannah tour that was also very good and interesting. Kyle had a pedometer on him on Saturday and we walked 9.98 miles on Saturday alone! And that is in addition to the 13.19 miles I ran that morning!! We were beat and ready for bed.
Sunday morning we ate breakfast and went to catch our On/Off Trolley tour. I thought about canceling (I mean, we'd already been on two tours....surely it would be a repeat of everything we'd already heard, right?!? WRONG!!!) but we didn't since it would've been too late to get our money back. And I am sure glad we didn't. It was a great 90 minute tour on the trolley and then after that you could pick which stop to get let off at. The historic district is a 2.5 mile square, so most things are very walkable, but some things were a bit further out, and so we were able to see those things. After the tour we got let off at Forsythe Park. After exploring that area we went to eat and walk a bit more on River Street and then, sniff...it was time to catch our flight home.
It was a great weekend away and Kyle and I had a lot of fun without the kids!!!
The above building is the old cotton exchange building.
Statue of General Oglethorpe
I am at mile 7 in all of the below pictures. I don't look this happy when finishing. haha!
Taken in front of a "haunted" house in Savannah...the most "haunted" city in America.
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