Quick Trips: Savannah and the Low Country with Kids

This piece was published in The Miami Herald July 24, 2011.

Who says kids don't like history?  Savannah, Georgia is a great place for families.
(Photo:  Georgia on My Mind)

     “I thought those were UFOs!” shouted my son Andy as we looked across the glass-smooth Savannah River at the Westin Hotel, topped with two flashing round towers. I could see how the towers could, indeed, suggest an alien presence to an 8-year-old whose unusually active imagination goes into overdrive when we travel.
     Or maybe Andy was hallucinating because it was way past his bedtime — after midnight, in fact. We had arrived in Savannah late, but had then spent more than an hour searching for our hotel, the River Street Inn, which, as it turns out, has its entrance on East Bay Street.
     Now we were standing on our balcony at the back of the hotel, a converted 18th-century cotton warehouse, holding tight to the delicate iron railings as we examined the cobblestones five stories below.
     “What if this falls off?” Andy asked.
     It was time for one active imagination to get some sleep.
     Residents of coastal Georgia and South Carolina refer to their region as the Low Country. The area — which includes Savannah, Ga., and Hilton Head, S.C. — has a lot to offer adults: a striking number and mixture of historic buildings, dozens of parks and squares, a wide variety of Southern cuisine, and culture in the form of museums, art galleries, and historic sites.
     But children will also appreciate these attractions if they’re offered in appropriate doses. Throw in a beach and a nature center with carnivorous plants and they’ll like your trip to the Low Country even more.


Southern comfort food
     After a great night’s sleep in our cast iron four-poster bed, we crossed the street for breakfast at b. matthew’s, which the desk clerk recommended. 
     Nothing but a small sign in the window identified the place, but its exposed brick dining room was packed. Not Southerners ourselves, we were determined to eat like Southerners on this trip.
     John, our waiter, suggested the biscuits and gravy. “It’s the best gravy I’ve ever had,” he said. “I think about it when I’m home at night.”
     Andy and I both agreed that the gravy — yellow-hued and studded with sausage — was dream-worthy, as were the biscuits, which melted in our mouths. I was also an instant fan of the stone ground grits with cheddar cheese, although Andy was less enthusiastic.
     After breakfast, Andy wanted to check out some of the shops that line Factor’s Walk, a series of cobbled alleys and iron bridges that connect the former warehouses. It was here that cotton brokers — or factors — used to watch newly harvested cotton come in on the river.
     Andy’s not usually one for antiques stores, but an old wooden race car in the window of a shop called Melonie’s caught his eye. As it turned out, the price was $100, a little out of allowance range. But as we browsed, Andy spied another interesting piece: a doll in the form of a black woman poking pins into a smaller doll.
     “That’s Minerva, the voodoo lady,” said Melonie. “Have you read the book?”
     She was referring to John Berendt’s 1994 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a non-fiction account of a Savannah murder trial that depicts some of the city’s eccentric personalities. Many residents credit the book with putting their city on tourists’ radar.
     Andy hadn’t heard of the book. He was just fascinated by the concept of getting back at one’s enemies by poking pins into look-alike dolls. 
     As we left the shop and walked down to the river, he picked my brain for everything I knew about voodoo — which wasn’t a lot.


On the river
     Next on our agenda was a cruise on the Savannah River Queen, a replica of the steamboats that once brought cotton and passengers to the city. The hour-long trip took us upriver to the Port of Savannah and back. We sat outside on the top deck as we listened to the captain’s narration and Andy watched the paddle wheel turn. Andy was also fascinated by the enormous container barges, some of which must be at least 10 stories tall, making their way up the river to the port.
     We disembarked and walked six blocks to Columbia Square, one of more than 20 public squares designed by Savannah’s founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, when he laid out the city.
     Columbia Square is a lush park of live oak trees surrounding a fountain. To one side sits the Davenport House, a typical 19th century Savannah dwelling open for tours of its period rooms, decorated with period antiques, and formal garden. The house was slated for demolition in 1955, but a group of Savannah women banded together and saved it, launching the city’s historic preservation movement.
     I was intrigued by the house and its role in history, but an 8-year-old’s interest in history is pretty limited. When we got to the Telfair Museum of Art, the oldest public art museum in the South, I wanted to spend time with its collection of American Impressionist paintings, but Andy was burned out.
     “Can we do something that’s not historical?” he asked.
     He had in mind a candy shop we had noticed earlier, River Street Sweets, where the fudge, praline, and taffy production takes place in full view of patrons. Andy liked watching finished taffy shoot up to the ceiling through a tube and fall back down into a bin on the sales floor. I liked the free samples.


Oh, shoot
    I had another dose of history in mind, but I felt certain Andy would enjoy it: Old Fort Jackson, Georgia’s oldest brick fortification, which played a major role in defending Savannah during the Civil War. Construction of the fort began in 1808. Now it’s a National Historic Landmark.
     Like many 8-year-old boys, Andy loves to shoot guns, so he felt right at home with the 19th century muskets and cannonballs on display in the fort’s vaulted corridors. The bayonets, however — once he realized that people actually got poked with them — made him think twice about being reborn as a Civil War soldier.
     That night we had dinner at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, where we sat at a stainless steel dining set with teal Naugahyde upholstery. Bubba’s menu features classic Low Country cuisine, which is based on fresh seafood and rice combined with Caribbean and African spices and techniques.
     Andy had seen a flyer for a crab shack earlier in the day, and since he’d never tried crab, he’d been begging to sample it. He ordered crab cakes, a Savannah specialty, but unfortunately they had a little too much cayenne pepper for his taste. We ordered him some chicken fingers instead.
     I sampled a variety of appetizers and side dishes, including seafood gumbo, black-eyed peas and Savannah rice. Andy tried the peas and rice, with mixed reviews, but I couldn’t get him to taste the gumbo, which was a rich mixture of okra, rice, shrimp, crab and oysters.


Hilton Head
     After dinner, we made the hour drive to Hilton Head Island, where we stayed at the Main Street Inn, a boutique hotel in the style of a Southern townhouse wrapped around a formal garden. We were in no hurry to leave our bathrobes behind the next morning, but eventually we made our way to the Coastal Discovery Museum, which offers self-guided nature tours of the historic Honey Horn Plantation.
     The tour took us on boardwalks over wetland areas, through a garden of carnivorous plants — to our disappointment, the plants didn’t munch any insects while we were there — and past the plantation’s carriage house, stables, and cemetery. But the real highlight for Andy came when he kicked off his flip-flops and ventured out into a mud bog with the consistency of quicksand.
     That afternoon, we drove to South Forest Beach, a wide stretch of sand where we waded and collected shells until the sun began to set. Whenever Andy collects something, he gives it to me to put in my pocket. By the time we left the beach, my pockets were bulging with sand-covered shells that Andy later rinsed off and added to his collection at home.
     As Andy and I reflected on our two-day excursion, we both agreed we should have dropped the Telfair Museum from our busy agenda — it was sensory overload for Andy. But he had enjoyed the trip, especially the riverboat cruise, the beach, and the candy store. And he’d learned some history along the way.
     As we left the beach and walked back through the park to our car, we passed a gazebo furnished with public rocking chairs. We sat and rocked awhile, enjoying the view, hoping to return to the Low Country soon.