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Soul of the South

Dedicated to the sunshine of truth,

the moonshine of meeting deadlines,

and the starshine of Victoria.

8661 Deer Run Dr. * Victoria

952-443-2351

by Sue Orsen

         We found it.  We found the Soul of the South, the Deep South.  It's not like we were searching for it.  We weren't.  We had just decided to visit a part of the USA we hadn't seen before, and there it was waiting for us.  We went from the Deep Freeze of Victoria, Minnesota, to the Deep South in the twinkling of twin engines.

         Long ago we had spent a week in Atlanta where we certainly experienced Southern Hospitality along with the Southern Drawl and the Peach Tree Plaza, not to mention crawfish on the bayou and a sampling of grits on the side.

         New Orleans was also an exciting southern nugget for us Midwesterners to find a few years ago, but Bourbon Street doesn't smell or sound like the Deep South as much as it does Jazz, Gumbalaya, and All Things Cajun.  I don't believe Florida -- including Disney World, Cape Kennedy, and Marco Island -- counts as part of the Deep South because it's full of transplants from everywhere else.

         So we took a week off this past March 2014, booked a flight away from winter, and touched upon the Soul of the Deep South in Savannah, Georgia, and in Charleston, South Carolina.  If we keep finding such missed treasures in the USA -- missed by us, anyway -- we may think twice about crossing that Big Pond again.

         And so we flew into Atlanta on Sunday, March 9th, rented a red Volkswagen Jetta (A real squeeze!), then pointed my Passenger iPad map and my own Good Map Sense toward the River Front in Savannah.  It's where a King Size Suite was waiting for us in the Inn at Ellis Square.

         We enjoy discovering the countryside in our travels, and this time we discovered telephone pole pines lining the highway for the next four hours.  No lie!  It was four hours of tall skinny pine trees stretched toward the sky for the entire drive.  If there was another countryside, we couldn't see it. 

         We talked about how the early American colonists must have chopped a lot of wood in order to build a home or plant a field.  We also saw semi-trucks piled high with pines, most likely on their way to the telephone pole factory.  As we got closer to the coastal shores of Savannah, the land became marshy and swampy and many times the pines alongside the road were standing in water.  It was Interstate Highway 16 that we were traversing most all the way.

         The sky was blue and the air was warm.  No blowing snow nor sleeting rain and ice on the roads.  We almost felt guilty when we turned on the air conditioning in that little redda Jetta.

         And then we came to a remarkable bridge that spanned the Savannah River and dropped us into downtown Savannah.  But first I took lots of pictures of that bridge -- through the car window, as usual.  It reminded me of the Mackinac Bridge with its big swooping cables on both sides.  We learned it was the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, named after a governor of Georgia.

         Ellis Inn was outstanding, but we didn't sit around.  I took off my boots, put on flip-flops, and we strolled down a cobblestone street to the River Front where we soaked in the sunshine and sipped on a Wet Willie.  Huge container ships streamed inland from Bangkok, Panama, and Monrovia.   Visitors streamed in from Up North.  Vendors streamed in to sell their wares.

         I had the good fortune to meet a Southerner by the name of Oji Lukata.  His roses made from palm branches and baskets from sweetgrass attracted me.  I purchased some of the roses, and then he set a hat on my head and showed me a laminated page from a local newspaper.  I easily understood why the headline billed him as an Artist and Ambassador for Savannah.

 

Click here to continued Soul of the South.

The Victoria GAZETTE

April 2014