Day 02 Tybee Island GA

We actually sleep in to 10 AM today! It is a welcome relief to getting up and traveling every day! We put our swim suits on and hit the beach, a short 900 foot walk. After a couple hours on the beach and in the surf we are done with the beach.

We come back to our room and shower and walk next door for lunch at Sting Ray’s and the food is good. Back to the room for a nap and then we go in search of a lighthouse we have heard of, the “Tybee Island Lighthouse”. As we approach the area, the storm clouds are amazing and our cameras love it! We arrive and buy our tickets amid warnings that we may be ordered to come down at any moment because of the storms in the area. I tell the people in charge that I want to photograph the storms from the top of the lighthouse and they get nervous and threaten to revoke permission for me to go up! I laugh and tell them I’m kidding (inside I’m not) and promise to play by the rules and they let me go up.

It seems to take forever to climb the 178 steps to the top and I am winded when I get there but the views are fantastic and the storms are brewing! I get photos from all sides just as the rains start and lightning starts to light up the skies. I don’t hear it but the word has come to evacuate the lighthouse. I am the last one down but not so slow as to worry the people in charge, it seems. All is well and I have my shots! All is for the best as the central core and all the steps are are metal so if there was a strike, I’d be okay?

We tour a couple buildings on the ground and see how people lived in the 17 and 1800’s and then drive off back to our Motel. Not too soon it seems as a vicious storm sweeps through the area and lightning and thunder is all around. I still wish I could capture some lightning on camera but it is not to be so.

So another nap it is while the storm passes and then it’s off to dinner at a restaurant called, “Bubba Gumbos”, which after we get seated and served, the food is very good, however the building is sinking into the bayou if that is what you can call it and our wine glasses were actually sliding off the table and we had constantly had to grab them and it was rather humorous!

After dinner, it was time for sunset and we go out the next door, and at a restaurant called “CoCo’s”, there are docks out back with great views of the sunset and we hang out there and photograph the sunset.

Then it’s back to our room to turn in for the night! See you all tomorrow!

Macon GA to Tybee Island GA

We awake in Macon and get breakfast and hit the road towards Savannah GA this morning. We arrive around 12:30PM and find the Hop On – Hop Off Bus and board for the 90 minute tour. Our driver, Ellis, is very entertaining and tells us all about the Historic district that he is driving us through. Stately mansions assault our camera lenses as we go. About an hour into the tour and our bellies are complaining of hunger.

So we get off in a food district and find a pub with good food and appease our tummies before venturing back out into the heat and humidity of downtown Savannah. We locate the Trolley Stop and board the bus just as an afternoon rain squall hits us. the side curtains on the Trolley are dropped and our cameras growl at us but we weather the storm to the end of the line where the weather lets up enough to make it to our car.

Driving on, we find a few more photos to take on the way to our motel for the next couple days out on Tybee Island. Here we have only a 900 foot walk to the beach. We have chosen this place for our last couple nights of our vacation so we can kick back a little as we have been on the go for the last 16 days.

We find a fun seafood restaurant by the beach to have dinner and have fun with a couple of locals while we eat. Now it is time to turn in for the night. See you all tomorrow!

Atlanta GA to Macon GA

Waking up in Atlanta GA, we get the obligatory hotel breakfast and pack the car. We head out after talking to a hotel employee that told us we need to see Stone Mountain and we set our navigation to get there. It turns out it is a half hour out of the city but we go anyway. When we arrive, we pay the parking fees and find our way to the sky tram and also pay the tram tickets and board the tram up Stone Mountain.

Our cameras are happy and keep us busy all the way up and on the top as we walk around the very smooth granite surface. It feels like we are on the moon up here! We get views in the distance of Atlanta, Perimeter and other places. We take the tram down and drive on back to Atlanta to walk around downtown. A friendly local gives us advice as to where we might get some skytop photos but alas, the recommended locations are closed due to it being Monday.

We continue walking around and find a restaurant, “Reubens Deli” to get a couple of very authentic deli sandwiches and sit and enjoy them. The owner catches on that we are out of town and visits with us and we share stories of our lives and it is a very enjoyable experience! If you are ever in downtown Atlanta, you wouldn’t go wrong to look up Reubens Deli!

We move on and head out of town and drive to Macon, GA where we settle in for the night. See you all tomorrow!

Kimball TN to Atlanta GA

We awaken in Kimball and have breakfast and drive on to Chattanooga TN, a short 30 minute drive. We stop at Ruby Falls, an underground series of caves ending at an underground waterfall, a highlight of Chattanooga and we sign up for an afternoon tour. We now have about 4 hours before we need to be back for our tour so we drive the last 5 minutes into the city and find things to see and do.

We find the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel and take some really fun photos. Part of us wishes we had stayed here but the $3-500 nightly price tag to stay in a rail car for a night is out of our budget. But the grounds are fun to walk around. We then walk around the downtown area and find the “Selfie Museum” but it appears to be closed and we wonder if Covid has put it out of business or is it just because it is Sunday?

We drive a mile or so and park the car again and walk across the river with our cameras and take some fun shots of the local aquarium buildings with an outdoor waterfall stairs that hot tourists are playing in. A local pub provides us with some cold refreshments in the form of cold hard cider and a local IPA and we are refreshed and ready to go again!

It is time to drive back to Ruby Falls for our tour and the place doesn’t disappoint. Our guide, Evie, takes us down a 260 foot elevator shaft and then a half mile of caverns into Lookout Mountain where we eventually arrive at Ruby Falls, a 90 foot tall underground waterfall, some 1100 feet underground! They have illuminated the falls with colored lights for quite the effect which our cameras enjoy immensely!

The path out is the same as the path in and the tour groups have to squeeze past each other on the way but the tour guides have developed a pattern and it all works smoothly and after an hour and a half we find ourselves back out in the hot humid Tennessee air after being in 60 degree underground air!

We set our GPS for Atlanta GA and in just under 2 hours we find ourselves checking into our hotel. We find a local Chinese restaurant only a few blocks away and have a quick dinner before turning in for the night. Tomorrow we will tour Atlanta!

Good night all!

Goodlettsville TN to Kimball TN

We wake up at Juan and Stephanie’s bright and early today and go downstairs to find we are the only ones awake. we find the coffee and tea supplies and make our hot morning beverages and await Juan and Stephanie.

They join us shortly and our day starts. We go back into Nashville and they take us to a park where a replica of the Parthenon stands and our cameras are once again happy as we walk around the park. Then we drive through downtown Nashville in the daylight and see the difference from last night.

Once back to their house, we borrow Stephanie’s car and drive our rental car to a friend of Juan’s where a small repair is performed while we drive back into Nashville to the Grand Ole Opry where we have scored Back Stage Tickets for a tour. Such fun! We and our cameras are stoked for an hour and a half!

After the tour, we cross the street for a quick lunch. Who would have thought that the Grand Ole Opry was across the street from a mall? So Dave and Busters it is for lunch before driving to pick up our rental car and heading back to Juan’s house. There we pack up and thank our hosts before heading back out on the road towards Chattanooga as we need to keep moving on to stay on track for our vacation timing.

We decide to stop 20 minutes short of Chattanooga in a town called Kimball, TN for the night and find a hotel. After checking in, we pick up some sundries at a Walmart next door and then go into a Mexican restaurant called El Toril where it turned out it was Karaoke Night! So we turned down discounted Grand Ole Opry tickets for Mexican Karaoke! How could we have chosen better?

Well, it’s time to call it a night! See you all tomorrow!