Telfair Museums & Owens-Thomas House

In our final days staying in Savannah, we wanted to see the twin Telfair museums and the historic Owens-Thomas House that is included in the admission price.  These items and we included another long walk throughout the entire Historic District and to include all 22 of the park-like squares.

We will be leaving our Red Gate Farms campground on Sunday to drive about 265 miles to a campground just north of North Myrtle Beach.  This is a much longer drive than we prefer, but need to do it this time to meet an appointment at the RV Outlet service center, the S.C. branch of the selling RV dealer.  We have a list of about a dozen relatively minor issues that we need to have corrected while the coach is still under the one year warranty.

This move will take us about 6 or 7 hours including a couple of stops and a lunch stop.  The route is up I-95 to just north of Florence SC, then we begin a series of state highways to reach the park.  Several of these roads are not approved for large vehicles per my Rand McNally truckers road atlas.  This does not mean that they are impassable, but just not a preferred route for large vehicles.  I did verify these back roads had no low overpasses.  It should be exciting!

We plan to stay in Myrtle Beach for three days then relocate in a northwest direction on the way to Asheville, NC for a week.  Hopefully, all repairs will be completed in that time and I can get our taxes done as well.  I have a few unique items with our taxes this year, so need to do a little research.  I’ve always done my own taxes using TurboTax, but this year I may have to seek out a preparer.  We’ll see.

Town Square Walk

This was something that I have been wanting to do after reading about a route to walk through all 22 squares.  Well, we did it and racked up 6.3 miles/15,804 steps in the process.  We stopped a few times and had a late lunch at the Six Pence Pub.  This is the English style pub that was in a Julia Roberts movie.

The walk involves a grid pattern as shown in the map above.  Many live oak tree-lined streets, historic mansions, and flowering plants everywhere.  Beautiful!  There are also many street musicians playing in the squares wanting a donation.  It was a great time, but tiring for this old guy.

Telfair Museums

They have two buildings on the ticket of which one is more modern art and the other more to our liking.

Owens-Thomas House

In Savannah, they name houses using the names of the first two owners.  The Owens-Thomas House was a remarkable house in the many design features and how many modern conveniences it included when built.

Designed by William Jay and completed in 1819, it is one of the finest examples of regency architecture in America as well as it still includes the original slave quarters.  It also includes Savannah’s earliest system of indoor plumbing, an indoor bridge, and the balcony from which the Marquis de Lafayette is said to have addressed a crowd of locals in 1825.

Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House

One of the final tasks that we worked into our stay here was the required lunch at this famous boarding house.  This harkens back to the days of boarding houses that would provide not only a bedroom but also 2-3 meals a day.  These were quite common up until the 60’s or so that provided an economical room and board.

For their lunch, they do not accept reservations or credit cards, so arrive early and with cash.  We had to wait about 1.5 hours to be seated along with the folks who we chatted with in the line.  One young couple was on spring break from their senior years of college.  The young man from the Air Force Academy in Colorado.   He was looking forward to operating drones.

Another couple at our table were also travelling through the area in an RV and were camped at the same campground, Red Gate.  Amazing!

The granddaughter of Mrs. Wilkes stopped by our table to check in on us.  More fried chicken please.  When we were seated there were 23 different bowls on food on the table.  It was a take something and pass it around.

Take care and God Bless.