6-1-18  To Savannah for lunch, then to Edisto, South Carolina, by way of Savannah Wildlife Refuge:

Josh's meetings ran until about 3.  Then we met him back at the Hyatt where he left his car so he could ride to Edisto with us. 
In the meantime, Angie and I headed back into Savannah for a few hours to do some more exploring.

Angie suggested we check out Forsyth Park.  Sounded good to me!

LOVE the homes around the square!!!

Angie said this is her dream home---and it's for sale!

  We even happened upon a parking spot along the square that still had 1.5 hours on the meter.  So we parked and walked around the square.  Savannah has a bunch of squares, but this one is larger then any of the others I've seen.

It was another beautiful day!

hot and humid, but at least it wasn't raining.

Love all the flowers around the fountain.

especially the agapanthus

A little history about the park.

lots more old oak trees with lots of hanging moss on them.

On to the statues

Heading back towards where we parked.

We had reservations for Lady and Sons' Restaurant for noon.  Now the fun part --- finding a parking spot down town.

Ended up in a parking garage.  I was surprised that the fee was only $2/hour!   Plus this garage was only about 2 blocks from the restaurant.  On our walk to the restaurant we saw some more interesting sights.  Don't know what this building is, but I like the ironwork on the side.

Turned out we didn't need reservations for Lady and Sons', they weren't busy yet.  I got the buffet which cost something like $16.  A bit pricey, but it was very good.  Angie got soup, salad and half a sandwich which she also liked. 

Soon it was time to make our way back to the hotel.  --- after a stop at Sam's for baby formula and gas.  Ended up getting back to the hotel about 10 minutes before Josh.  Then we were on our way.

I knew the Savannah Wildlife Refuge was close by, so we took a bit of a detour and rode through it.  Not much in the way of birds there, but we did see quite a few alligators.

and dragonflies

It's a drive through park.  We managed to take about an hour to go the 4 miles along the river.

a couple of the birds we saw---red winged blackbird and an anhinga.

and a lone glossy ibis.

There were quite a few little crabs, too.

This was the most birds we saw at one time---little blue herons.

with a Great Blue Heron looking at his smaller cousins.

and a good size alligator looking at all of them.

not many wildflowers, but there were quite a few of these pretty white ones.

The wetlands were pretty, just a little scarce on wildlife.

but if you looked hard you could find an occasional critter, like this lone Tri colored Heron.

more of the mossy oaks.

even saw a lone Black and White Stilt.  I've seen a lot of them in Maui; a few in South Florida, now one here.

Probably saw more alligators then any other species of animals!

another grumpy red winged black bird---I see lots of them in Mo.

2 more alligators. 

another lone tri colored heron.

some more wild flowers by the river.

butterfly house????

yep, another alligator.  They seemed to have faired last year's Hurricane Irma quite well.

2 more alligators.

train bridge?

wonder if it's still used?

When we were done in the refuge, we angled north to I-95 and continued on to Edisto Island, South Carolina.  You know you're about to enter the island when you see this bridge.

About 3.5 hours after leaving Savannah, we were entering Edisto. 

I reserved our accommodations through Wyndham.  With our VIP status, I was able to get a free upgrade to a 2 bedroom lock off unit from a 1 bedroom suite---at half the points of the suite.  This time we were in the section of the resort called The Village.  I was a bit apprehensive after reading a bunch of recent reviews about the resort being dated and buggy.  I know it was closed for several months after Hurricane Irma, so I assumed everything was renovated.   We were assigned units 674A and B.  Hope the reviews were wrong!

View of the pool from our patio.

  First impression of the inside---nice!  Even Layla liked the couch.

It was a perfect shape for her to sit up on.

I let Josh, Angie and Layla have the 1 bedroom deluxe part of the unit.

It was dinner time by the time we were all unpacked.  So we walked across the street to the Marina restaurant Pressley's.

cool light at the restaurant.

sea gull scoping us out.

Looking back towards The Village from the restaurant.

The river from the restaurant.

more of the inter-coastal.

There was about a 35 minute wait, so we gave them our phone number and headed down to the bar area for a bit.

Then we headed to the picnic area and waited some more.

still waiting.

after about 40 minutes I walked back over to see where we were in line.  She said she tried to call us but the phone kept disconnecting.  But they had a table for us, so I flagged them over and we headed to our table---a very skinny booth.  Ended up waiting another 10 minutes or so for a table.  But dinner was good.  Angie and I got salads with Mahi Mahi on them.  Josh got a burger.  It wasn't cheap, but Angie and I had left overs.

We even got a table at a window and had nice views of the inter-coastal. 

and the bar area where we waited earlier for awhile.

Hoped to see a pretty sunset, but that didn't happen tonight.

I was anxious to see how Edisto looked almost a year after Hurricane Irma.  If I hadn't known that the town was hit so hard, I never would have suspected it.  The island looked just like I remembered!