Dr. Pepper marinated short rib tacos ….

We woke up slow in Charleston, seems like we are getting more slow and easy-going the further South we get.  With only a two-hour drive to get to Savannah and a noon reservation for lunch we opted to skip the bacon and biscuits for breakfast and chose instead the Charleston House homemade yogurt and farm grown fruit plate.  We had to save room for lunch at Paula Deen’s Brown Food and Butter Restaurant and Fried Food Emporium AKA The Lady and Sons Restaurant. 

We’ve had a reservation for a month and apparently you aren’t likely to get in without one – at least until recently.  There was a line all the way down the block of hungry tourists waiting – just in case there were no-shows on the reservations list.

Sweet tea, fried chicken, collard greens in butter, buttery grits, buttered mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, black-eyed peas and butter beans. I am seeing a common thread in these southern restaurants. I must admit though, there was a picture of a salad on one of the walls.

I realize that after a such a lunch we should have chosen a stroll through Savannah but instead we moseyed out the door and down a few yards where we boarded the Orange and Green Trolley with “Hollywood” Williams (who is without a doubt the best tour guide in Savannah) as our guide for a two-hour tour through the historic district that visited every Public Square that James Oglethorpe incorporated into the design of the city.

There were lots of well-known people who did many important things in Savannah as detailed by “Hollywood” over the course of the tour. He not only shared many important historic facts, he sang to us and recited lines from many of the movies that have been shot in Savannah.

That said, just before our tour ended “Hollywood” just happened to mention that Savannah is home to the seventh best ice cream store in the world … that’s the whole world, mind you, including Italy and Disneyworld. You know that now there was no way we were leaving town without having ice cream.

The boys over the past few years’ road trips have been exposed to a lot of people, places and foods. I hadn’t really thought about it until I heard them in the back seat the next morning discussing their favorite meals of this trip so far. Graham – Dr. Pepper marinated short rib tacos. Garrett – Mussels with Squid Ink Pasta. I also heard Garrett say this, and I am not kidding, “this is shaping up to be called our gastronomic trip.” I see that the Food Network has made its mark with the Junior High set.