Savannah.

If you've been with us for a while, you know of my personal affinity for Savannah. The slightly minty sweet tea; the Spanish moss; the kind of history that slows your walk to a stroll just so you can soak it in; the drawl; the fresh pralines; the way everybody calls each other darlin'; Rico's brother; the cobblestone roads, and the way every house on the square looks like a cleaner version of Disney's Haunted Mansion. Savannah is like that college boyfriend you know you shouldn't marry, but can't see any reason to break up with yet.

Until now.

It's an amicable split, but after three dates, Savannah and I have agreed - it just ain't gonna work out darlin'.

Most of the reasons fall firmly into the "it's not you - it's me" category, because there were no secrets - Savannah was pretty up front about this stuff from the start. 

Like the bugs. Lord love a cicada - they are freaking HUGE. I mean I knew this, but never had to deal with it until our nighttime stroll where cockroaches the size of small lizards were scuttling across our shoes. 

Then there's pace. In all honesty, it's part of what drew me to Savannah in the first place - nobody seems to be in too much of a hurry to get anywhere or do anything in particular. Sounds great until you're waiting for a server to bring you silverware, or standing in line in 100 degree heat to pick up your car. I mean, I love you Savannah - you do you - but I also know me, and my constant finger drumming, foot shuffling, and muttering under my breath would eventually drive a wedge between us anyway.

Let's talk about the sugar. 

The sugar is ev-ry-freaking-where. 

Want an unsweetened tea? Good luck.

Black beans and rice? Slight aftertaste of fruity pebbles.

Fries? First of all - sweet potatoes. Second -  sweet potatoes rolled in sugar (which didn't slow one of us down).

Don't misunderstand - the pralines at Savannah's Candy Kitchen alone are worth the 1,500 mile trip, and the peach cobbler at Sisters of The New South didn't last long under my spoon either, but all the same, fresh water and a toothbrush never felt so good. My blood sugar will be spiking until Kentucky - at least.

And then came the final straw Savannah - the "Got Ghosts" tour with Patrick Burns.

I did a lot of research and supposedly Patrick Burns was THEE man to give us a historical ghost tour. We were pretty excited. We'd visited  the cemeteries, and strolled the historic district, and we're sort of fascinated by the history of "The City Built on it's Dead." (Sad, but literally true - parts of the city are built right over large burial grounds.)

Despite the he approaching thunderstorm, we stopped in front of various homes, shops and theaters in Savannah's historic district (yeah, including the Mercer house from "Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil"). 

We get to Calhoun Square, one of the houses on Abercorn, and he begins telling our group of 45 about the house there. He begins by berating the older lady who owns it, telling us how she's a jerk who doesn't like tour groups coming near her house and she only stays in the servants quarters even though she owns the whole house and "isn't that weird?" (Which isn't weird at all, because if I was an old lady I wouldn't want to live in a big @$$ house either, and I certainly wouldn't want hundreds of people coming by every night at 10:30). Anyway, as he's sharing this information, the lady comes out of said haunted house. Before she even says a word, he's jeering, "Oooh look, here she comes," and he's got this crowd of people holding their phones up recording her and laughing at her and pointing.

And this poor woman doesn't even cross the street to where we are. This old lady just comes out of her house and says, "Just keep your tour group together and don't shine lights on the house." And as she turns to walk away, Patrick starts shouting  "Be gone Spawn of Satan!" Over and over and over - truly at least 15/20 times, taunting her, like he wants to start something. (People were filming it, I'm not exaggerating, the proof is out there.) It was so bad, that a smaller tour group near us said, "That's so wrong," and left. The old lady retreats into her house, and he spends the next 5/10 minutes telling us how he's not doing anything wrong and it's his right to be there, and how she's a jerk. 

Friends, there is clearly an idiot in this story and it ain't the old lady. What kind of person does this you may ask? Well I asked the same thing of his wife, who explained that yes, he probably had gone too far, but this lady had harassed him before and plus there was another group that had shone a deer light on her house at night, but it wasn't them.

So now I feel like dog crap, because we have paid $125 for our family to be party to harassing some old lady that just wants some peace in her life. WTH Savannah? What's on tomorrow's docket? A fifty dollar ticket to throw rocks at puppies and make fun of kids with glasses? I do concur that there is the slight possibility that she was a planted actor, but it didn't seem like that, and eeeeeven if it were true, I really don't  want my kids to think that picking on old people is a form of entertainment. It  was truly all I could do to even stay with the group at that point, because WTH? 

Anyway, we'll give Savannah another shot someday, because despite the bugs, and candy-coated fries, I'm always gonna love it just a little bit.