Fun as it’s been, it is good-bye Savannah before long. I’m picking up the telltale items that the city has ceased to keep supplying me with new input. I now plow through downtown to wherever I’m heading and am starting to frequent certain locations. That says I’ve quit looking for alternatives. In all, Savannah is a smaller city than my first impression.I zipped across the Highway 17 suspension bridge to find nothing. What? That’s right. The bridge crosses the Savannah to a causeway into South Carolina that narrows to a two-lane secondary through the jungle. And the sidecar instantly lets you know the condition of the roadbed. I turned around after ten miles.
Today’s fun was Fort Pulaski, the million-dollar pile of brick that surrendered after the first day. That sounds bad so let me explain. The fort, like others of the era, was built of brick and the new rifled cannon could blast through it from a mile away. Nobody, not even the Feds using the new cannons, were ready for that. The shells took out the south wall, exposing the powder magazine. It was surrender or Kingdom come. The fort is spotless but it seems less imposing than the [much older] Spanish structure at St. Augustine. Then again, the Spaniards had more experience fighting just about everybody.
The fort also has a fun souvenir shop and guided tours if you are into the details of military living. Metal detectors are banned. On the same trip to the fort, I stopped at the bookstore and coffee shop, same as last day. Such repeats spell the polish wearing off this trip. I thrive on the constant new. I bought a couple of paperback novels, but this is an activity I’d be content with back home.
Here’s the coffee shop I visited, with Bob Dylan on the house speakers. Does every college generation have to go through the Dylan phase? Elliott and I have standing jokes about the songs learned by surplus young male guitarists who can’t sing. Dylan, Young, Knopfler, Eagles. Guitar teachers hand the same awful crap to every sucker who’ll keep paying for the lessons. Here is the guitarist self-test to see if you were taken in. Do you know these nine useless songs? Like a Rolling Stone, It Ain’t Me, Sultans of Swing, Money For Nothing, Heart of Gold, After the Gold Rush, Hotel California, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Horse With No Name. If so, you will never be accepted by anyone except other guitarists or people who know nothing about music. Trust me, you don’t want that.
Okay, I’ll mention the Boston bombs. I only know about it because there is a flat screen in the breakfast room. CNN keeps asking what the President can say at a time like this. I have some suggestions: “The USA is immediately calling all troops home from all foreign countries, shutting down all foreign military bases, stopping all interference in foreign politics, cutting off all foreign aid, expelling the United Nations, sealing off the Mexican border, deporting all illegals, and shutting down all immigration until unemployment falls below 4%.”
When I hear him saying that, I’ll take him seriously. Oh yeah, the bombs. The problem is not the bombs, but the individuals responsible for making people hate us so. Those politicians are the guilty members and it is they who should be exposed and punished for what they’ve done. Time, America, to start minding your own business again. Are you even listening?
No itinerary is planned except not staying here another day of what is already routine. I even found the bus depot where Greyhound stranded us in 2009 and I’m still shocked how they would not let us go the five blocks into town to eat. Instead, kept something like fifty of us in a depot with no food or water (except salty vending chips) and only sixteen chairs.
You can look that up, I documented it. The staff turned off the TV because it “bothered them” and refused to tell us when the replacement bus would arrive or to hold it for anyone who left the terminal for food or drink. Sorry for the repeat, but this terrible thing that Greyhound did warrants blog mention again because it was so evil of them to do it. The least they could have done was provide sandwiches and coffee.
ADDENDUM
I found [and purchased in Savannah] a little more silver, though don’t get the idea it is in short supply. I buy only the bars, and there are all kinds of rounds (the coin-shaped silver) still for sale. Is it not curious that while everybody loves the rounds, it is the bars that sell out first? What’s more, I don’t care for the hype used to sell rounds. My focus is the weight and purity. Toward that end, I buy only .999 fine, the best available.
I see that gold has dropped below my buy point of $1,350 per ounce. Do I dare? The word on the street is that Cyprus is planning to sell its reserves to manage their local crisis. But what I can’t figure is now a nothing country like Cyprus can do anything to upset the entire world market, including dump their piddling $500 million in gold. The theory is other countries [like Portugal] will panic sell, further depressing prices. See, entire governments can consist of nothing but retards. My instinct tells me that the price of gold is not determined by who is holding on to it. But for the tiny annual mining increases, the amount of gold in the world is fairly constant. Who cares whether Italy or India owns this or that much? I say stand back and let these foreigners duke it out. Slitting each other’s throats is what they do best. I’m sticking to the maxim of buy when prices are falling because they can’t fall forever. That’s why it is called “precious metal”. If it drops to ten bucks, I’ll be buying it by the pound.
