Savannah on the River

So my birthday is tomorrow, and some time ago Vera planned a secret vacation for the two of us involving our leaving today and not getting back to the farm until Friday.

One of the consequences of getting the farm, incidentally, has been it suddenly became a bit difficult for the two of us to get away like this at once, given how much needs to be taken care of day-to-day, particularly with the horses. So this is a real treat.

I say it’s a “secret vacation” because Vera managed to plan the whole thing without my knowledge, and so I had no idea where we were headed. Was guessing to friends it would either be the beach (about a four-hour trip east) or the mountains (a bit less to the west), but as it turned out we went south down to Savannah, Georgia.

I should’ve guessed that, actually, as we had been talking about the fact that we’d never been to Savannah before and had more or less planned to go, although it had slipped my mind. But once we got out on the interstate I remembered those discussions, and so had guessed correctly before we arrived.

On the way down I kept thinking of the poker scene in Cool Hand Luke when Wayne Rogers, who plays Gambler, is dealing the cards in the five-card stud game and he pitches a second seven as an upcard to Koko, Luke’s opponent.

“A pair of Savannahs,” says Gambler, describing the pair Koko has showing (and which Luke eventually gets him to fold after relentlessly raising with his king-high). Don’t know much about the origin of that poker term, other than that it is used both to describe the seven and to describe a seven hand in lowball.

Gonna cut this one short, but tomorrow I’ll share one other fun aspect of the trip Vera kept hidden. I’ll give a hint -- we’re staying in a bed and breakfast that features a particular theme having to do with U.S. presidents.

Meanwhile, we’re going to go down to do some people watching on the river.