Escape: In Which We were Taken for a Ride

 

A friend recommended that we take a horse-drawn carriage ride while in Charleston.  I couldn’t see myself doing that—it just seemed like it would be too expensive.  But then I let a fast talking salesperson talk to me, and after that it seemed to be a great idea!  (And it wasn’t as expensive as I had feared.) 

Here is our horse, Kevin.  We were happy to meet him.

And he was VERY happy to meet me.  I had hoped to get a picture with Kevin looking in my general direction.  I didn’t expect him to get so completely close and personal!)

Fortunately he was better behaved when Russ came to get his picture taken.

Kevin has a pretty sweet life for a horse.  He works 6 days a week for 5 or 6 weeks, and then he gets a three week vacation on an island nearby.  If you’ll look back at the first picture you’ll see that he wears a stylish poop-catching bag that allows him to relieve himself whenever the urge strikes.  What more could you ask?

There were about 4 or 5 rubber balls on the floor of the carriage near my feet. 

I asked our driver (I’ve forgotten his name, but I can remember the horse’s!) what they were and he explained that they were urine markers.  When the horse urinates, the driver drops a little ball with a flag on it.  Then the street cleaners go and wash that part of the street down. 

And now I will stop talking about horses bodily functions.  I’m sure you are relieved.

The nameless driver also explained the routing system.  Because there are so many carriages driving around Charleston at any one time, they have to be assigned routes.  After considering several systems the city decided that the best way to decide this was a simple lottery.  And so at the beginning of every tour, the driver and horse stop at this little shed and a woman comes out and picks out a bingo ball.  The label (ours was something like I-16) then tells the driver the route.

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour.  We were lucky to get to see the parts of Charleston that I was really interested to see.  Several churches (incredible), Rainbow Row (so-so in real life) and the mansions along the Battery (unbelievable).  The (nameless) driver was personable and so informative.  He was clearly passionate about the topics of slavery & the civil war and I felt like we learned a lot.  All that and a nuzzle from Kevin too—what more could I ask?!?

 

Our transportation experience in Savannah was somewhat less successful.  We had bought tickets for a trolley ride around historic Savannah.  The selling point on this trolley company was that not only would the drivers tell about what we were driving past, but we could get off and back on at different stops.

I actually found the trolley ride very frustrating.  The information was good, but I felt like every time the driver pointed to something I couldn’t see past the 1st story because of the size of the trolley window.  It must have been worse for Russ because I was the one by the window.

We got a much better look at things when we got out of the trolley and walked around.  We also got a good look at things when we went on a segway tour.  We’ve decided those are a great way to see a city.  Sorry, no pictures of the segways though!

I do have a picture from our segway tour.  This is Jones St.

It was apparently a very posh part of Savannah to live in, and our guide told us that some people think that the expression “keeping up with the Joneses” originated here, and meant to keep up with the people in this particular neighborhood rather than keeping up with a specific family.  It was definitely lovely.

 

In conclusion:

If there’s a way, segway.
To enhance your marriage, take a carriage.
But taking the trolley is surely folley!