Dallas and I took a day to explore Savannah and get some time away from our bikes.  Blaine had class in the morning, so we woke up around 10am, only to find that Blaine had received a text message telling all SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) students to stay inside and not to go anywhere until further notice.  Apparently, a crazy guy with a gun was downtown and had locked himself in one of the restaurants with two hostages.  Since his class was cancelled, Blaine joined us for breakfast at a diner near his home before bringing us downtown.

Enjoying ice-cream at Leopold’s: rose petal and honey almond for me, and lavender and orange blossom for Dallas

Once downtown, we walked to the Savannah Bee Company and then Blaine left us to explore on our own.  We walked along the river and then back to Leopold’s for ice-cream, which was delicious.  It began raining after we left Leopold’s, so we walked/ran to a cafe, where we stayed for the next three or four hours while it thundered and poured.

Blaine had told us about a meet-up for Couchsurfers in Savannah that evening, so we met up with him and about 20 other Couchsurfers, mostly hosts in Savannah, at the Moon River Brewing Companyshortly after 7pm.  We stayed there for a few hours interacting with other members of the couchsurfing community.  One of them was from Florida and was planning a bike tour from Savannah in the next few days.  He had another couchsurfer from France who was staying with him in St Petersburg and decided to leave with him when he started driving up the coast.

Savannah couchsurfers at Moon River Brewing Co.

After departing the couchsurfing meeting, Blaine took us to a secret bar where he flashed a special key to get past the doorman.  Mata Hari is a speakeasy style bar that only allows 200 members at any given time.  The only way you can become a member is if someone who is leaving Savannah gives you their key.  It was a pretty cool place, and we stayed to watch a few sets of Britt Scott’s singing.

It was already after midnight when we got back to Blaine’s apartment, but Dallas and I needed to do laundry, so we put a load in the washer and then watched a movie before going back to switch the clothes to the dryer.