iconic destination.

Day three of the trip to Savannah. Today we finished the drive thru North Carolina, and entered South Carolina. You all know what that means ... South Of the Border. The ticky, tacky, kitshy, tourist trap off of I-95. Since 1949 this place has been luring people off the road.

They've added a lot of stuff over the decades. It has a motel, campground, restaurants, beach-like shops, reptiles, zip line, paint ball, swimming .... It even has it's own pedestrian bridge to cross the road. I've never been there before but I've been hearing about it for years.

It was pretty empty when we arrived around 10 am. The girls weren't into it. I think my niece was appalled. But they softened up and managed to enjoy themselves. I even got them to go up the 200' high sombrero tower. I really, really, wanted to climb the stairs. To insure that everyone went, I payed the $2 admission.

Next stop was the Swan Lake Iris Garden. On the visitor center side of the street, the trail around the lake is about 3/4 mile.  The lake has numerous species of swans. And a lot of geese who were mooching from the swans feeding stations.

This garden has a few cypress trees in the lake.  Around the rim of the lake are other cypress tree and many "knees" -- roots which are trying to reach the water to create new trees. A third variety lives away form the water.

There were also magnolia trees. They were just starting to bloom. What was cool were the "arms" coming out of the trunk creating new trees. There irises were done but there was a braille garden, a chocolate garden and a butterfly garden.

Climbing the stairs and crossing the pedestrian bridge, we entered the other half of the garden. A totally different world. First was the hydrangea garden and a large grassy area with a gazebo, tables and a hobbit house. The rest of the area was a marsh filled with cypress trees. You walked on a boardwalk thru a cypress forest. It was beautiful. Pictures don't do it justice. It was like something out of a movie.

At this point we had walked about 3.5 miles, but there was more to come.

After checking into the hotel, we headed downtown and went down some historic STEEP stairs toward the river. There was an alley between the river walk and the stairs. It was cobblestone. I could almost picture people in the 19th-century pouring out of their houses to go to work up those killer stairs. We looked in some stores, and we walked along the river before heading up a different set of historic stairs. These were not quite as steep. We went into town a bit and then headed back to the motel. We knew we arrived when we saw the sign for the Waffle Ho_se.

Total mileage for the day -- without a hat -- six.

52-Hike Challenge:   30/52