OLD SAVANNAH OAKS | An Adventure Post
I love how when visiting a good ol' southern coastal location, I almost always come away in a patriotic mood. This Saturday I sure felt that way after I took a day trip to Savannah with a couple of friends.
Our original plans were to just walk around the beautiful historic city of Savannah and enjoy a delicious southern cooked meal at Paula Deen's restaurant with my friend's parents we met up with. The site seeing and mouthwatering fried chicken and collard greens certainly didn't disappoint us. However on the drive down to Savannah, I did a little research on my phone to find at least one good photo shoot opportunity that I'd like to check out while we were down there. Thankfully my friends agreed after our fulfilling meal to drive a couple more miles down to the Wormsloe Plantation site to check out one of my favorite southern lowcountry camera subjects - old live oaks with moss.
I hadn't heard of this plantation before, but just based on some of the pictures I saw, I knew it was a place I'd like to see. It turned out to be a very interesting and unique visit. As you approach the entrance of the historic site, you're dramatically welcomed by gorgeous live oaks with Spanish moss as a canopy to drive under on a dirt road. We arrived with only an hour left before closing, so I knew my photo period would be limited. As soon as I saw this road, I couldn't help to want to get out the car and start shooting...but unfortunately we noticed there were many cars down the road toward the plantation. I didn't want the cars to be in my shot, so we decided to drive down the road to scope out the plantation first.
As we drove up and got closer, we noticed many people leaving as it looked like an event had just finished. We continued to drive past the parked cars and drove up as far as we could go on the road. Then all of a sudden it felt as if we had gone back in time as we saw several red coat soldiers walking toward us. Come to find out, the plantation had just finished a Colonial Fair and Muster (basically a reenactment festival). We anxiously parked the car and got out to walk down the trail and check out what was left of the set up. From the parking area, there's a trail that leads several yards down to the oldest remaining structure in the Savannah area - the tabby ruins of Wormsloe, the colonial estate of Noble Jones (1736). As we walked down the path, we passed many colonial period soldiers and settlers as it felt like we were walking through history. It was neat imagining and actually seeing what life was like back in the 18th century. It was interesting seeing the old plantation home ruins on the banks of the marsh and picturing the settlers coming in on their ships off of the marsh to get to their plantation home. I took several pictures of some of the colonial folks but mainly just enjoyed soaking in the history during the moment.
We quickly realized we were running out of time for me to get some shots of the mossy oak road, so we walked back to the car. Thankfully by then, many of the cars were leaving so I was able to get some great shots! I even was blessed with capturing a deer crossing the road! As I was setting up my tripod and my camera in the road, my friends were in the car watching me do my thing. Since we by then had the patriotic mood in us (by the way, my roommate and I had watched part of The Patriot the night before), my friend started playing some old colonial period patriotic songs on his iPad in the car to make me laugh. But it really gave me some great background music as I was taking pictures of the beautiful oak tree road while thinking..."This land is my land, this land is your land...this land was made for you and me!" As much as I love taking pictures of beautiful scenes, I appreciate and enjoy the history and first founders of our home we love!
I hope you enjoy the beautiful pictures of the Wormsloe Plantation oak tree road, and several pictures from downtown Savannah. Always remember, my pictures are available for purchasing prints in my gallery section of my website!
Click here to see some of the shots I got of the colonial people.
