Georgia Traveler; 313; Best of Season 3

You On this episode of Georgia Traveler, it's the best of season three. From hauntings on the coast to wine country toasts, we present a few of this year's biggest adventures. That's next on Georgia Traveler. The Traveler.

Capturing the beauty of Savannah is worth a trip of its own. Take a walk through the historic district or stroll along River Street, but make sure you find shelter by nightfall because evenings in Savannah belong to the spirit world. When embarking on a ghost tour of Georgia, you have to include America's most haunted city, Savannah, and right at the heart of Savannah's ghostly legends is the pirate's house restaurant. And, you know, who better to help me tell this story than my matey, though one and only, Captain Flint. Years before the town of Savannah was founded in the year 1733, the entire coast of Georgia was inhabited by pirates and smugglers. Ask the fine folks who work at the pirate's house. Those who have spent years within these walls say the longer they work here, the more of a ghostly presence they feel. It's a very strange place, a very pleasant place to have a meal, but also a very common place to have a really crazy experience.

I do believe it's true, and I do believe they hang around here a lot. So maybe they're just in pass on or whatever, but they do lay hanging out here. There are ghosts all around the building. In one corner of the restaurant, you'll find some stairs that lead down to a place known as the Rumseller. This is where the tunnels are that go out to the Savannah River. What would happen is years ago, people would fall into a drunken stupor. The pirates would take them through these tunnels, and then they'd wake up the next morning on a pirate ship. But remember everyone, those are just legends. In the Rumseller, there lies three tunnels. The first tunnel in the restaurant goes to the fourth. They used to be behind our restaurant. The second tunnel is the one that goes to our Savannah River. It was the most frequently used tunnel by the pirates, because they smuggled their booze in and out the United States, as well as when they shan't hide those that came into the bar. If you're familiar with shan'tying, that means that the pirates would trick those that came into our restaurant,

into getting so drunk that they would pass out. By the time they'd wake up, they'd find themselves already out to sea and put to work on a pirate ship. Now the final tunnel goes out west of Savannah to a cemetery. It was built during the early 1800s when the epidemic yellow fever struck. A lot of the pirates and men were dying, so they unfortunately built that tunnel to discard of the bodies. So be careful as you walk past these infamous tunnels. You never know who's waiting. Much of the pirates house restaurant was built in the 1750s, but one dining area, a section known as the herb house, has been around since 1734, making it the oldest house in Georgia. And this area may well be the most haunted in the country. Legend tells an experience has proven that many a ghostly presence has been felt right here in these fairy walls. The ghost of the herb house made his presence first known years and years ago. I've seen a blonde pirate four times. He's always mad about something. I don't know because I didn't get enough rum or whatever the case may be, but he's always mad.

And his always in the daytime is never at night. A little boy, his name is James. Now he plays jokes on people. He likes to come up and pull people's hair. And little children, especially very young children, three, four or five, six year olds, since his presence actually can seem to see him. But these ghosts have a way of making themselves be known. When they're ready to do it, there's no stop. And I mean, you don't ever know what it's going to be. Seeing tear orange just totally flip upside down. Trash cans turn over. Chairs move around. You'll set them on way and come back and they're gone a different way. It's just, it's very strange. Just don't know what to make of it other than they want us to know that they're here and want us to know this is their place. And they're going to do what they please. It was up these stairs in the captain's quarters where Captain J. Flint muttered his final heart, the room where Flinty died.

But before his death, legend has it, Captain Flint frequently met in these quarters with Scottish author Robert Lewis Stevenson inspiring the book Treasure Island. So while one eye is looking for apparitions, you may want to focus your other eye on the Pirates House menu. And less of course that other eye is obscured by an eye patch. One thing about the Pirates House, I think we give our guests pirate portions. Our confride chicken is kind of like dinner and dessert all in one. It's not too sweet, it's just right. We have Pirates coming and going that'll walk you around and tell you the history that'll tell you ghost stories and take you on a little tour of the restaurant. The atmosphere is amusing to children and it definitely gives the older children an experience as well. Generally, when it comes to the Pirates House, it's the adults that are leaving with the Pirates hats on their heads. Allysia invites restaurant goers to bring their camera and can near guarantee some form of apparition once the picture is developed.

So come of you dare partake in the scrumptious cuisine because the odds are you are not alone. You don't have to make the long journey west to experience wine country. As Valerie Edwards finds out, the hills of Georgia are delivering plenty of this divine fruit from the vine. DeLonaga's gold rush of 1829 may be history, but there's a new kind of gold to be found in the north of Georgia Mountains these days. Liquid gold. No, not that kind of liquid gold. The kind often referred to as the nectar of the gods. The three sisters vineyards in DeLonaga, these Cabernet front grapes, are just about ready to harvest.

One of the things we like to do when we're checking out berries like this is to taste them. We use the berry into our mouth and then chew the seeds of the seeds are nut-like and we know they're getting close. Located on 180 acres in Lumpkin County's Frogtown District, three sisters vineyards has won some of the industry's most prestigious awards, but it takes more than a little elbow grease to get from here. To here. This is the juice that we just pressed and this is not one, this is strictly juice, merlot juice. Tell me what I'm tasting for.

Tell me what you're tasting for. Should be sweet. Should have nice berry flavors to it. It is very sweet, not at all like grape juice, but very, very sweet. But it is grape juice, merlot grape juice. Why is it so cloudy? Freshly squeezed grape juice. This will absorb color from the skins and then we'll press it off into barrels. You got to taste this. This is really good. How can you tell? That's good, that's good. And what would good wine be without good friends and good food courtesy of the pagan chips in Cleveland? This is a Cajun crab seafood spread on a fresh cucumber. It's very cool, very nice summary dish for an hors d'oeuvre, but it does have a little kick, a little after bite to it too.

I think that'll work nicely with either this three sisters Vidal or our fat boy white. Either one, either one would go great with it. Of course, this ain't Italy and it ain't France, but it is North Georgia and we've got a lot to offer folks. With nearly three dozen wineries and vineyards, Georgia's wine country stretches from the mountains to the coast. Next stop on our luxury tour is the Tuscan inspired Montalucay winery and estates. Well, our vision in creating Montalucay was really as a respite from the busy life and my vision was to create a place that had wonderful food, wonderful wine, and created an atmosphere where you could really regenerate and we knew and connect with people and connect with your friends and family. You know, that's our dream from Montalucay. You come up here, you really reconnect.

We do have villas available at Montalucay for rent and we see lots of couples and groups and friends and families coming up and running the villas and coming to experience their wine weekend, their Tuscan weekend. We offer all kinds of opportunities for an interactive experience at Montalucay from our cooking demonstrations. We do dinner in a movie several times a month. It's often said that a good wine should be paired with a good cheese. I say a good wine tour should be paired with good friends, both new and old. Salute! Dinner and dessert at Montalucay winery feature world-class dining, highlighting fresh, primarily locally grown ingredients. And the wine selection? Well, take a look for yourself. Evidence suggests the art of wine making or verification has been around since 7,000 BC. Today, science and technology help vintners find the right balance between acidity and texture, aftertaste and for taste.

But sometimes, you just got to get back to the basics. Well, you know, of course, the wine making process is really never this much fun or easy, isn't it? No, it is not. We've got a great good bit of truth. You got it going on. You know, I learned from the past. I think we might could package this as a new aerobic exercise. What do you think? Flash that a cure? I think that's ready to go. Forget Europe or even California's Napa Valley, you can enjoy the luxury of good wine made right here at home in Georgia. For more information, go online, GeorgiaWineCountry.com, and check out the year-long calendar of events. Next, we head southeast to Ashburn, where David learns about the history of crime and punishment and gets a last meal the hard way.

You know what they say about Ashburn, Georgia? A hundred gazillion fire ants can't be wrong. That's right, folks. Ashburn, Georgia is the fire ant capital of the world. Whether it's the soil, the warm climate, or the sweet down home cooking, these fire ants know what they're talking about. But there is one spot in town where they know to stay out of the kitchen. The last meal, Cafe, located in the town's old jail cell, now known as the Crime and Punishment Museum. Ashburn's the only town I know of that has a crime and punishment museum in an old jail. When you first come in, you're going to see a media room. And when you have a 20-minute video that tells you the state of Georgia's crime and punishment history, from lease prisoners, chain gangs, and then later on, how things work today. And we'll also talk about different forms of punishment from lethal injection to the hangings years ago to the electric chair. It is exact to within one eighth of an inch of the exact size of our electric chair.

We have shanks handmade knives made by the Turner County inmates here. We also have an old fingerprint machine from the early 1900s. We have a handmade tattoo gun that was made by inmates. So I guess they had a lot of time on their hands, pretty ingenious. We have several ball and chains that you can see. One is extremely heavy, 42 pounds. So they weren't going to get away when they were wearing one of those. We have artifacts room, thanks from all over South Georgia. We have a KKK uniform, and we display that because people a lot of times about then took the lawn to their own hands and did not have the system we have now, which may be imperfect, but at least we have a justice system. And that's just the beginning. The museum tour then heads back to the resident chambers where these inmates lived, slept, and in some cases died. We have a death sale is what we call it. And back in 1906, the very first year of the jail was opened.

We had our first inmate that was hung. His name was Will Ford. He killed his employer for $150. He had sat in the death. And so he came here, and of course, back then when someone was hung, it was like a carnival or a festival atmosphere. So he came to the Wenda, confessed his sins, said, don't waste your life like I did on women and gambling. And then they hung in there. And in 1914, we had our second gentleman that was hung. His name was Miles Cripp. He was hung September 11, 1914, for killing his mother-in-law. Later on, the death sale was used in solitary confinement or if they had someone, it was going to be transported. They would put them there until they were transported. Here in this solitary confinement cell, you can find Mr. Cripp's blood still on the collar of the shirt he wore the day he was hung. They would then take the rope, cut it in pieces, and the rope that they used for Mr. Cripp's. They cut it in pieces, they took it downstairs, and they sold it to people. And then those people were in turn wearing on their lapel

to let other people know they had been to a hanging room. Well, time has changed the way folks in Ashburn deal with synancing and executions. But I had an experience in the museum's old courtroom that taught me a lesson of what not to do while in Ashburn. Whoa! That ticked them off. Do not mess with fire ants. You don't do that here. They have a fire ant festival. It's very important to them. So the jury is here. They come down with the verdict to find out what my sentence is and Judge Gale, what is the verdict? Is the name Ashburn didn't give it away? No. Duh! You must help from up there, either. Mm-hmm. Well, guilty! Lock him up, Andy. School breaks when they come. We'll do like a mock jury trial and let them see how that works. And then once you've been sentenced, we can take you to the last meal cafe. Oh, wait. Don't I get a last meal? You eat good southern food, so good if you want it to be your last meal.

And we eat it on 10 plates, 10 cups, just like the inmates use to when they were here years ago. You know, the one great thing about getting sentenced here is that you get to eat at the last meal cafe. And looks like my last meal is pork line. Thanks a lot. Mm. That's worth it. So there I was, trapped in the old Ashburn clique. No chance of escape, no matter how hard I tried. Very small, very claustrophobic, close quarters. And when you go upstairs, you'll see that it was not posh living. They're very close to each other. There was no area for people to go out and have recreation. They would let them out just a little bit every now and then. There were no uniforms, there's no visiting area, much different than the jails you would see today. And that replica electric chair, the kids have fun playing with that or is it kind of eerie to some people? Well, some people are scared of it and some people love it. And they'll hop up on there and they always want their picture taken on the electric chair.

And some people will strap themselves in, which I would not do. Well, now that I've seen the Crime and Punishment Museum and had a great meal at the last meal cafe, I'm ready to go out and see the rest of the town of Ashburn. So, someone could let me out of this. It would be nice. Hello, where are you going? Hello. Back to the mountains for an organic farm experience. It's off to Hayawasi for a getaway known as the Anota Mountain Retreat. High up in the Northeast Georgia Mountains, a quiet retreat awaits, where the air is crisp, the view stunning, the water clear and fresh. Welcome to Anota Mountain Retreat. People come up here primarily to have experience in nature and in his purest form. What happens when people get here is they get a sense of sanctuary, they get a sense of peace.

Anota prides itself on its commitment to healthy living. Food served in the retreats dining hall is ground just minutes away in the nearby organic garden. Well, one of the things about Georgia Red Clay is it's so compacted, it's very, very hard to grow in. And what we have done is we have collected from our kitchen and from all of the egg shells and coffee grinds and then we've made big piles and we've broken it down into some of the highest quality soil you can do and then we've put it on our ground. Let's have a look. Look here, what happens is normal red clay is very compacted. But if you look at this, it totally holds the moisture and it's very, very soft. It is. And because it's this way, the vegetables, this is charred, can get its root system deep in it. But more important, in organic farming because we keep putting high quality nutrients in, the vegetables themselves are of a higher nutritional value.

At Inota, like at all other working farms, if you want to eat it or drink it, you got to go and get it. It's me, it's straight from the tap. Look at that. Oh, I got it. Oh, no, no, he's gone. Yeah, you were touching him. Okay, look what I caught. Although, I have to admit, I did have some help. Okay, do I have to put my hand on it? Do you do it okay, Val or anything? Are you going in? Come on in, little buddy. Yeah, the children go first. I need help getting this chicken to move. Okay, watch how you do this.

We'll make you a farm girl then. Located just one and a half miles from the Appalachian Trail, Inota appears relatively untouched by time. The 60-acre site surrounded by a handful of waterfalls is nestled among 750,000 adjoining acres of the Chattahoochi National Forest. Well, this is a historic site. This was actually built by the civilian conservation corps. And that was a project in the early 30s, 40s to re-stimulate our economy. So the rocks that are in this fireplace came from this property, the timbers that are built. They all came from this property.

One of the things that we're very committed to is holding the heritage of the past and letting people come and see. Here, come back. Have a beautiful memory. With only the sun to mark the beginning and end of your stay at Inota, time passes slowly. And the best times are spent with family and newly found friends. We have zero. Please, please. It's just of all the places we've gone and we've traveled, all of the United States since we got our little camper, it's just peaceful. And you can have as the motor camping experience or as comfortable an experience as you can. What keeps bringing me back is what you hear in the background, all those streams, the noise. That's what I like. It's the calming sound of the water. To find your way to Inota Mountain retreat, point your compass north and be prepared to relax, let go, and unwind. There's an imaginative place in Gainesville that lets children run the town.

A role-playing interactive neighborhood for kids known as Ink. If you're ever traveling, Georgia, looking for the perfect adventure with your tiny hike, drop into Ink in Gainesville. It's a neighborhood built just for kids. I was a stay at home mom and with three small children, four walls get really, really small. We started having some play groups together at the house and kids would play together and the moms would hang out together. And eventually my house just really, really got way too small. So we had to find another location. We created Ink, our interactive neighborhood for kids. A place where families and students and teachers can come and play and learn at the same time and have fun.

At Ink, kids can do more than just play grown up. The whole environment, the whole world is just for them. Where you want to go next, put your favorite thing. Yeah. Yeah okay, that answers it. How about being a vet for the day and rescuing their favorite pet and making them better? Or even being a doctor or a nurse and bringing somebody back to their normal health state? Let's see, we got a library. We got a grocery store. Do you want to go shopping? Yeah. Okay then, here's your cart. You want to push it? Pick up some groceries? It's something that we have to do on almost a weekly basis and go and shop. Even to our bank. Where they can be the bank teller or even receive money out of the ATM machine. All of those seem to be great learning experiences and things that they'll take home with them. The interactive neighborhood for kids is a great experience for children from

here as old like Connor here. They hide. The kids as big as me. How do you get out of here? Our normal age range is about two to ten to twelve, just depending. But my phrase that I like to use is, everybody's a kid at ink. Woohoo! That was fast. If you can imagine, you're a kid and you can be a kid at ink. So all ages. All right, all aboard. All right, we're leaving. Ink is truly a community project with exhibits donated by private citizens and the local government. Our fire truck is on permanent loan from the city of Gainesville. It's a 1927 American La France fire truck. Its name is Leaping Lena and the reason it's name is Leaping Lena is when they step their foot off the clutch, it pops or leaps.

So it got its name early on. I'm too old to drive this thing. Looks like you're going to have to be in charge. We got a fire over in Smirna. Let's take care of it. All right, fire chief. He wears many hats. There is so much room here at the ink museum. I mean, this room alone, you could fit an airplane in here. Whoa! All right. The gentleman came through and said, you need that airplane. And I said, we'll create it for us. And he actually got some individuals together, worked on it on the weekends for a year and a half to create our phenomenal polka dotted airplane. Hey, y'all, who's flying this ship? All right. Where are we going? Antartica. Antartica. Here we come. How does this thing do in icy weather? Inks philosophy is to learn by doing.

It's something they take very seriously. And what we're going to do is we're going to use this sheet and we're going to go in the grocery store and help them to have that thing so they're good and comfortable and strong. It's all through hands-on learning and just using your imagination and creating. And yes, it is a very educational environment. We all learn better by doing. We remember better by doing things. And this is all the concept of ink. Another great thing they have here at ink is the 50s diner. You have the old 45s. You got the old Coke machine, the juice box, all kinds of things, and the kids have even cooked something up for me. In the microwave, that's kind of 80s. All right, let's see, we got a oven mitt. We got a pickle in a pan. And a pizza. I guess I'll go with the... I'll leave for somebody else. I want them to take home a positive experience. I want them to feel really good about themselves. Everybody needs a little positive energy and hopefully we've created that from ink. Ink was so much fun.

Connor had a great time. And you want to know something? I did too. Hey, Connor, take, bye-bye. Bye-bye. Oh, there he is, that was beautiful. Well, that does it. For George Farr, I tried to wrap that. Does it really look like I'm driving with the life? Let's go see what we can find. George Traveler is produced in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development.