Georgia on my mind

Leaving Florida took much longer than expected. And it took a piece of us! We loved the scenery, the beaches and the wonderful people we met while we were there. We did not love the difficulty finding reasonable camping and the general expense of things from food to RV parks. But Georgia snapped us quickly back to a slower pace of travel and more reasonable range of options.

We started in the driveway of a home that a friend is selling.  He has great skill with flipping houses, and this is his latest project.   This cute place will make a military family happy. It made a great overnight for us, but we were itching to make miles and get to the VW event.   

Touring around Georgia through the small highways and back roads gave us a glimpse of some interesting things! We found a small town that is known as the “Fire Ant Festival City” which seemed like an odd thing to be proud of. But they did have a great local museum. It was in an old home on Main Street.  The downstairs was the family home and the upstairs was the county jail. The décor upstairs included a replica of an electric chair and a genuine hanging noose with a trapdoor floor. Apparently they hung someone right above the kitchen! The furnishings downstairs were an interesting mix of antiques which included this genuine KKK costume  in a framed display. This museum was operated as a home/jail up until 1993 and is well preserved and interesting.

Down the road a little ways we found a mural that had a VW hidden in it.   Look closely to find the 60’s bus along with the other 50’s and 60’s cars! 

We also made the requisite stop at Geneva, Georgia for a photo and to grab geocache. The cache stop was hilarious, as it was hidden in a former pay phone box.  Mike went in to search for the magnetic cache and a woman in a car nearby noticed.  She rolled down her window (in the rain) and started yelling to him, “It ain’t workin’ no more, it ain’t gonna work.” He could not hear her through the rain and I was laughing too hard to say anything.  But he found the cache and we dashed.

Another surprising find in Georgia was the Prisoner of War Museum in Andersonville. This memorial and historical collection houses memorabilia of POWs from the Civil War to present day. The displays are well done and the videos brought me to tears. The museum is on a former Civil War POW camp where many men died during interment. There was a sobering statue marking the area. Georgia also shared some delicious produce with us as we passed by farm stands. We were a little early for the Vidalia onions or the fresh peaches, but we stopped at the well-known Lane Orchards for peach jam, peach bread, peach cobbler and peach ice cream. It was delicious. Although it rained on us through most of Georgia, we really enjoyed the scenery as an introduction to the hills and woods of this region.