Holiday Road Trip
Nothing makes you appreciate the country where we live more than a road trip.
This week many of you will be doing just that. If you have the time, be adventurous and leave the well-beaten path and as poet Robert Frost wrote, “I took the one (road) less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
You may find where the Ocmulgee River swells its banks after receiving the water of the Little and Big Horse Creek.
You may see miles of tall, straight yellow pines with palmetto bushes all around their roots. You may see, as we did, a whole family of ducks crossing a four-lane highway. We all stopped for them and watched amazed.
And there were quite a few healthy deer eating lunch on the side of the road while large black birds gathered for an AYCE buffet on the road eating road kill, squirrels, birds, armadillos, skunks, and opossums.
And did it rain? Rain hit the road already baked in the summer sun. There was miles of steaming pavement. Thank goodness for our good car air-conditioner.
One day the rain and lightning came down all around, quite a nature show as we slowly made our way down the road less traveled. Without all the trucks and cars on the major highways, I-75 and I-16, we were able to slow to a snail’s pace during the storms.
Plenty of mom and pop restaurants are along the back roads, “best country food and catfish” said one sign. I guess there was some kind of national survey to determine that claim to fame.
Ever heard of Pridgen, Ga., or seen the 1/12 size of the New York City Statue of Liberty located in downtown McRae, Ga., or the statue of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, Italy, presented to Rome, Ga. by the dictator of Italy, Mussolini?
The whole state is a cornucopia of unusual sights, food, roadside stands with fresh onions, early peaches and blueberry picking farms. You might see a telephone pole with large flat rocks on top of it, or a life-size statue of a Glouchestershire Old Spot (black and white pig) standing beside the road and it wasn’t even a BBQ joint.
A peeling sign beside some road announced “America God said it,” although I don’t think that is a quote from the Bible, it’s what our founding fathers knew when they were, well, forming our 237 year old country that we celebrate today. Have a Happy 4th of July where ever you roam!