Peaches, Plains & Passing the Test: Georgia Veterans State Park, GA 6/9/08

We had a bit of a late start this morning. We didn’t get up til 8:30 and didn’t roll out of camp til past 10:30. I think this heat and humidity just makes you take life easier. Our first stop was at a Volkswagen Repair Shop in Macon, GA. It felt great to have someone look at the car that was knowledgeable in Eurovans. He ran some tests, poked around and said “everything was within specs”. We passed the test with flying colors, let out a big sigh and luxuriated in the air conditioner running full time. We decided to take some country roads and our first stop was a peach packing plant. It was interesting to see how the peaches were labeled, sorted and packed. Better than that was stopping at a local farmer’s fruit stand and getting a “lecture” from him about peaches and how they should be picked and packed. He selected some for us that were picked this morning and said they should be perfect by tomorrow morning. Guess what’s for breakfast tomorrow? We drove for miles thru peach and pecan orchards & peanut & cotton fields. Our next stop was Andersonville National Historic Sight, the Prisoner of War Museum. The museum was done really well, but it was way too depressing for me and I couldn’t wait to move on. We continued driving thru the country amongst the deep red Georgia clay dirt and pristine homes. Every home seems to have the ubiquitous long front porch, with tall rockers set on them. We eventually made our way to Plains, Ga and spent the rest of the day exploring. Our first destination was the National Park Headquarters set-up in the old Plains High School. It had a very informative and sweet display on Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter’s life in Plains and his presidency. My favorite thing was the ½ hour movie that was shown in the old school auditorium. It was really fun to visit the old classrooms and read about history in this setting - much more fun than a typical museum. We drove by the train depot, which served as the campaign headquarters of Jimmy Carter. Did you know it was chosen because it was the only available building in Plains that had a bathroom?! We eventually drove out to Jimmy’s boyhood farm (about 3 miles outside of Plains) and spent a good couple of hours exploring. We had just finished his book, “An Hour Before Daylight” the night before about his life on the farm. It was so much fun to walk thru the farm, his house, the outbuildings, look at the fields, see the blacksmith shop and commissary, and relive 1930’s rural Georgia. (The photo is me standing in his backyard). What I really appreciated was that you were completely free to walk in every building, explore and not have things “behind glass” or park rangers following you around. In fact, we and one other park ranger were the only people there the entire time! I really liked the level of openness and trust that was placed on the public. To me if exemplified Jimmy Carter and what he believes. No matter what one thinks about his presidency or politics, you have to admire him for his integrity and deep religious convictions. We hadn’t eaten much (if you don’t count the scoop of peach ice cream at the peach factory) so we decided to just eat at The Old Bank Café in Plains. We got a patty melt for $3 and a salad for $2, served by a very sweet, but toothless young woman. We then ventured to our night’s destination, Georgia Veteran’s State Park. It’s really more of resort, with a fancy conference center, golf course, marina & country club. Our camping spot is right on the lake! I asked our neighbor if it was okay to just go swimming from here. Her reply, “Sure, go right ahead. There’s gators, but they hardly pay any mind to you.” It was the “hardly” part I had trouble with. We decided to hop on our bikes and go to the public swimming beach. As usual, we blew up our rings and floated around this huge lake (seems like the size of Lake Tahoe), but once again warm as bath water. After swimming we took a bike ride exploring this park. There are half a dozen army tanks, artillery guns, planes & helicopters on display. There are several memorials through-out the park dedicated to the various veterans of war. Right now, it’s about 9:30 and the wind has suddenly come up, lighting is flashing across the sky and the temperature feels likes it’s dropping (we just checked it’s 87 deg.) Down right chilly!