Iced Tea Chat: See Georgia First

 

The other day as we left our hometown to go get the car serviced, we passed a field, just inside the city limits of our small rural town, where two tractors were plowing.  

We were gone for three or four hours.   When we returned the field was still being plowed.  I think this time it was actually being planted.  Four hours and this man was still working on the same job, steadily going back and forth, slowly and carefully doing his job.  I realized that tractor was symbolic of the very rhythm of life here in this farming community.  You don't get in a hurry.  You don't rush things.  You just go steadily along.  It's a totally different tempo than what we had just experienced in the city where our car was serviced.  People were in a hurry there.  Here they are not really in a rush.  Here they live in rhythm to the seasons and the slow methodical means of plowing, planting, harvesting.  

On Saturday, when we went to purchase cabinets, John remarked on all the Interstate traffic.  He asked curiously, "Where do you think all these people go?  And do they travel all of the time?  Do they prefer a faster pace like this?"    I shook my head.  I can't even imagine!   The nice part of our journey was that the interstate miles we travelled were mostly alongside acres of farmland.  We passed through the outer edges of a larger town or two, but we didn't really have to deal with heavy traffic.  Yet, I agreed with him that the traffic seemed very heavy, and I told him sincerely that I just can't even imagine the sort of life where one must continually hurtle up and down a highway in heavy traffic, nor live in a city apartment or even in a suburb of a larger town with neighbors right up under me.

I, in my country home, listen to the birds, watch the plants grow and bloom and die back and feel I am part of a rhythm that is perfectly natural and wholesome for me.  And I really like it just that way.  But every now and then we get stretched out of our comfort zone.

We had quite an adventure on our travels.  Oh yes, we did!  Fortunately, that adventure came after we'd ordered our cabinets!  

On our way down a rural state highway, driving through swamps and fields, I noted that a state park I'd often seen on signage at the interstate, which interested me, was nearby.  "Perhaps when we come back, we might go down there and find it?" I asked.  John was non-committal in his reply.  He was worrying about kitchen cabinets at the time.  

We found the cabinetry shop.  I admired a kitchen as we came in the door.  That was exactly how I'd seen my own kitchen with white cabinets, a Formica countertop with Carrara marble veining in soft greys.  The flooring in the model was similar to what I have in my home.  We did all we had to do and as we were leaving, John said, "Now...Let's see how we get to that State Park."  We did the smart thing and went back the very way we'd come.  Keep that smart moment in mind.

We came to the road with the state park signage, and we rode along and very nearly missed the park entry which was really poorly marked.  It was the Jefferson B. Davis State Park, and it is set up on the site where Jefferson Davis was captured by the Union Army soldiers.  It's a tiny place with a little museum and a monument outside at the supposed spot where he was captured at the end of the Civil War.  With my love of history, I was pleased to get to see the place.  It took us perhaps a half hour all told to walk through the museum and view the displays.

At the time of his capture, the area was a deep pine woods with myriad swampy areas and no real viable trails.  Nowadays, it's mostly farmland and lots of ponds dot the fields to aid drainage of the land.  In looking at artist drawings of the area at the time, there is no way that men who were not familiar with this area could ever have tracked down this man without someone telling them exactly where he was.  I say this quite sincerely based on what happened to us when we left there, lol.

As we left, we turned to our right.  We'd come in from the left.  

John said, "Where do we go?"  I pulled up my google maps and looked and said, "It seems to me we'd go straight along this road, and we should run back into the interstate."  We drove and drove and drove and came to a crossroads with no road signs stating much of anything except that if we went to the left or right, we'd end up where we'd just come from.  I suggested we drive straight through.  He did.  More miles and miles and then the road came to an end in another road.  There was no signage anywhere to help us figure out where we were.  The solitary sign we saw was a mile marker reading "2".  That was it.

I suggested we turn right and look hard for any sort of road signs we might find.  I kept fiddling with the Google maps the whole while, if we had internet access.  There were long spaces with no cell reception at all.

Finally, we saw a water tower.  The name on the side did not thrill us.  It was 40 miles SOUTH of where we'd gotten off the interstate that morning.   Also about 20 miles south of where we'd been shopping for cabinets... "Never mind," I said cavalierly, "Just go on into this town, we can get on the interstate there for sure!"  And we could have indeed.  Had we found the dadgum town.  

We came to a gas station and noticed just beyond the entry road signs stating the highway numbers.  Internet was GONE and so I dug about in the glove box and pulled out the physical map.  We sat and looked for the highway numbers, found them and after a good bit of back and forth, some of which was tense and upset, we BOTH determined that we wanted to go West and the most obvious way to go West was to turn to our left.

We drove a few miles and I noted the names of the little towns we were going through.  I began to feel very uneasy.  I sighed.  John snapped, "What's wrong?" "I think we've gone the wrong way again..."  "What do you mean 'you think'?  Why don't you KNOW where we are?"  "I do know where we are at this moment and the towns we've just gone through are in the opposite direction from where we meant to be going!  And don't snap at me!  You sat there with the map and assumed we'd go this way same as I did!"  There is nothing more maddening than having someone point out that you have made a mistake that they helped make, too.

We came to a proper highway sign and noted we were driving East.  "How?!  How can this be east?!  Look at the way we're facing for goodness' sake!"  I was beginning to feel my head was completely askew, much as I used to feel in Andersonville in the little house near the kaolin mines where I'd once lived.  That house faced north, and the kitchen faced west, and I promise you there was no way in HECK that was correct!!   It was a four-square house with no additions.  The front of the house very distinctly faced north but the sun always set on the backside of that house glaring right in the kitchen window.

After a tense conversation, we pulled over, turned around and headed back.  At this point we'd been driving about two hours and we'd yet to find ourselves!  We were both hungry and getting anxious.  I was more convinced than ever that Jeff Davis's capture had to be through an informant, because I was sure we'd wandered around lost far too long on modern day highways and we were fairly familiar with the state if not that immediate section!

In the meantime, as we retraced our steps, Sam called.  Lo and behold! We had cell phone coverage!  I answered and talked to him for a minute or two.  He asked, "What are y'all doing?"  "We're lost..."  "Well face it Mama, that's just what you and John DO."  Such sympathy was overwhelming.  He said, "I'll see you later...", hanging up and John muttered "You hope..." and I snickered and choked back a sob at the same moment.

We finally found our way back to the town where we'd never intended to be.  I saw all sorts of familiar highway signs and was soooo tempted to say to John, "If we take 41North, I know for a fact we'll get home because it runs right through..." and then I bit my tongue.  I decided it was best to just stay committed to the mission of getting on the interstate.  Which we finally did but not until we'd missed the entry, had to drive further down the road, find a parking lot to turn around in and start back...As we got on the entry ramp, I said, "At last!" and John said, "Don't get too sure of it just yet...I'm not believing anything until we're ON that road!" lol

We drove nearly an hour before he felt comfortable taking a very well-known route back to the house along the country roads I prefer.  

Remember a few weeks ago we'd gone to the Veteran's State Park and picnicked?  We drove there, bought lunch at the country store across from the entrance and had a picnic this day, too.  It was a desperately needed and much appreciated break from exploring the state of Georgia. Then we drove home along roads that truly were familiar and therefore friendly.

I'm telling you we were very weary souls when we arrived home at 3:30pm.  We'd left home before 8am and for all but about 2 hours we'd been in the car driving.  I didn't help either of our feelings when I pointed out to John later that had we just headed on to Florida we'd have been in St. Augustine in the same number of hours we'd driven. "At least we'd have known where we were!" he replied. 

And that was my Sanity Saver Saturday for this week.

Amazon Associate Affiliate Link:  

I have one of these here at home.  I wonder if I'd had it along today would we have fared better in our travel?  I'll lay odds we might have!

I love it because it lists all the forgotten community names, the places where the towns have disappeared but a handful of houses cluster together, or a graveyard still sits by the side of the road to mark where an old settlement once was.