The Not Key West trip, part 2

You should read all this in order, I think. You can access the first part here, and all the pictures from this trip here.

 Monday, June 2

 It was, as expected, another beautiful day: clear skies, not too hot. But I had to start off with half a day's drive on freeway, where you can't hear an audiobook if a truck passes, so the top stayed up until about eleven, while I listened to Rock of Ages, a novel in the Junior Bender series about a burglar who does detective work for other criminals. It's set in Los Angeles and written with a wonderfully wry humour; we've listened to two or three books in the series already and enjoyed them all. We had started listening to this same book on the way back from Colorado last month, but the reader's breathy style -- he fades the last 3 syllables of every sentence -- and the poor quality of the little $10 bluetooth speaker we have to use in that car made it impossible to follow the action over normal road noise. I've now bought a hopefully better bluetooth speaker for the Subaru, so maybe we'll be better able to hear when we travel in it. But I checked the book out again for this trip, hoping the audio setup in the Jag would make it possible to listen to it. It does. It's still a little irritating that he speaks the end of every sentence so quietly that I have to turn the volume way up, and so when Google Maps interrupts with some directional guidance that voice can be heard by drivers on the other side of the highway, but at least I can hear the book.

 I had breakfast at a Wendy's along the highway, having given up on finding anything more local. They have a surprisingly tasty breakfast burrito -- not the least bit authentic, of course, but good, cheap and filling, and not too high in calories. Lunch was at a local fried-chicken place that had excellent green beans as a side; the chicken wasn't as good as what I'd had in Fort Worth a few months ago, but it was OK.

 I got the first handful of counties after lunch: first Union County, where there was nothing to see. In the little town of Colquitt, seat of Miller County, I stopped to see a carved Indian head that I'd found listed on Roadside America. According to the sign there, the sculptor gave one to each state as a celebration of the contribution of Native Americans to our culture. Yeah, okay. Then I passed through Baker and Mitchell Counties without stopping, and into Colquitt County, where I visited the grave of a one-time circus owner. His tombstone is the surprisingly impressive elephant I mentioned in yesterday's post. I also drove through the county seat's historical district, which is impressive in no way that I could see. Lots of early-20th-century nondescript buildings around an equally nondescript courthouse, basically. From there I turned northwest and went through the unremarkable Worth County to Albany, in Dougherty County, where I'm spending the night. 

 Tomorrow I expect to spend most of the day here in Albany, a town of about seventy thousand people. It has half a dozen places of interest to me. Then I'll head west, back to the state line, and then north again for a pass through several other counties. If my plans hold good, I'll end up spending tomorrow night in a little town only about 30 miles northwest of Albany. We shall see.

 There's a Mexican restaurant not far from my hotel, so I went over there intending to have dinner. But the place was so busy that instead I just went to the bar to have a drink, and ended up having a conversation with an agricultural chemical salesman from some small town in Alabama who works this territory. We spent about an hour just talking about everything and nothing; the only thing I really learned from the conversation was that the swarms of insects I've been dealing with every time I stop the car are gnats, not mosquitoes, so that was a relief to hear. For dinner I ended up just getting a sandwich from the Arby's in front of my hotel. It was as good as you might expect. I wasn't particularly hungry anyway. Would have liked to get some more of those green beans but I don't know if there's a Jack's in Albany. Certainly not one within walking distance.

The Not Key West Trip, part 1

Sunday, June 1 

I noticed at some point that, once again, I had long weeks in prime travel season with no trips planned. Key West came to mind -- I won't bother to explain why -- and it had the added advantage that there were a bunch of counties in Georgia that are sort of on the way and that I hadn't been to before. And there were a number of car museums sort of on the way; a couple I'd been to before that I could skip this time, but also several that I haven't seen.

The Undiscovered Country

So that was the genesis of my Spring wander. I got on RoadTrippers and started working out a route that would take me to all the remaining Georgia counties; and then, consulting RoadTrippers and Roadside America and a few other sources, I found things along the way that would in some petty sense justify the travel. I could visit such tourist hot-spots as the elephant-shaped tombstone in Moultrie, Georgia; the Flint River Quarium in Albany; and the Pig Monument in Tennille. Pure gold. 

Well. I find that everything of the least interest is closed on Sundays in this part of the country; not entirely unexpected. More surprising is that it's all closed on Mondays, too. So that meant I'd face, essentially, two solid days of just driving, with no excuse to get out of the car and see a museum or a car collection or anything. And it meant that  I would get to Key West on a Monday. And I didn't really want to be in Key West on a Monday. Long story short, Key West got dropped from the trip. (It was briefly replaced by a trip to Cape Canaveral to see a night launch of a rocket ship, but a couple of days after that was added to the trip, the launch was scrubbed.)

So. The Not Key West trip of 2025. Left today. Tacos at a restaurant on the East Side of San Antonio, drove through Houston and Baton Rouge without even slowing down once for traffic. Amazing! I vow I will never pass that way again on any day but a Sunday.

The weather is good, but I was on the freeway all day long, so the top stayed up. I listened to an entire audio book, a murder mystery set in the Perigord called Bruno, Chief of Police. It wasn't a great mystery, but it was wonderfully evocative of la France profonde, with its descriptions of boucheries and casse-croutes and its casual references to culinary detail. The book really deals with the continuing societal consequences of the Nazi occupation decades before the book's action takes place. I like that kind of stuff, and the reader was easy to understand.

The only stop I had planned for today was in Hammond, Louisiana, where some of my ancestors are buried. Unfortunately, Google Maps took me to the wrong cemetery -- though it insisted it was the right one, despite the name on the gate and the totally different design of the place. A quick search for "similar places" revealed too many other cemeteries to check on my tiny little phone screen, so when I got to my hotel this evening one of the things I did was get on my laptop with its somewhat larger screen, and locate the correct address for the cemetery, about three miles from where Google Maps took me, on the other side of the interstate. I will stop there on the way back in a week's time. Disappointing, but not a major setback, since I'll pass that way again in a few days.

Tomorrow, after a few more hours on I-10, I'll get off the freeway and put the top down. The weather should be good for at least the next 3 or 4 days, so here's hoping for a fun wander.

Things tomorrow, though, won't be the same as they were yesterday. I feel myself slowly declining as the Golden Door draws inexorably closer. This won't be my last trip, but it may be my last wander. (I've said that before, but I was wrong, so don't hold me to it.) I found the planning only somewhat enjoyable, and I'm frankly not looking forward to the rest of the trip with the same excitement and exuberance that I used to feel. 

I don't know where I found it, but it seemed on point.