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Published: March 18th 2017
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Towards the Lake Lake Tobesofkey State Park, Macon, Georgia
One of the things I hate the most about these trips is driving through big cities. When you live in a town of 1900 people, even a trip to Taos can be a small nightmare. Dodging other cars, navigating unknown roads, and trying to find places you want to go is, well, difficult and even more challenging, the older you get. Having fun yet?
Now add a 5000 pound trailer behind you, and then do it through the biggest city in the Southeast - Atlanta, Georgia. If you don't think that is enough fun, then do it on Friday afternoon, on a Saint Patrick's Day holiday when there are multiple accidents on the freeway and construction zones every ten miles or so. Now are we having fun?
Well, that's what we did yesterday. We got out at our usual time (about 10:00 AM), threaded our way through the southeastern suburbs of Chattanooga, and got on to Interstate 75 South. We continued on into the Atlanta metropolitan area, which I had been dreading anyway as probably the most difficult driving on this trip.
Joan had picked a restaurant that received good Trip
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Fleur Standing Guard Advisor reviews located in a strip mall in Marietta, more or less just at the edge of the metropolitan area. It was a southern BBQ place run by a couple of young men. The brisket was terrific, but the killers were the side dishes - collard greens and macaroni and cheese. Now I like to think I make a good Mac and cheese, but these guys have me beat, hands down. Not sure what stuff was in there, but it was good and cooked perfectly. And the collard greens had added lemon juice or vinegar that gave just the right tartness, while the greens themselves were soft without falling apart. We liked the sides so much that we ordered take-out portions, and nuked them for dinner!
But the traffic getting there and then getting back on the interstate was not fun and, for the first time on the trip, I got honked at by people angry at the space my lumbering rig took up. But back on the interstate, the car navigation system had us staying on I75 right through the middle of Atlanta. Now that might have been the most scenic route, but I didn't think towing a trailer through the urban center of one of our biggest cities was the smartest thing to do, so I opted instead for the bypass route, I285. Because of construction, accidents, and just plain massive amounts of traffic, it took us an extra hour to travel the 36 miles around the bypass to hook up with I75 again. Maybe I would have been better off zipping right through the middle of the city - how do you know these things?
In the end, we made it to our destination, Lake Tobesofkey State Park, outside of Macon, Georgia, without incident, but with frayed nerves. It is a beautiful campground and we have a site high on a hill overlooking the marina and the lake. And, for the first time on this trip, Joan is warm enough - mid-sixties when we arrived. Sun was out and, after a couple glasses of wine, she is a happy camper.
A word about Atlanta. We don't like camping in cities, but that doesn't mean we won't visit them. In fact, on future trips we will be spending time in Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. But there are no parks on our bucket list in or near this city. Of course there is a multitude of other things to do there, but of what we found, none of them really appealed to either of us. So the biggest city in the Southeast is not on our itinerary. Except for the experience of passing around it. Oh, well, that's the way it goes. (17.1.10)
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Joan Young
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Big City Driving
Nerve-wracking! And the air was "big city air"--hazy, and dare I say, smoggy? Nice to be by the lake now.