Our travel day began around 11 (it takes a while to get going at our house!). We started on one of our favorite "back country" roads to Chattanooga -- Highway 27, picking it up in Rockwood and following it almost to Chattanooga. At least our trip began on a great road with really nice countryside to watch and not very much traffic.
Once we hit Chattanooga and picked up Interstate 75, that changed! Lots of traffic. At one point we asked each other if everyone might right now be headed back home after the Christmas holiday. I suspect instead that this was pretty normal traffic for north Georgia on I-75. Using cruise control was out of the question; we were constantly braking and then speeding up. The closer we got to Atlanta, the worse the situation got.
Actually, I can't complain about I-75 through the middle of Atlanta. That was pretty reasonable, considering where we were. Once we joined back up with the bypass and one other interstate, traffic slowed to a crawl. About one-third of the way between Atlanta and Macon, we gave up and found a secondary road, Highway 23, to take us toward Macon, returning to I-75 for a few miles before it intersected with I-16 in Macon to head southeast toward Vidalia. Unfortunately, we were out of Macon before we realized that we should have looked for a place for dinner.
Very few options other than fast food turned up on the exit signs, but we finally found an Applebys in Dublin, Georgia, using the iPhone app "Around Me," recommended by Debbie, a quilting friend. We elected to eat in the bar area, and luck was with us because we found an empty table in Marshall's area. This very nice young man said he was just out of training, having only been in Vidalia for a few months. He served us very well and shared a little of his story with us. If you end up in Dublin, stop by Appleby's and ask for Marshall.
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| Onion statue outside Quality Inn in Vidalia, Georgia. |
Another 45 minutes more driving time brought us to Vidalia. I was wondering whether we would have some delicious Vidalia onions on our pillow. Instead, just outside the motel we found an onion statue, so I was not disappointed!
Before we leave town, we'll drive through the historic district. I had been wondering which came first, the onion or the town. Mystery solved by Smoky: he read on Wikipedia that the onions were named after the town. There are apparently several different varieties of onions that carry the name "Vidalia," most of them sweet, due to the low amount of sulphur in the soil where they are grown.
Tomorrow we head toward St. Augustine!
--Shann
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