Day 25 July 25, 2016. Montgomery to Athens

 Left hotel on US 80 E then took US 29 N for the rest of the day.  Traveled through many small towns.  Passed through Tuskegee and saw Tuskegee Institute.  It was a nice town with a beautiful square in the center.  The hills got higher and higher as we traveled.  Saw the university in Auburn and stopped at an old bridge in Valley.  Entered Georgia at West Point and finally returned to Eastern Daylight Time.  Saw Bellevue Mansion in LaGrange and the Grand Hotel in Hoganville.  Passed through Newnan and saw all of the grand old homes.  Traffic began to pick up as we approached Metro Atlanta.  Before passing through downtown Atlanta we saw Fort McPherson, Spellman College, and Georgia Tech.  In Lilburn, a suburb of Atlanta, we stopped in the 103 degree temperature to tour a Hindu temple.  We then got caught in the Atlanta rush hour traffic all the way to Athens.  Tried to eat at La Dolche Vita but they were out of everything we tried to order.  Ended up eating at DePalmas Italian Cafe.  Tried to camp at the Candlewood Suites but they cancelled our reservation while we were eating.  Camped at the Holiday Inn Express in Athens.  Mileage: 259.6  Total so far 7371.9.

 

Left the hotel and within minutes we were at the world’s largest brick.  We stopped and took pictures.  It’s made out of bricks.   We all felt like we were so close to home today that we could spit on it, but we still have another day to go.   The hills were starting to roll and again we were traveling by the train track.  We passed thru many small towns, more with fun names.  We talked about all the funny names of towns and agreed that the worst we have had all trip was “Welfare” none of us wanted to live in Welfare.

We passed thru Tuskegee and Auburn.   Our next stop was Valley which was a strange name for a city.   We saw the bridge by Horace King, a slave who designed a lot of bridges.  He had to buy his freedom and then built even more bridges.     We drove thru West Point, our first town in Georgia and we switched over to Eastern Time. We then drove to Bellevue.

Then the day started falling apart.  We tried to go to the Hills and Dales Estate but it was closed on Monday and behind big fences, trees…..  So we headed out of town.  Then we saw a lot of kudzu and dead armadillos. Why are there armadillos in Georgia?  We saw one house where the kudzu had taken over.  I guess they must have left for the week.  Then we started getting close to Atlanta.  The road twists and turns and goes right thru the middle of Atlanta.  In the suburbs of Atlanta we stopped at BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.  (You say it, Susan and Pam laughed at my pronunciation).  It was a gorgeous Hindu temple.   It was made in India out of marble and sandstone and shipped in pieces to the USA.  It was then reassembled like a 3d puzzle.  It was truly amazing.

When we got back on the road, I made a reservation at Candlewood Suites (a Holiday Inn property) for 10K points.  It was just outside of Athens.  We decided to stop by a restaurant before checking in.  We got to the restaurant and tried to order.   We had all picked out seafood dishes.  As we started to order the waitress said, “oh we are out of a few dishes, we don’t have any seafood”.  Ok, so we picked different dishes.  Pam and I both choose dishes with pesto.  I little later she came out and said we are out of pesto too.   We gave it up and headed out to find another place.  We did find another Italian restaurant.  It was ok.   I saw that I had a voice mail and missed call.  I checked the voice mail.  It was Candlewood Suites calling to say that they were sorry but we shouldn’t have gotten the reservation as they were fully booked.  Sorry?!?   So tonight we had to stay at the Holiday Inn express and we had to pay.  I’m not happy.  We did see a rainbow as we got back in the car to go to the hotel.  I hope tomorrow will be a better day.  We head back into Lenoir tomorrow night to terminate our Dandy route.