North Georgia

September 14: With less than 24 hours since arriving in Baton Rouge from Virginia, I was already booking a flight to Burlington, Iowa. Thinking it impossible to be more remote than that, within 3 hours, the phone rang and my trip to Burlington was canceled and I on the cell phone in traffic booking a trip to Blairsville, GA. Not knowing for sure where that place was, I relied on the travel agent to choose the best airport. She tells me, "Knoxville". "Tennessee?", I asked. "Yep, your other choices are Asheville, Chattanooga or Atlanta". "Well", says I, "that's three states and a lot of space between those towns, are you sure?". Long story short, I'm on a flight early Thursday morning, flying over the tropical storm that had just passed through Louisiana and landing right back in the middle of it. Relying on my trusty (?) Garmin GPS, I took it's advice and went blazing down the road and within 30 minutes I'm on some little road in a drizzling rain questioning the wisdom of Mr. Garmin's invention. When I tell you that road was crooked, that is an understatement. At one point, I kid you not, I looked through the trees to my right and saw a car put on it's brake lights and 15 seconds later, I met that same car in the next curve. My trip to Blairsville lasted three hours through these curves and rain and had me muttering near profanities at the thought of my travel agent and the folks at Garmin Industries.

Blairsville is a Mayberyesque town of around 700 full time citizens with an old courthouse occupying the pivot point of a roundabout. The office where I met up with Wally, the other rep, sits on the north side of it. Unfortunately, it was nearly closing time by the time I arrived so Wally and I went out scouting for a place to stay. We chose Holiday Inn Express after a quick look at couple of other motels, thinking it was the safest bet, not knowing anything about the place.

September 26: After spending the past two days in St Louis, I flew back to Georgia. Thinking it might be best to fly into Atlanta, I flew in on American this time, giving my usual rant about Delta a rest. Feeling fortunate that we arrived on time, I retrieved my bags and tried to find the rental car shuttle bus. Atlanta's signage is less than wonderful so I found myself pulling two large bags to and fro outside the terminal building. After asking and receiving bad advice from two sources, I eventually was aboard the shuttle.

Instead of driving the fastest way, Saturday morning I checked out of my Patel and took Hwy 19 north. It soon became much more scenic than Hotlanta when I began to get into the north Georgia mountains. Arriving in Dahlonegah, I checked out a couple of motels and eventually unloaded at the Super 8. Believe it or not, it had more going on for it than the Holiday Inn Express and a lot cheaper to boot.

Dahlonegah, was hosting a couple of bike rides, one 50 mile ride and a hundred miler. There was more spandex covered butts there than at the flea market in Gonzales, LA. This small college town has a pretty neat historic downtown with satellites of shops and cafes all around the old courthouse. While the main attraction was supposed to be bicycles, the tight turned roads were constantly yielding to various arays of Porches, Beemers, vintage roadsters and everything imaginable in motorcycles.

October 6 and 7: Wow! Were the natives excited about the Sorghum Festival! Complete with a canon shot to start the parade Saturday morning, Blairsville denizens turned out on the courthouse square to take in the sights of all 5 fire trucks, Boy Scouts, people on stilts, Shriners, the high school marching band and every restored Camaro or Mustang still running. True enough, in conventional terms of traveling, there isn't a lot going on for Blairsville but somewhere deep down in your soul you'll find a lot and your heart will be better for the experience.

The last 3 weeks, I decided to stay at the Seasons Inn right on the square. It's an older inn that had been bought and run by a young couple. Furnishing were spartan but nevertheless, it was fitting for my stay in Mayberry......er...Blairsville.

Washington DC

Sitting in my car, I watched umbrellas shielding LSU students from the rain and the drip of Crape Myrtle draped sidewalks. With a few minutes until my wife got off from her job in Himes Hall, I was fascinated with how the water globbed up and refracted the colors from the student apparel. Sometimes boredom just takes over, so I experimented with settings on my digital SLR.

(Click the picture for larger view)

The cell phone rang and my attention now turned to my next assignment near Richmond, VA. Since I'd never been to DC, this seemed like a good opportunity to put things into perspective to how it’s all laid out. This was probably going to be a short one and were that I would have only one weekend to explore.

Rising early one Saturday morning, I drove into Washington DC and found my way to the mall using the Washington Monument as my focusing point. Originally, my plan was to park somewhere and take a tour bus but I had arrived too early and the buses wouldn’t be running for another 1½ so I found a spot between the obelisk and the White House. My walking tour included the WWII, Korean and Viet Nam war memorials as well as the Lincoln Monument.

It was a good thing that I decided to just walk to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. Security was tight and only preauthorized vehicles were allowed near there and I was quite sure I wasn’t on the list. Honestly, I was expecting a bigger deal about the White House, especially the view. As I arrived at the viewing point there were lots of people there taking pictures of each other with the White House in the background. It just seemed further away and much less glamorous. After seeing news correspondents using it as a background,I thought people would be much closer than we were. It was fenced with wrought iron fencing but had hog wire attached to it. Most disappointing was the fact that there were no protesters, no Cindy Sheehans or John Kerrys throwing medals over the fence. I took my obligatory pictures and moved on back to the car, cranked up and drove myself to the Congress and Jefferson Memorials. My feet were flat, knees hurting and just a little tired from all the walking so after driving around a while, I went back south to the little burg near Richmond I was staying.

Sorry I missed you, Mr . Bush, I understand you were on a flight to Iraq at the time. Maybe next time. I'll call first.

Chicago

Reluctantly, I left St Augustine, Florida for a week in Chicago. Quite intimidated by the traffic, I took a hotel near O'Hare and plotted my course downtown then into the fringes of the infamous Southside of Chicago on State Street. Somehow, I could hear the music of Jim Croce singing about "Bad, bad, Leroy Brown, the baddest man in the whole d*mn town, badder than ole King Kong and meaner than a junk yard dog". I turned on to the Eisenhower Expressway and headed toward Lake Michigan and was captivated with the idea that I-290 would actually go through the 3rd floor of the old post office building. I guess it was easier to drive through it than to tear it down.

State Street, once you got past a few sleazy buildings headed south, is in somewhat a a reconstruction mode with new high rise condos selling for just under a half million. Hip young females walked dogs and stopped off at coffee shops where five years ago you might have witnessed a mugging.

When you visit another city, people there go out of their way to show you what they think defines their city. In this case, we were directed to what was supposed to be a really good pizza taste. I had never heard of Uno's Pizza but my partner I was working with wanted to give it a try so we headed north to downtown. Finding Uno's wasn't that big of a deal but finding a parking spot posed more of a challenge but Jon slid into one in the middle of a mud puddle. Celebrating our good fortune, we got out, waded through near ankle deep water, fed the meter and headed a couple of blocks west. Finding a seat, we split a deep crust pizza and waited a short time before being served. Personally, I just didn't see what all the fuss was about and thought the best pizza for me would have to be one of Johnny's Sweep The Kitchen special down in Monroe, Louisiana or perhaps a calzone at one of De Angelo's of Baton Rouge. Uno's crust tasted somewhat like baking powder biscuit dough.

Fortunately, our stay was short lived and honestly, I didn't find the Hyatt much of a bargain. That being said, it truly is an interesting city with the elevated trains and high rises waving at the sky.