Georgia - Day 3 - northwest to Tifton

Tifton KOA, Tifton

Friday, 3 March 2023

today's route

From the campground, the first town we came to was Kingsland, "City of the Royal Treatment."  That slogan made me think the town was named for some European king or other, but it turns out to have been named for a man named King who owned the land the town sits on.

On both sides of the road there were thick stands of trees, with one or two areas having been logged.  They didn't particularly look like tree farms, but they also didn't seem to be protected forests although a little farther on I did come to a couple of state forests.

I saw masses of blooming azaleas everywhere - really glorious.

Out in the middle of pretty much nothing I saw a strong tall flagpole flying a large Confederate flag.

The weather service put out a wind advisory today and, in fact, I was contending with a very strong wind for most of the drive.

In Pearson, we passed the Atkinson County Courthouse.

Atkinson County Courthouse
built 1920

All day we passed small bodies of water here and there, such as ponds and marshes, and intermittent channels of water along the road.  Those were often quite wide and, sadly, often with a lot of trash.  I don't know if GA has a road adoption/litter pickup program but, if not, they should start one.

We came to the town of Willacoochee, "Where Good People Count."  They had 1,240 residents in the last census, which was down about 150 from the previous one.  In fact, it looks like they've been losing about 150 residents every 10 years for some time now, which may mean all the not-good people were tired of not counting and moved out.  Wonder who'll be left there.

We passed a few fair-sized herds of cows, quite a lot of cleared farmland, and fields that were recently logged and (my guess) being cleared for farming.  I passed several large cotton fields.

I came to the town of Enigma and was of course curious where its name came from.  The town was originally called "Gunn and Weston," for the 2 owners of a nearby sawmill.  But the man who'd founded the town wanted a real name for getting a post office and proposed "Lax" and "Enigma."  Believe it or not, there's a tiny town in the area already named Lax, so the post office went with Enigma.  As the town's founder said, it was a puzzle what to name the town.  I like to see a sense of humor in our country's history.

Most of the small towns I passed through today had a Dollar General.  I don't know anything about that company other than what I've seen on this trip, but they sure do seem like a growth stock.

I passed a historical marker titled "Jefferson Davis Memorial State Park."  The park itself is farther north of Tifton, and I didn't stop to read the marker but looked it up online.

There wasn't a clearer photo of this, so I'm including a link to the page with the text.   https://www.hmdb.org/Jefferson-Davis  In my opinion, this marker needs to be rewritten by someone who is not a supporter of the Lost Cause theory of the Civil War.  I'm guessing that all we need to know about Davis is what the marker says: ". . . he hoped to negotiate a just peace" which apparently would consist of ". . .  a new nation, in which each state would exercise without interference its cherished "Constitutional rights."  The clear assumption being that when the US Congress said the southern states couldn't authorize the enslavement of human beings, it was violating the Constitution.  

At Tifton, I stopped at a grocery store and then drove to the campground, enjoying the blooming wisteria along the way.

At the campground office I was assigned a campsite on a hill that was okay except, once again, I couldn't get level.  I was considering asking if I could be moved to a different site when the managers came over to apologize and ask if I'd mind too much moving to the site next to that one.  Apparently someone had specifically requested the one I was in, and the clerk had made a mistake giving it to me when I checked in.  So that worked out just fine - I got a spot I liked better and made them happy with me at the same time.