Georgia - Day 9 - visit to Macon

Cordele KOA, Cordele
Friday, 17 March 2023

today's route

St. Patrick's Day today.  The local NPR station had a program about Ireland, including some poetry by William Butler Yates.  I learned that Lady Gregory was a mentor of his.

As you can see, it was a fairly long trip up there - Google said it'd take an hour and I did it in an hour and a half - pretty standard deviation for me.

Along I-75, we passed a water tower that said "Welcome to Vienna" with the cotton symbol and the slogan "The Fabric of Our Lives."  Despite being named after the Vienna in Austria, this town pronounces its name as "vy-anna," per their own website.

It wasn't in color on the water tower, but this is the only one I could find online that looked like the water tower.  There's a cotton museum in town.

I passed another water tower that said "We The People," though I don't know where it was for or why they chose that phrase.

And the town of Unadilla urges us all to "Make The Difference."

I passed miles and miles of cropland and an absolutely enormous solar field.

My first stop was a recycling drop-off station.  Cordele doesn't have one and even Macon wouldn't tell me any place to put recycling other than my usual curbside pickup (and I had so much to drop off I envisioned asking a householder if I could use their cart, as Momma and I did once in Rhode Island).  But I finally found a drop-off center in next-door Monroe County.  They didn't accept any plastics other than bottles, or any of my mixed paper.  But I got rid of the glass and the milk bottles and such, which was a good start.

Traveling into Macon's city limits, we went next to the closest PetsMart, where I parked behind a car with a Hawaii license plate and 2 very nervous little kids clinging to their mom.

I felt lucky to find everything we needed at the PetsMart and drove from there through a very pleasant neighborhood, likely wealthy considering the size of the lots, with lots of blooming azaleas and incredible wisteria.  I sure hit this area at the right time for wisteria.

I drove around Wesleyan College, established 1836, with signs saying they were the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women.  Attractive campus.

Right next door (basically) was a Kroger, and I stopped there and marveled at the vast difference between a grocery store for a smallish town (Cordele) and a major city (Macon).  I crossed off my grocery list a bunch of things I'd been wanting that haven't been available at other stores.  

In the checkout line, I asked the clerk if Macon is a nice place to live (my standard question) and the young woman said yes, it's a nice size with a pleasant downtown and things to do.  The man behind me in line chimed in to say that it's far more affordable than Savannah.  He said he'd been living in Savannah and was glad to have moved over to Macon.  (Later, I looked online and found quite a few houses for $150,000 or much less that looked nice and in well-kept neighborhoods.)

Continuing towards town, I found myself on the Duane Allman Memorial Highway.  I knew there was an Allman Brothers Band Museum along this road (and that they charged $15 for senior admission) and expected to see a sign for it.  I thought later I'd just missed it but now I'm not sure that there is a sign.  I looked on Google's map/street view and see no sign except what's on the gate to the driveway (metal sculpture of several mushrooms and the slogan "And The Road Goes On . . . Forever").  It figures.

That museum is in Historic Vinewood, per a sign, and that's a neighborhood that's about as old as Macon itself.  Likely an interesting area to investigate sometime.

We found a dog park I'd seen online - nice big dog park with small uncomfortable parking area.  But Dext and I went in to join several other people and their dog who arrived when we did.  Large bouncy dog that got Dext to run around for a while, which he needed.  I talked for a bit with the older man, who said they were staying at a hotel because they were in town from up north.  He went back to their car, so I moved over to talk to the younger man and the pre-puberty girl.  The man was given to monosyllables and the girl didn't say a word.  

But at one point I said something about taking Dext to the vet, and the man said he'd never taken any of his animals to the vet (and I started wondering if there were any diseases that big dog could give Dext while they were playing).  I said because I'm constantly traveling I thought it was important to keep Dext's shots up to date, and the man asked why does my travel mean "mandatory" vet visits.  And the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, because of course I hadn't said anything at all like that.  And I said I'd had a cat once that died of distemper because I was late getting its shot, and it had been a very bad death and I didn't want to put me or a pet through that again.  And I slowly moved away and took Dext back to the RV and we left.

I've wondered since about that little girl.  This was a school day.  And she was really quiet.  This guy sounded like the survivalist type and, if he was anything remotely like that, I was glad to give that little girl an alternate view of reality.  But I sure hope she hadn't been kidnapped or was otherwise in trouble, and I couldn't get her alone to ask.  You just never know what a day will bring.

I'd hoped to see Mercer University but ended up passing behind some of its buildings and couldn't tell anything about it.

I'd wanted to at least pass the Tubman Museum, billed as the Southeast's largest museum dedicated to the art, history and culture of African-Americans.  Senior admission is $9.  But I ended up having trouble with Google's directions and missing it entirely.  Definitely something for another visit.

I thought I was routing myself through the downtown area but apparently missed it entirely too.  I'd heard it's an attractive, walkable area and I like downtowns.  Again, something for the next visit.

Macon claims to be the Cherry Blossom Capital of the World with 275,000 Yoshino cherry trees.  There was so much blooming going on while I was there, I'm afraid I didn't notice particularly, which is a shame.

Macon, which sits at 381' elevation, calls itself the "Heart of Georgia" because of being near the state's geographic center.  The city itself isn't unusually large - 157,346 residents in 2020 - but the metro area has nearly a quarter million folks.  Macon's government has been combined with that of Bibb County for the last 10 years.  I haven't heard how folks think that's been working out.

I heard on the radio that Georgia is second worst among the states for maternal mortality.  Behind Texas, I guess.

When we passed the town of Perry, I'd noticed on the way up a huge number of RVs, mostly Class As.  And then I remembered seeing a sign at the KOA saying there was an RV show there this weekend - which is obviously what I was seeing.

That huge solar field I passed earlier?  I learned this afternoon that the panels swivel to follow the sun's path.

On the way back I was fighting a very strong crosswind and it was hard to stay in my lane.

So I missed quite a bit of what I'd wanted to see, but I also got a pleasant impression of an attractive and bustling small city.