If today is Sunday

It must be Two Egg.  Last Sunday morning dawned cloudy and rainy but I didn't care.  I'd had some fun playing cards the night before and then made good use of the jacuzzi tub in the hotel room (and a nice bottle of Reisling) to work out the kinks from a hard days driving and poker playing.  After a good night's sleep, we were not up particularly early but we had some places to go.  We were going to catch breakfast at a place a little south of our hotel that supposedly did a good Sunday breakfast however when we got there, the place was closed down.  I guess the economy over the past couple of years did in a lot of smaller places cuz we sure saw a number of closed up places in the towns we visited.  Another reason we tried to hit local business for food and drink.

The drive back from the poker room the night before was a real trip.  Small 2 lane highways in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.  Speed limits of 60-65.  With the trees on both sides of the highway and the clouds there was no moonlight or starlight to show you anything, just your headlights.  To say it was dark would be an understatement.  I remember my first night in Texas, traveling from the airport to my school and how dark it was that night.  I had grown up and always lived in highly populated areas where there was a lot of lights even on the darkest nights.  Never had experienced nights like that with just some starlight up above.  That was dark.  This was much darker.

I told the PQ to look for headlights reflecting off of eyes of deer (or bears, this was the first time I had ever seen Bear Crossing signs on the highways) while I ran the high beams as much as possible.  Never did see anything myself but she saw some deer on her side of the road.  Eventually we got to I-10 and took that back to the hotel.

Since breakfast was denied us at that time we decided to head toward Two Egg and figured on catching something on the way.  Uh no, that didn't turn out so well.  We got to Two Egg pretty quickly as it wasn't far from our hotel but we passed nothing on the way.  Two Egg was a tiny little crossroad that basically is a part of the state the world has forgotten about.  Apparently though the Two Egg city limit sign is the most stolen one in the state.  We did not feel the need to do this (a good thing too as a State Highway Patrol cruiser came down the road as we were pulling in) and once we took a couple of pics of the signs we headed east.  I checked the maps that morning and worked out some routes to head over the border into Georgia.  Two Egg is only a few miles from the Georgia state line and I figured we could hit some small towns over the border as well.  Since we hadn't had any breakfast still and were getting kinda hungry, I figured it would be good to hit someplace a little bigger too so that maybe we could get a bite. 

Uh oh time for another rant

GPS devices are just another proof to me that we as Americans are a stupid people.  I read an article this past week about how poorly American kids scored on geography tests.  I was not surprised.  Its the same as math.  When I went to school we didn't carry calculators to class.  We had to actually do addition and subtraction, learn the multiplication tables.  I remember how hard a time I had at first with long division.  But now even young kids carry calculators to elementary math classes.  And if they have to subtract 139 from 200 they're lost.  Try to get a kid at McDonalds to make change for a 10.00 without his register providing the amount for him.  Well geography is even worse.  Today if you gave a person a map and told him where you wanted to go, most of them couldn't navigate you to the same county. 

End of rant

After the PQ got a bit lost last year when heading over to Orlando to pick up our daughter, I got her a GPS for Christmas (or her birthday, both are in December and the gifts just kind of run together) to help her get where she wants to go.  Its a pretty good GPS, not the most expensive but not a cheapie either and has a 5 inch screen to view on.  All well and good if you don't know where you are and know you want to get somewhere in the most expedient manner but I find the GPS particularly frustrating when I want to find my own way.  I want the GPS to provide me with an overview of roads and let me choose the route I want to take.  I know how to read a map, I usually can get where I want without a map.  It's not that hard, you just gotta know which direction you want to go.  When I was a kid most of the local gas stations had free maps for travelers.  I looked at a lot of maps as a kid, not as many as my older brother (who went to work for the Defense Mapping Agency out of college) but still a lot of maps.  Maybe that's why I like to go to out of the way places like I do.  But all the GPS is trying to do is find the fastest route between 2 points.  So I'm driving along US 98 getting close to the Florida coast and the GPS wants me to go to the Interstate to get somewhere.  Dude if I wanted to ride the interstates, I wouldn't need a GPS.  So navigating by GPS meant you had to know what little towns were on the way for where you wanted to go.  So you could tell it to take you to the first town on your eventual route and go from there.  A little frustrating and if you just wanted to explore the middle of nowhere and didn't know exactly where you were but knew you eventually wanted to end up at someplace like say Tallahassee,  you really had to finagle the thing to keep it from sending you on all the main roads.

Anyway we were able to figure a route to a place called Steam Mill in Georgia.  Even smaller than Two Egg.   On the way I had seen a sign for Donalsonville so I figured that would be big enough to find a cafe, a truckstop, or somewhere for us to get a bite.  And I was right.  We got to beautiful downtown Donalsonville around 10:30 and saw off to our right a little place called the 3 Squares Diner.  It wasn't crowded so we pulled in.  Place looked like a converted Waffle House to me but it was bright and clean inside.  We got a table no problem and decided to order.  The PQ got french toast with eggs, bacon, and coffee.  I got an order of biscuits and gravy and a double portion of hash browns with onions.  The biscuits may have been the best I have ever eaten, the gravy was nearly perfect with just enough pepper in it.  Unlike so many other places I have been, the hash browns were crispy and done right not limp and greasy.  We both enjoyed our breakfast.  Total bill was $12.66.   I do like small town diners. 

From there we headed south to Tallahassee.  It was a nice drive, cloudy sometimes raining and sometimes the sun even peeked out.  I'd never been there before.  After going once, I don't know if I need to go back.  There was a nice old capitol building that is now a museum and behind it a newer concrete monstrosity that is particularly ugly.  This is supposed to inspire the citizens?  Why waste the money to build that thing?   I used to live in Texas and have been to Austin a few times.  The capitol is made of pink granite.  To say it stands out is an understatement.  I was born in Rhode Island.  The capitol there is made of all white Georgia marble and has the largest unsupported dome in the Western World (2nd only to the dome at St Peters in the Vatican).  It stands out like a beacon especially lit up at night.  Hell even Massachusetts has a nice golden dome on their capitol building.  Yet we build a new one and it looks like a middle school?  Have to rate Tallahassee as a bit disappointing. 

We headed home from there, still staying on the side roads down to Perry.  But we decided we wanted to hit Zaxbys (a great chicken chain that has not made it to Tampa Bay yet) in Gainesville for a late lunch.  Again the ride was enjoyable and the company good.   Zaxbys even had a strawberry cheesecake shake which I did partake in.  Leaving Gainesville I hopped on I75 south toward Tampa.  What an ugly way to go.  Trucks, cars, rvs all jamming the road traveling 70 then 55 then 80.  I hated it.  I got used to driving back roads with things to see and very few cars.  The sun shone the rest of the way home for the first sustained sunlight since we left.  I'd have rather have been in the rain on some little 2 lane road in the sticks.  As soon as we could we got off the road and headed down the tollway which was at least far less trafficked. 

And that was my birthday mini vacation.  Sorry for the boring parts of which I'm sure there were many.  For those of you who do travel a bit I urge you when you can to get off the interstates and maybe you'll see part of the country.  I'm glad I did.