December 18, 2004
An Excursion To Middle Georgia
Yesterday we took the opportunity we had when we found a few free hours (at the same time, miraculously) to make a roadtrip down to the city of Macon, Georgia.
My wife had been there, but it has been years. I have never been so for both of us it was very new.
What a beautiful city Macon is! Very "Old South" in that a lot of the old architecture is still standing and the place has the atmosphere of what my wife remembers Atlanta being like before it became the metropolis it is today.
We drove around downtown a bit, it's apparently not a huge town, and came to Ocmulgee National Park just about in the middle of the city. It's a site of ancient Mississippian culture earthworks and mounds. There was a visitor center there but we put that on the list for next time.
On the way out of the mound area we stopped a bit at a swampy edge of the small ponds they had there. We saw some Blue Herons perched on branches airing out their wingspans and a few flying by.
It reminded us of the time we were up in Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee and watched a heron fishing for a long time.
We went back through downtown Macon after going to the park. We drove up Cherry Street which looked to be the more upscale part of town, judging by the furriers, jewelers and art galleries (always a clue, huh?).
We passed The Grand Opera House. After we got home we discovered that site I linked you to and found out that the theater is 120 years old and has hosted such acts as Houdini, Will Rogers, Charlie Chaplin, the John Philip Sousa Band, and George Burns & Gracie Allen.
It has the story that most of these grand old theaters seem to have, scheduled for demolition after decades as a seedy movie theater, some group comes in to save and renovate it. Thank goodness for these groups! Many, many, many theaters have been lost but these serve as great examples of these treasures. Apparently Mercer University with their great music program has charge of the theater.
So we have added The Grand Opera House to our list of things to do.
A few observations about Macon before we move on:
1) They seem to have their acts together regarding traffic, very little congestion noticed.
2) Long traffic lights. But it may just be that we aren't used to driving in cities, maybe the lights take longer due to more traffic?
3) LOTS of Asian restaurants. We must have passed 10 sushi places.
4) The top end of Cherry Street is residential and kind of hilly. The houses up there are beautiful but sort of packed together, it reminded me of pictures I've seen of houses in San Francisco. Sort Of Like This (SF Houses)
5) At one time (5-6 years ago) this city had a hockey team in the CHL named (brace yourself) the Macon Whoopee. I kid you not.
On the way back from Macon, we passed by some scary looking structures that looked like nuclear power plants. It was Plant Scherer and is run by Georgia Power company.
We stopped off for lunch in Juliette and ate at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Yes we had the Fried Green Tomatoes. There is a Nice Page OF Juliette Photos Here. While we were there we overheard a man talking with some visitors there, he was saying that the building the cafe was in was originally built in 1938 by his father and it was a grocery store for many years. It wasn't a cafe until the movie was made.
After a nice meal there, topped off with a delicious bread pudding with bourbon sauce, we took our full and warm bellies back on the road and proceeded to head home.
It was a good day.
Posted by Lalo on December 18, 2004 12:34 PM