I am currently sitting in a hotel room (alone) in Thomson, Georgia (when I should be in Columbia). Let me begin by explaining how I got here...
I left Columbia as soon as I could Friday and hit the road to Athens, Georgia for the weekend. AthFest, the annual music/art festival was going on in Athens & I hadn't seen my main dawg (pun definitely intended) Kaitlyn in a while. Unfortunately, Kaitlyn had to work until 10 that night, so I had some time to kill, considering I got there at 7.... It's safe to assume plenty of beer drinking and new friend making ensued... And it was great beer drinking and new friend making! They have such great beer on tap everywhere, including their local varieties of Terrapin, which tasted very good in the 20 or so times I sampled it this past weekend...
Besides great beer, I had amazing food all weekend. I knew Athens had great music but more discreetly is filled with culinary gems. All of the places I tried were amazing & would recommend to anyone. Late night Friday I tried Farm 225's food cart and got the vegetable bahn mi (Vietnamese stir-fry, more or less) with their homemade potato chips. Food that good is dangerous. Then for brunch, after our wonderful friend Kathleen got in from Atlanta, we headed to the Grit. The meal at the Grit was phenomenal! Who knew biscuits could be so amazing. And the grits... wow, I have to stop before I start drooling on my computer. This place was so good I bought their cookbook..... It's a southern style vegetarian restaurant, are you kidding me? It's like my dream couple food genre's love child.
So, just in case amazing food, drinks, and friends weren't enough, the music was fantastic!!!! Lots of local bands and sense Athens does have such a great music scene, it wasn't the frat rock cover bands I am used to Columbia.
After a throughly great weekend in Athens, I headed back to Columbia. Well, to get from Athens to Columbia, you must drive through a huge portion of BFE rural Georgia. After stopping to get some peaches & boiled peanuts (very much necessary for any road trip through georgia) from a stand on the side of the road, wouldn't you know it.. my car broke down (unfortunately this was a good 30 minutes after the p-nut stand, because being stranded with that stand would've been awesome). I was literally in the middle of nowhere. When I called AAA and asked them to pick me up, we both challenged to figure out where the hell I was. Apparently "field on the road between Columbia and Athens" is not enough for them to locate me. While I waited for AAA, I tried sitting in my car (which the AC was out) and began quickly dying of heat exhaustion. So, as matter of life or death, I decided to pull out the camping chair I had in my car & finish my boiled peanuts while sitting on the shaded part of the side of the road. It's probably the most redneck thing I've ever done. To make myself feel better, I kept telling myself it's not that much different than going to a Nascar race. When going to a Nascar race is LESS redneck than what you are doing, you have a problem.
Finally the tow truck arrives! Out comes out exactly what you expect, an overweight country boy with a camo Georgia visor on and a Ducks Unlimited shirt. Just in case he needed emotional support (he didn't provide any physical support that I saw) he brought his young friend along who got dressed up for the occasion in Georgia Bulldog pajama shorts. When I asked both about Athens, both them seemed kind of clueless about the place, which seemed odd considering the multiple Bulldog apparel item they had on. Also to ease my mind, the boy told me that this was the tow man's first towing job! Great, glad I got to the be the guinea pig for this man's new illustrious career of tow truck driving.
We passed a motorsport track, which I had seen before and often wondered about on my trips to and from Athens. Of course, this was the only thing besides a random house sprinkled here and there in this tour de Georgia.
(Don't forget to imagine this conversation in the deepest Georgia accent you can fathom.)
Camo visor ( to boy- not me ) : They had a tractor race out there this weekend.
Me: A tractor race? Do tractors go very fast?
CV: No, they don't. They just see which one can push the most stuff.
Me: What happens to ones that lose? Do they just break their tractor?
CV: Yea. I guess it's just for people with a bunch of money. I been to one once, it was pretty cool.
.... so apparently only the wealthy folks of Thomson, Georgia participate in tractor racing....
Well, I guess I should enjoy the rest of my time in the fantastic Comfort Suites. I have taken advantage of many of the perks of the Comfort Suites, including their large bathtub with jets (oooh!) and pool that sat a nice 100 yards from the main drag of Thomson (relaxing). How quaint!
