State 37 of 50  

    Georgia

Capital: Atlanta

Population: 8,190,000 (ranked 9th of 50 states)

Area: 153,900 km² (ranked 24th of 50 states)

Projected Route

Below is my theoretical route. The map will be overlaid with my actual route once completed.

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Ride Report

Scroll down below the route map for this state's ride report and photos

Ride Report

Georgia meanz gritz. I sat on I85 right across the state. The excitement was passing through Atlanta in morning rush hour. The freeway widened to 8 lanes each side and every 5 kms there was a huge interchange. You had to position yourself in your optimum lane miles ahead which meant knowing what interchange you wanted. There is a lane, the far left one by the median barrier, called HOV which means High Occupancy Vehicle, meaning buses and cars with two or more people. In some states that includes motorcycles. While the signs didn't expressly say bikes I made the executive decision in the interests of blood pressure to stay in the HOV lane. Basically it kept moving while the other 7 were at times gridlocked. I just stuck to any sign that said "I-85" and in due course popped out the other side of Atlanta. But the freeway system took me literally under downtown and right by the airport with a plane a minute seemingly landing on the freeway. In other words a fairly torrid ride during which my atenna was on high alert.

But, photo-wise, the only thing I can offer on Georgia was my one stop for food and the august establishment awarded my business was Cracker Barrel in La Grange. Cracker Barrel is a chain and you see their signs alongside McDonalds, Wendys, KFC and the other. But they are a country store theme and you feel like you are going back in time. But I wanted local fare and I thought out of Cracker Barrel or Burger King which is likely to give me the grits.

Entering Georgia. This isn't I-85. It's the night before when I temporarily crossed into Georgia getting to South Carolina.

And this is, or are, grits.

You sprinkle on grated cheese, butter, salt & pepper, and spoon it in. It tastes like semolina consistency and sort of savoury. But it is made from ground corn and is similar to porridge. Apparently Cracker's grits today were a bit on the thin side according to the waitress. They're better thick like polenta.

After the grits I ordered a slice of orange. An amazing deal was that with the orange you get free bacon & eggs & pancakes.

These were the pancakes of all pancakes. Freshly off the griddle with Cracker's own maple syrup.

And these girls are the architects of it all. They heard my accent at the kitchen door and invited me in to meet the team. The pancake supremo is 3rd from the left.

And these are the serving crackers. Hard to understand but we got there.

And there's only one thing you want to do after a breakfast like that. Getting back on the I-85 was a lot more difficult than it should have been. With a fully belly, a full tank, Roger Whitaker on the iPod life was looking up on the road.