Road Trip - January 2012

Decided to head down to Florida to see some friends. I guess it didn't hurt to get into some 80 degree weather and put on the shorts for a few days. Saw some sights, took an air boat ride and saw what swims and crawls in the swamps. Think I'll stay in the cold country....
Anyway, I had an ulterior motive for this trip as I'm a history buff and there's lots too see in the South.
We stopped by Plains, Georgia the home of President Jimmy Carter. I would have liked to knock on his door and say hi but there's this thing with the Secret Service......... We did stop out in the cemetery and pay homage to brother Billy. He had the gas station in town and even got a beer named after him. There were a bunch of pennies on his headstone so I added what I had.
We also wandered over to Lynchburg, Tennessee the home of Jack Daniels. We took the tour and even though Moore County is a dry county, they are allowed to sell a complimentary bottle to visitors of the distillery. The only exception was not on Sunday. Guess what day I was there??
Decided to visit the cemetery to see if I could find old Jack. The cemetery was huge but we had learned that there were two chairs in front of his head stone. We found him and, once again, I paid homage.
My real passion in history is the Civil War so we travelled down to Andersonville, Georgia to see the location of the most infamous prisoner of war camp ever in America. Over 45,000 Union soldiers passed through the gates and at one time there were 33,000 in an area of 16 acres with no food, water or shelter. 13,000 perished in a little over a year. Once again I headed to the cemetery where they were buried shoulder to shoulder. I took a picture. One prisoner actually tried to keep track of the names of the dead and smuggled out a copy of his list in the lining of his jacket. A year after the war was over, he returned along with Clara Barton and was able to put names over the graves of all but 4oo men. I walked amongst the head stones. Quite sobering..
On the way home we stopped in northern Georgia and Chickamauga, the site of the bloodiest battle outside of Gettysburg. 125,000 Union and Confederate soldiers slugged it out for two days in the forests and fields just south of Chattanooga. There were over 34,000 casualties in just those two days. There are many plaques and memorials to the various units placed throughout the battlefield and I stopped and read many. A jogger came by, pointed to the back of my car and up towards one of the monuments. It was for one of the Wisconsin regiments who fought there. I guess he saw my license plate and knew which monument was which.
As I wandered the maze of trees and stone and came upon one for a cavalry unit from Wisconsin. Cavalry from Wisconsin? For a moment I had to smile as I pictured a bunch of "Sconnies" riding cows into battle.
One local lady told me about the Confederate cemetery just south of town so we went over there. 421 Confederate and 4 Union soldiers are buried there. All unidentified. Men who never went home and had no one to put flowers on their graves.
I was impressed with the people of the south. I don't know how many times people saw my license plate, or maybe heard my "accent", and told us to have a safe trip home. I think we could learn a little something from them....