Saturday, January 01, 2011

Valdosta to Dalton - New Year's Day

Marching through Georgia.

We were a bit surprised at the billboards along I-75. We think of the South as the Bible Belt and assumed that the population would mostly be conservative Christians. However, the Interstate is lined with rows of billboards advertising adult stores and all kinds of massage parlors, usually illustrated with Asian women. Most of these places seem to be "near the truck stop", so you can guess the target audience. It didn't seem to compute that the whole State of Georgia is so into these types of establishments!

North of Cordele in Bibb County we saw the remnants of a horrible crash. A southbound semi had barreled through a concrete median strip, jack-knifed, and caught on fire. When we passed by, there were all kinds of emergency vehicles there, and the firemen were still pouring water on the wreckage. The south bound traffic was backed up for miles and miles! We found out later that it took nine hours to re-open southbound I-75. Luckily there were no fatalities, and only one injury - a man who was injured when debris hit his windshield. It caused a never-ending backup and many, many people were severely inconvenienced.

There was another crash on the southbound side in Atlanta. Two white vehicles had smashed together and looked to be totaled - not such a bad backup this time, but a severe crash. We felt very lucky to be going north.

Other than the horrifying crashes and the heavy rainfall, it wasn't a bad drive. We knew we were stopping early to watch football so it wouldn't be a long haul.





Of course we watched our poor, sad Michigan team in the Gator Bowl - our sadness intensified with every Mississippi State possession. Heavy sigh.
Site: Jacksonville, Fla. (Everbank Field)
Event: Gator Bowl
Score: #21 Mississippi State 52, Michigan 14
Record: U-M (7-6), Mississippi State (9-4)
Attendance: 77,497
Next U-M Game: Season Complete


The Rose Bowl game was great fun - Wisconsin lost, but at least they looked good doing it! The Texas Christian quarterback is named Dalton, we were in the city of Dalton, and the hero in the book Dick is reading is called Dalton. It was cosmic.