Its official, its been a year and two days since our arrival in "The Valley". We spent our arrival anniversary running errands for the house, picking up paint, plants, and painting the ceiling in the living room. Not quite a celebration, but it was our first day back from our weekend trip to Georgia and it was nice to have a day to unwind.
As much as I'd like to say our trip to Tifton, GA was a purely for pleasure we actually traveled 3 hours south of Atlanta to attend the funeral service of the late Mrs. Edna Blackwell Hare, Jonathan's grandmother. The joy she spread and the number of lives she touched is immeasurable. She was truly an amazing, one of a kind, intelligent and understanding woman. Kind spirit, patient, giving and one of the most genuinely loving individuals I've ever known. She will be missed by all who knew and loved her, may she rest in peace. Both the viewing, which displayed a terrific assortment of photos celebrating her life, and the service were beautiful. I found the service more cathartic than expected, and was thankful that Jonathan and I were able to attend.
While in Tifton we made it a point to get up early enough for some sight seeing and obligatory travel photos. We took in great array of suburban architecture and even found some awesome midcentury/midcentury modern homes and city buildings which I was not expecting to find in such a small southern town. In addition, the drive to and from Tifton provided a great array of "quality" billboards and road shops. Two out of three roadside stops, the Plantation House, and Babcock's Pecans proved a bit disappointing since besides oversized portions of Pecan candy and the always essential ceramic miniature bells, painted spoons and key chain chotchkies, they only sold Florida souvenir shirts. Honestly where are all the proud Tifton, Georgia shirts hiding? It took about 2 hours of driving North, but we did manage to strike boiled peanut gold when we stopped at Snooky's about ¾ of the way to Atlanta from Macon. I hadn't been a fan of boiled peanuts until Snooky's delicious brew for which I am thankful, since now I dare say Jonathan can officially consider me his wife. How I love my Alabama man.
Seeing that I'm not from the South and apparently have a very entertaining way of pronouncing the word Pecan (I say it Pee-Kan instead of PaCon) I was sure to keep my mouth shut in the local stores. That area certainly doesn't take kindly to some damn Yankee butchering the pronunciation of their prized nut! I did however manage to find a single person (the friendly chef at the hotel) who shared my pronunciation of the word. Always good to know I'm not alone in my "unique" ways.
Even thought our trip's primary purpose was to bid our final farewells to an exceptional woman, I think Mrs. Edna would have appreciated our whirlwind Tifton experience. During our trip Jonathan mentioned an intention to return for an eventual Southern and South Eastern road trip vacation, so perhaps one of these days we will again find our selves in the self proclaimed "Reading Capital of America", Tifton, Georgia.
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