Great Atlantic Seaboard Bicycyle Tour: McRae, GA-Brunswick, GA 11/5 200 driving miles; 7.5 walking miles

We awoke to grey, gray dreary drizzle, which would have been OK if there had been a good cup of ambition nearby. No such luck. We drove thirty desperately hungry slightly grumpy miles to Baxley for its "best" cup. Let's just say, "That pig got poked." Things spiraled down from there when the Gulah Heretige site (Geechee Kunda) in Riceboro was closed. We're so interested, we're going back tomorrow. Things started looking up when we got to Brunswick because we're just outside peak tourist season so tonight's motel is the cheapest we've paid. Now forced to create an itinerary on the spot, I texted my Dad's former neighbor, Rhonda (Thanks, Rhonda) whose husband is from Brunswick. She suggested we go to St. Simon Island, which we did. We toured Ft. Frederica and learned more about James Oglethorpe as well as more about the English/Spanish conflict. It will be fun to get the Spanish side of the story when we get to St. Augustine. We also visited the "Tabby" slave homes, the Maritime Museum, and Ed dipped his toe in the Atlantic. We met several "best" humans today. We met four fishermen, but I only got pictures of Herman and Lonnel. I was having so much fun jibber-jabbering with Billy (Dad) and Timmy (Son) Russell, I forgot to photograph them. Herman and Lonnel educated us about "whiteys", "reds", flounders, and trout. They were great! Billy and Timmy were down from central Georgia fishing the "two-way", where a guy can go up stream and fish in fresh water or downstream and fish in salt water. They were great, too, and they were educating us not only about whiteys and reds, but also about 'gators. We met Billy and Timmy outside the restaurant Ed picked out for dinner (Mudcat Charlie's). The guys were fun and dinner was excellent. We also met a nice lady earlier in the day named Nan who is a member of the garden club that cares for the Tabby House site. The top of today's human heap was the three high school kids who stopped us outside their school (Glynn Acadamy-second oldest public school in Brunswick). They said they had just come from Psychology class (A lie most likely). Anyway, they asked me to say the crudest of the four letter expletives. They had a theory that people of different social classes say the word differently. I replied that when I was their age, we weren't interested in the word as social status. We were interested in shock value and rebellion (I suspect they are, too). As a former language teacher, I do know we used the word as every part of speech. I told them I was going to mention them in my blog as the kids who were conducting the F**king Experiment, and as soon as I said that, we all laughed. I said, "That sounds so much worse than I intended." They were really fun, and they reminded me that interacting with kids is what I liked most about teaching. I did miss a teachable moment because Ian, the one who asked me to say "bleep" made a comment about the curious power of words. I wish I had given him an assignment to look up Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Charles Bukowski. All three men addressed Ian's issue, and Ian would save himself some hardway learning with a little reading. Though I missed the chance (Rusty, I guess), I still relished the moment. They were just "live", curious American kids looking for a way to express themselves. They make me smile and when I lay my head on the pillow tonight, I'll be convinced that life is good, especially today.

Southern breakfast plate at its most medium.