Atlanta to Birmingham and Beyond

On the Georgia map, all roads lead to Atlanta. Sherman may have burned it, but it has risen with a vengeance. Two things surprise us: the hilliness of the topography and the overabundance of trees. No wonder Easterners are surprised and somewhat intimidated by the open spaces of our area of the country. My dad would not like this area. He wants to see to the horizon, and you only see the horizon here when you are driving down the clearing made for the interstate. We navigated through the 50 plus miles of Atlanta fairly easily because there were no big mousetraps and we had a straight shot on I-20. Trucks were forcibly routed to the bypass routes so we had a slight reprieve from their presence. Still, we breathed a sigh of relief when we were done with that trial. We stopped just over the state line in Alabama where we had contacted a Ford dealership who said they would change our oil. They were very gracious and efficient; Jim feels so much better! Our next big obstacle of the day was Birmingham. That was a little trickier because we had to change interstates. When we stopped to put in gas, we noticed that the lady ahead of us put in three dollars worth, .8 of a gallon. That wouldn't take us very far. You can see that people here have had tough times.

Our destination for the night was a little campground, the only one listed in Woodall's for the area, about 30 miles west of Birmingham in Jasper, AL. This one deserves its own posting.