Muffler Man

Aiken, SC to Washington, GA where we lunch on the square at a place called the Jockey Club. Donna had, appropriately, a Club Sandwich, with soup and a salad while I had a Chicken Salad Sandwich with french fries. The food was good, but the highlight was definitely the fries. Real potatoes, hand-cut and deep fried to perfection. After lunch we walked off our meal by doing a lap around the square where we discovered a cool old hotel, The Fitzpatrick Hotel, built in 1898 and operated for 50 years. Then sat neglected for another 50, before being bought and totally renovated and has been open for only the past two. Donna walked into the lobby dragging me with her. We poked around on the ground floor for a while when an employee invited up to look at some of the guest rooms. Very classy. We are going to go back in May when the town holds one of its two big cruise-ins and spend the night, if we can get a room…

After Washington we headed northeast to Watson Mill State Park. we had visited there way back in 1998 on one of our covered bridge tours. We have a little book we bought that has a bunch of Georgia attractions that we bought back then and right there in the margin was the date we visited (4/10/98) and the notation, “Very nice, need to come back.” Well we did and it was worth it again. Guess we’ll schedule another visit in 2014.

We are spending the night in the Holiday Inn Express in Elberton, GA. Us and a bunch of bass fishermen, because there is a team tournament being held on Thurmond Lake this weekend. The only problem with that, besides worrying that somebody will drag their boat trailer across the hood of the Miata trying to park 60′ of vehicle, is ice is very scarce. Neither machine in the complex spit out any frozen water, pushing the button resulted in nothing but whirring noises. I had to go to the front desk to get my little plastic bucket filled. We have 4 channels of HBO on the TV and for our viewing pleasure this evening, on two of them, is Catwoman with Halle Bery. I’ve got a whole ‘nother rant post about our stay which may come your way later.