Georgia Agritourism

I Saw The Signs

Plenty of highway signs dot the road sides to get us where we are going.  Obviously the highway department in any given state provides multiple notifications before an exit because sometimes drivers miss one or two as they cruise along the road.  The green ones tell us where we are headed and what is coming up next.  The blue ones provide us with services and the brown ones share with us the cultural and historic sites along the way.  The yellow ones caution us, the white ones remind us the rules of the road.  Highway markers for interstates, US highways, state roads, county roads, and cross roads direct us as we move from place to place.  But is it really possible to see them all?

When traveling solo, I often read as many of these signs as possible, seeing them as friendly faces along the way greeting me, speaking to me and teaching me as I drive.  And I certainly learned a new term as I drove through Georgia: Agritourism.  When I first saw the word on a small blue sign, I spent several miles tossing the idea around in my brain; the mix of southern agriculture and tourism seemed comical – wouldn’t that just be a summer trip to an extended family’s farm?  Do plants really produce a vacation industry?  I like pineapples and pistachios, but they fall pretty low on the list of reasons to travel to Hawaii.  Nevertheless, the word continued to generate steam in my gray matter the farther I drove.

Georgia On My Mind

The Peach State always reminds me of the old South, of cotton plantations and giant oak trees, and a few of these sprawling estates still stand to provide a glimpse of the state’s history.  The peaches and the cotton, and the way of life that has long since ended transitioning into a modern agriculture boom that ingrains itself in the state.  Giant groves of pecan trees (pronounced pē’-can, of course) add to the charm of the new south and the sweetest of pies.  Its native son, first its governor and then US President Jimmy Carter, brought Georgia peanuts into the limelight.  And who doesn’t cry at the site of Vandalia onions when slicing and chopping them?

 

Perhaps the sign, small in comparison to others, represents the twenty-first century

South – a South that’s growing and alive, that has variety and vitality and flavor and fluidity, that’s tasty and tempting and touristy.  While I still don’t think I am motivated to travel to Georgia to savor its bounty, I certainly like having it at my disposal.  And in tribute to the full range of Agritourism Georgia provides, I stop on my way out of the state at a southern winery where I sample and purchase my own bottle of vintage Agritourism at its finest.

North Dakota on a Napkin

Snacks on a Plane

While most people who remember meals on airplanes recall them to be the adult, airborne versions of school lunches, their meager snack replacements also serve as the only form of discount airline in-flight entertainment.  The few dozen peanuts or handful of pretzels that keep passengers’ appetites contented until landing easily fit onto the cocktail napkins – the ones that accompany the cups of ice with a few dribbles of complementary soft drinks.  But pouring the little bags of snacks onto the small white squares and corralling them from rolling onto the passenger’s lap in 12E (or sliding into the chair-back pocket) converts simple tidiness into a playful game keeping passengers busy for a full ten minutes.

When the sips of liquid are gone, the cold cubes tumbling forward against my nose, and only the salty remnants of the snacks stick to the napkin, I usually stuff the square into the cup and wait for the trash collectors to make their way back through the cabin.  But this time I take a moment and examine the airline’s flight map printed on the napkin, looking at the final destination in the center of the country where I would land.  When I step off the plane in Nebraska, I will be checking another state off the “Been There, Done That” list, and looking at this mini map, I consider the odd fact that I have traveled to every state around it, but never made it to the Corn Husker state.  Nearly twenty years earlier I traversed its northern neighbor checking off the lower Dakota, but someday would need to head back to this destination in order to add the upper Dakota to my traveling accomplishments.

Spontaneity

Stopping for a roadside distraction, a scenic vista or an extended meal routinely fill my solo travels, but a dramatic change of itinerary bothers my budgetary sensibilities and disrupts the mental travel clock that pushes me forward to my daily destinations.  But on a four-by-four white square, North Dakota appeared close and conquerable.  With wheels down, the frequent-flyer-point planets align and the opportunity to spend Independence Day driving along the Missouri River into the Big Sioux valley and across the other continental divide transforms an overnight flight into an unexpected summer road trip.

From the confines of the narrow plane seat, the straight shot journey up and down the northern American plains amounts to the length of a single peanut.  But on Interstate 29, the spacious, untouched fields, the swooping swallows, the sleepy little towns, the glowing mid-summer sunset late into the evening, and rockets red-glaring from distant farms into the darkening sky reward my unusual impulsiveness.  Yes, I check two states off the must-see list instead of just one by doubling the length of this weekend excursion to forty-two hours, but the long-term value of seeing North Dakota on a napkin and choosing to see it in person stacks my mind and my memory with visual moments and quiet scenes unmeasured in my forty-two years.