“I’m gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee, let me off now!” – Tina Halvorsen, 2003

The first ride we went on was the Looping Spaceship, and that was all anyone heard the entire time the ship was in orbit. It was a great way to start our day at Six Flags, it made all the other rides easier to stomach.

Tina is not a big roller coaster fan, or at least wasn’t until today. It was her suggestion to go to Six Flags instead of the other choice, Stone Mountain, which will happen next week. Technically I hadn’t been to a Six Flags either, the last time I went to Great America was before it was a Six Flags.

Armed with our buy one get one certificates (thanks Andre!) we headed west on I-20 and before long we were in Austell…just outside of West Atlanta. As we entered the park we could smell the corn dogs and confectionary, and hear the screams of the ride victims. It was great being back in an amusement park! Our first stop was the looping spaceship, which was thankfully a quick one. We headed up the next ramp to the Deer Park Plunge, the wait was almost an hour but the ride was totally worth it. As we attempted to dry out (a water ride in the South has more of a lasting effect) we hit a vendor up for some funnel cakes…stay away from the strawberry gelatin and go with the plain. While we were sitting eating our funnel cake we ran into Bugs, who was more than happy to take a picture with us. Bugs then directed us towards the Georgia Cyclone, the South’s only twister coaster. Patterned after the legendary Coney Island Cyclone, we were plunged through a twisted maze and sped in and out of high-banked turns at nearly 50 miles per hour. We got off the ride battered and bruised, but would do it again in a heartbeat! We decided to wind down on what is easily the most boring ride I have ever been on…and I don’t think anything in a park is boring or stupid! Stay away from the monster mansion…it is not the haunted house and is best described as a wanna-be Small World with every character replaced by a Barney look-a-like. Not wanting to end our day on a lame note, Tina and I went to the arcades. I sucked big time so it was up to Tina to win a stuffed WB frog, she threw baseballs at furry creatures for her prize.

What better way to cap off a day at the park than to stop at the local Bruster’s Ice Cream Shop. We had turtle/plain sundaes. Finally we couldn’t wait to get home to take off our wet clothes.

Check out the pics!

This weekend’s goal was to see the filming locations of the “Dukes of Hazard” and “In the Heat of the Night”. After scrubing our plans to stand in line at the DMV for 4 hours, we headed east on I-20 to Covington. The visitor’s center was unexpectedly closed so we couldn’t get the map to the locations and decided to check out the downtowns along I-20. Newton County is where the first five episodes of “Dukes” was filmed and they jumped the General Lee over a creek bed in June for the 25th Anniversary.

Our first stop after leaving Covington was Rutledge. As you drive into Rutledge you definitely get the feeling you are much further than 30 miles outside the Metro area. There are several tourist trap-type shops in town, but most of the area is totally rural. We had some ice cream and a homeade chocolate chip cookie at the local deli which is located in a caboose. The Caboose is the last railroad car of Rutledge, restored, and is located in the center of town. The Caboose offers great homemade rootbeer, fudge, lemonade, candies, and ice cream delights. We then headed east to Madison “Georgia’s Antebellum showcase”.

Madison is definitely the cutest of all the downtown squares along I-20 and seems to have the most to offer. It was the cleanest and biggest of the squares, and the veterans memorial in front of the courthouse is a perfect set up for the town experience. We walked around the square and stopped in to “Ye Olde Colonial” restaurant, it was a complete Southern dive and probably served awesome fried chicken, but the ambiance was not what we were looking for. According to the “Madisonians”, the two main attractions of Madison are The Rose Cottage (c. 1891). Adeline Rose, born into slavery, lived in this house she had built until her death in 1959; and The Rogers House (c. 1810), one of the oldest Piedmont Plain Style homes in the area. We walked around the outside of the home and got a good feel for the place, so without paying the $6 to go inside we headed towards Lake Oconee.

As we were deciding on which route to take back (not wanting to take I-20 since we had encountered some traffic already) we stumbled upon Dixie Highway. We are still so new to the South that anything named Dixie deserves a try. So we headed West/North/South on Dixie Highway. As we got into the backwoods we came across a marker that designated an old tavern, located on the old stagecoach route between Charleston and New Orleans. We made a stop at Lake Oconee in Greensboro, where George “W” has a place…he wasn’t home though. We seemed to be headed more towards Charleston than I-20 and so we made the difficult decision to take the road we knew back to Social Circle. We made a pact that we would go to Charleston someday soon though.

Social Circle has all the charm of the South and is exactly what you would expect from a Southern town named Social Circle. We had reservations at the Blue Willow Inn for 7:30. The surrounding areas provided plenty of entertainment with the most gorgeous Antebellum’s we have seen yet (antebellum is a term for a structure built prior to the War of Northern Aggression, Civil War for the Yanks in the audience). The Blue Willow Inn was a wonderful extravagant restaurant for a really great price! It is a southern buffet style and offers a huge array of food choices. There were ribs, roast beef, bbq’d pork, fried shrimp, fried whitening fish (although I could have sworn the lady called it “whitey fish”), stuffed fried crab meat in the shell, salmon, fried green tomatoes, collared greens, green beans, sweet corn, king crab legs, twice baked potato, baked beans, sweet potato grits, and a salad bar. Imagine my delight when Tina actually tried a fried green tomato, Kathy Bates would be proud! The dinner was accompanied by Marlo, the Accordian player, (accordianist?) and he played Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah for us…per Tina’s request. The dessert table was awesome, not quite as good as the banana pudding from last week…but definitely an excellent replacement. We had a choice of: the most amazing chocolate cake…rich moist chocolate cake and the most creamy chocolate frosting, did I mention there was chocolate cake? There was cheesecake, pecan pie, a chocolate cherry jubilee, coconut cream pie, strawberry shortcake, carrot cake, and apple pie. After dinner we sat on the porch in giant rocking chairs and enjoyed the view of the giant Antebellum mansion across the street, and the garden beneath the willow tree. As the sun set on our day, we couldn’t wait to plan our next visit to Social Circle.

Check out the pictures…