Reports from the Campground bathhouse were generally favourable; plenty of hot water and hardly anyone about. As with the previous campground, the cleanliness left a little to be desired but at least the phantom buttock printer hadn't been in.
Setting off for Macon, I enjoyed the acceleration on the car now that it was trailer-less and even let the thing bound off at 70mph, a real novelty after two days of driving with a dead weight slung behind us. Mrs T was busy snapping pictures of the roadside billboards and direction signs, as she does, when the camera suddenly threw a wobbly, making a horrible grinding noise each time it was powered on. The sound was alarming enough for me to miss a key turn on our route to the monument and then we had to suffer the outrage of the the Sat Nav “Turn around when possible!”.
Ocmulgee National Historical Monument is an area where some of North America's earliest human history is situated. There are a number of ancient mounds, constructed by the Indians living there over 1,000 years ago, as well as a reconstructed Earth House and a rather lovely Visitor Center. Coming from Europe, it seems a little odd to me to call things ancient when they are only 1,000 years old; Stonehenge is 3,500 years old. However, it helps to realise that human development is different over here and Ocmulgee was certainly a great way to learn exactly that. One thing that Americans do particularly well is the reconstruction of things historical, be it of buildings (or even whole towns) or by re-enacting events, and this site had the great Earth House rebuilt over the original earthen floor. It was wonderful to stand inside, complete with moody lighting and cool air, and view what the place would have been like when new. Of course, we'll draw a discrete veil over the fact that much American history has been lost in the name of progress, even here at Ocmulgee, but they do a grand job rebuilding it!
We decided to go into Macon to see if we could get the camera sorted and ended up downtown at a little camera shop picked out by the Sat Nav. It turned out be a place of many second hand camera bits but also of a guy who knew what he was on about. Our camera lens was knackered so he sold us a very good Minolta lens, of a much better quality than the Sony, for $100. I thought that was a bargain, especially as we really need a good camera on this trip. Thank you Coke's Cameras of Macon. It was a very hot afternoon and we'd not eaten so we set off to find a little sandwich place, only to discover that here in the business district, everything closed at 2pm, and it was 2.30pm. This seems to be a feature of our travels; no one else wants to work to our timescale. As a last resort, we set course for the campground and asked the Sat Nav to find us a “Waffle House”, purely on the grounds that we'd seen loads of them on the way down. It's at this point that US readers will smile knowingly and say “good call”, with hardly a hint of irony. Waffle House is a sort of diner that specializes in very fast waffles and all day breakfasts, a haven for those desiring comfort food but don't have a lot of time to enjoy it. We, on the other hand, were not really in a hurry and not necessarily desirous of such things but, as we'd found out in the downtown area, everywhere else was shut at 3pm. We fell on our feet though because the waitress (sorry, server) was very patient and explained everything to us very carefully, even to the extent of getting us a bowl of Grits to try. I'd look up Grits for you but I don't have Internet access at the moment, which is another story. Anyway, a breakfast style meal was consumed and enjoyed and we offer our grateful thanks to the lovely waitress (sorry, Server) for helping us so much. Not sure we'll be back at a Waffle House any time soon, though!
That evening we had some of the world's oiliest Beefburgers, cooked on our sexy little portable gas barbecue. It was a real pain to clean up and we only just made it before the daily thunderstorm and minor deluge sent us scurrying back inside Towed Haul. We'd really expected to have spent most of the time outside but this darned rain was just following us about. Mind you, it was at least warm rain.
Another early night amidst the cacophony of a million tree frogs had us settled before midnight in preparation for the next day's drive, this time about 350 miles, south to Florida. We are getting better at this camping lark because we'd readied a lot of stuff for the morning; still, 6 am seemed awful close.
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