The Southern Road: Ty Cobb Lives On

by Micheline Maynard on

I have been a fan of the Detroit Tigers since I was old enough to hold one of the big, fat, orange pencils that they used to sell at Tiger Stadium. Through the years, I’ve heard plenty about Ty Cobb, the famous, supposedly mean slugger who set records that still stand. Since his nickname was “the Georgia Peach,” I knew he was from Georgia.

So, when I spotted a sign for Royston, Georgia, on Interstate 85 on the way from Greenville, South Carolina, to Chattanooga, of course I had to stop and find the Ty Cobb Museum. Along the way, I saw other signs for the Ty Cobb Healthcare System, which I thought was amusing, and which I soon learned is one of Cobb’s greatest legacies outside baseball.

Cobb wasn’t lucky in love, and two of his three sons died young. Left somewhat adrift, Cobb donated $100,000 to build a hospital in Royston, and he donated almost $1 million in today’s dollars to set up a scholarship fund for Georgia youngsters.

The Ty Cobb Museum is housed in a clinic that is part of the medical system. The gift shop, which sells the Ty Cobble-head and some snazzy fleece tops, is also the clinic office. Once you pay $5, you can enter the museum where there’s a film, and exhibits that include Cobb’s Detroit Tigers uniform, and his spikes, which he supposedly turned on every opposing baseman.

It’s a tiny memorial to someone who’s still talked about in baseball, a century after he played. But the bigger legacy is obviously in what he did for Royston.

The Southern Road: The Perks Of Gas Station Food

by Micheline Maynard on

The South has its highways, but in order to get to some places, you have to take four-lane or two-lane roads. That’s where you’ll find gas stations. And in many gas stations, you’ll find food.

Up north, hardly anybody I know eats food from a gas station, unless they’re starving and it has a Subway attached. Down south, gas station food is its own form of cuisine. If you’re fortunate, you can score breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in a good gas station, which may also have its own booths and dining tables.

At bare minimum, a gas station worth its salt (or fat) will serve breakfast – primarily a biscuit. This is usually a chicken, country ham or sausage biscuit. It is as far from Grape-Nuts as breakfast can get. I had resisted the biscuit breakfast until I was on the road from Birmingham, Alabama, to West Point, Georgia.

I passed a gas station that offered “Hot Biscuits & Full Breakfast, Live Bait, Hunting and Fishing Supplies.” Inside, I bought plain biscuits. They were fine, and flaky, and filled my mid-morning needs. But I knew there was more out there.

I found gas stations that featured barbecue, gas stations with fried catfish (many proudly displaying a “raised in the USA sign”) and gas stations with fried chicken. I found gas stations with a head-spinning, rainbow variety of frozen drinks that actually scared me.

I really struck gold at the Dodge’s Chicken Store in Lexington, Tennessee. It isn’t technically a gas station, but a restaurant with an adjacent gas station. The signs offered the trinity: chicken, barbecue and catfish.

Inside, people were jostling each other to get up to the counter. The variety was enormous and the prices divine: $2.99 for a pulled pork sandwich, $5.99 a pound for barbecue, $2.59 for a slab of catfish. There was corn on the cob, fried corn on the cob, hush puppies, mac and cheese. And, there were fried hand pies, a little bigger than a McDonald’s pie.

Since I knew I’d be eating a big lunch, I asked for a small piece of catfish and a sweet potato pie. The counter girl looked disappointed: “Aren’t you going to have any sides?” she asked. It was a perfect snack, and a terrific example of gas station food.

10 Tips For A Southern Road Trip

by Micheline Maynard on

On my trip through the new industrial South, I drove more than 4,000 miles, visiting 10 cities and nine factories in 10 days. The scenery ranged from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Gulf Coast, from live oaks to pines. Along the way, I sampled gourmet cuisine and boiled peanuts, gas station cuisine and outstanding fast food. Here are my top 10 tips for planning your Southern road trip.

1) Be ready for weather extremes. Southern heat is muggy and it continues into the fall. The cool air that marks a summer or fall morning in many parts of the country just isn’t there. It starts hot and gets hotter and danker until, crash! there’s an afternoon thunderstorm – or worse. My trip took place just two weeks before Hurricane Isaac, and as the storm hit, I checked the map to see how my towns made out. None of the factories were damaged, but there has been flooding, power outages, and plenty of downed trees. Isaac aside, you might want to front load your driving so you’re off the road by about 4 p.m., just so you won’t have to pull off and wait it out, the way I had to more than a few times. And keep an eye on radar: I was driving between Memphis and Tupelo in May when a thunderstorm rolled in out of nowhere (my flight from Detroit to Memphis had been smooth as silk).

2) Think about staying in a central spot. Since I was visiting the new industrial South, it made sense to use Birmingham, AL, as my home base for several nights during the trip. I took road trips of an hour, two hours, up to four hours from there, but it was nice to unpack once and sleep in the same place a few nights in a row. You might pick Atlanta or Mobile or Nashville, and go off on short trips from either place. Believe me, there’s plenty to see, and it’s nice to have a hotel staff welcome you back at the end of the day.3) Make a list of what you want to eat. The South isn’t just southern food these days – I found a fantastic penne bolognese in Birmingham, and exquisite sushi in Lexington, Kentucky. There is tons of Mexican food all over the south, including The Taco Truck in downtown Birmingham. But for the most part, you’re here and you’re going to want to eat southern food. So make yourself a list: barbecue, fried chicken, shrimp, grits, crab, gumbo, peach cobbler, whatever your heart fancies. Then, find it. And if you discover a restaurant you like, don’t hesitate to go back again. I did that with Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham and the Market By The Bay in Fairhope, Alabama, because I liked both menus so well. Likewise, you might find a fast food chain that appeals to you such as Zaxby’s, Backyard Burger or Krystal. Go ahead and indulge!

4) What do you want to do? Some people visit car plants, the way I did. Others want to see minor league baseball parks. Some folks like the beach, others want to play golf, still more like to shop. The variety is endless. You can plot a route around all those things, just do your research ahead of time. Southern states’ tourism websites are an amazing source of tips and routes. I particularly like 100 Dishes To Eat In Alabama.

5) Prepare for some challenging driving. Along with weather extremes, the South is much more hilly and even mountainous than people expect. Cities like Birmingham and Chattanooga are full of hills. Greenville sits not far from the mountains. Atlanta’s traffic is legendary. This isn’t like driving through the west, where you can put on cruise control and let your mind wander. You’ll have to pay attention.

6) Watch out for daredevil drivers. When I left Greenville for Atlanta, I noticed highway signs imploring motorists to allow more space when passing trucks. They might as well have said, “please don’t cut people off.” It’s startling to have a car pass you and wind up inches from your front bumper. It’s also a little disconcerting when you’re already going the speed limit and someone roars up and tailgates you. In New York City, they honk; in the South, they move.

7) Take time to go off the beaten path. Southern states do an admirable job of pointing out historic attractions; just look for the brown signs along the highways. And keep your eyes open for in-town signs, too. I found the delightful Ty Cobb Museum in Georgia that way, I discovered Hank Williams Sr.’s birthplace, and I discovered the sign for the F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald’s Montgomery, Alabama, home while I was looking for something else. Likewise, you can do a driving tour of sites from The Help near Greenwood, Missouri, and visit the state’s outstanding Blues Trail (there’s even an app). These places exemplify the richness of the Southern road.

8) Go ahead and be a tourist. I’ve been to Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo, the Stax Museum of American Soul in Memphis, the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, and the beaches near Mobile. There is a reason why people visit these places: they’re part of American history and culture. Don’t turn up your nose because there are school buses parked outside. You might learn something you forgot from school.

10) You don’t have to give up Starbucks. In fact, I think there may be more Starbuck’s per highway exit across the South than in any other part of the country. There’s a branch of the Christmas Tree Shops in Birmingham, for homesick New Englanders, and college football loyalty is every bit as deep in Tuscaloosa and Auburn as in South Bend and Columbus. (When I showed up in navy, orange and white for a meeting, someone remarked, “You’re wearing your Clemson colors today.” That was news to me.) The South is more like America than the north, Midwest or West suspects – in fact, it is America, writ colorfully and large.

Savannah: A Friendly Place

by Elizabeth Seward on

Savannah isn’t a young American town. Established in 1733, Savannah is what we refer to as “historical” in the U.S.A. The city’s pillared homes and ivy-covered walls make a nice backdrop for visitors on any of the various guided tours of the town, but the reputed friendliness of Savannah is part of the reason people visit and then return.

I first traveled to Savannah on tour. My band played at a place in town, The Jinx, and I was impressed with the owner of the venue. She was kind, energetic and uniquely accommodating. She believed in paying touring bands and she even had a space available for the bands that came through if they didn’t have a place to stay. She promoted touring bands to local music writers and publications. She requested a stack of posters in advance and made a point to actually hang them. And so my first experience in Savannah was a good one. People were at the show and enjoying themselves. One man even bought two of everything we had for sale at the merch table and then opened up a tab for me and my bandmates to use the rest of the night. The one-off kindnesses I experienced in Savannah might have seemed just like good luck when isolated, but the collective hospitality of the town began to seem more intentional than not, more a fact of Savannah life than a fluke.

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When I was back home in New York, I talked about moving to the South. Before visiting Savannah, I never knew charm and cool could be so inseparably paired in a place. When a roommate of mine eventually departed NYC with aim for Savannah, I bid her farewell with envy. I couldn’t undo my first impression of this Georgia destination; the luster didn’t fade with time.

My husband and I were haplessly traveling down the east coast in June. The trip had been a series of badly timed and poorly planned excursions that had led to more frustration than fun. We decided to stop in Savannah because he had never been there, but we only had one afternoon to explore. Yelp pointed us in the direction of a good cafe, so we parked and tied our dogs to the patio table when we arrived. We sat next to a Russian couple that had been living in Savannah for a while. Conversation sparked in that serendipitous way it does sometimes, wherein each involved party is actually in the mood to talk. When the couple said goodbye, two older gentlemen discussed our afternoon plans with us, giving us both advice and direction. We walked toward the river with the canopying Spanish moss overhead. Many more people than usual, it seemed, stopped to pet our dogs. Each person had anecdotal Savannah stories to share and we had listening ears. In between our conversations, we began discussing the town.

“Everyone is so friendly here. It’s unbelievable,” my husband remarked.

“I told you so,” I quipped.

When the heat of the afternoon had toasted our shoulders, we walked back to our car. My husband pulled out of our space and drove down the road and made a left turn. Unfortunately, he turned directly into another car, mistakenly thinking that we were on a two-way street when we were instead on a one-way street. I uttered a succession of curse words and we pulled over into a nearby parking lot to assess the damage. The two cars were damaged, alright. I was trembling as the woman who owned the car we’d hit approached us, feeling uneasy in anticipation of her wrath.

“Just tell me, what were you thinking?” she asked my husband in a voice sweet with maternal instinct.

“I thought we were on a two-way street. We don’t live here. I’m so sorry,” he responded.

“Well, that’s OK. Is everyone alright?” she asked, spotting our dogs through the open door.

“We’re fine, are you?” I asked.

“I sure am, and that’s all that matters,” she said before warming us with a smile I’ll never forget.

Budget Vacation Guide 2012: Tiblisi, Georgia

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Why now? Georgia‘s investments in infrastructure and tourism over the last several years mean that the country is raring to go. Tourist facilities have improved and Tbilisi’s domestic travel agencies are well organized.

With a bustling capital city, Tbilisi, mountainous regions like Svaneti and Tusheti, a prime beach resort in Batumi, and the wine region of Kakheti, Georgia boasts a seemingly unending supply of exciting sites and experiences for visitors. And while Georgians may be feeling the pinch of rising prices, most visitors will experience Georgia as a great bargain.

In Tbilisi, dinner feasts at top restaurants can easily be had within the $10-$15 range; filling khachapuri dinners at hole-in-the-wall restaurants cost around $5. Taxis around town set passengers back around $1, once basic bargaining has been mastered. Tbilisi’s only drawback for budget travelers is its hotel cost index, which is geared toward visitors traveling on expense accounts; hostels and apartment rentals pick up the slack.

For anyone itching to get into some gorgeous wilderness, there is Svaneti, a district that has slowly but surely become a backpacker destination; quick flights connect the regional capital of Mestia to Tbilisi. Another mountain region, Tusheti, receives far fewer tourists. Seasonal farmhouse accommodations in Tusheti can be had for $35 a night, including two or even three meals daily.

[flickr image via shioshvili]