Heather has been overworking herself at her job, so she took Friday off. We decided to get in the car and go exploring the state.

Friday we headed out I-20 east to start a driving tour in a book we had- Touring The Backroads of North and South Georgia, which we highly recommend. We started one of the tours in Oxford, and then went through Covington, Rutledge, Madison, Eatonton, Greensboro, Union Point, Crawfordville, War Hill, and Washington. We also saw our first Georgia Revolutionary War site at Kettle Creek, as well as the home of the first female US Senator.

We had dinner at a restaurant next to a renovated hotel on the square in downtown Washington. After a glass of wine, it dawned on us that a two or three hour drive back to Atlanta wasn't terribly appealing, especially since it was 9:30. So we got a room at a local hotel, and since we had such a good time on Friday, we decided to drive north to Elberton and do another driving tour out of the book (though we did it backwards).

We finally got to see the Georgia Guidestones. Apparently there are some religious nuts who think they're part of some occult conspiracy. There were some burnt-out black candles on the southern side of the stones, but there was also a granite block with a "JESUS" label someone had left on the north side of the central stone, so the spiritual craziness probably all balances out in the end. It was an all-around weird site- and since Elberton is the "granite capital of the world", lots of road signs are made from granite, which makes it look like there are little tombstones everywhere. It was impressive at first- local cemeteries have impressive granite tombstones, but when you get to downtown Elberton and see the prominent display of six tombstones on the main drag through town, it really starts to get creepy. There was apparently more information on the Guidestones at the Granite Museum, but I think if I saw any more granite today, I might go nuts.

From Elberton, we went on to Carlton, Comer, Watson Mill Bridge State Park, Danielsville, Ila (from the Choctaw word Ilia, meaning dead, an appropriate name for the town), Commerce, Jefferson, Winder, and Fort Yargo State Park, whose fort could more accurately be called a shed.

We saw some cool stuff, but we want to revisit some sites in particular that we didn't get to spend enough time at. The old Greene County jail in Greensboro looked cool- according to the book, you can ask the dispatcher at the sheriff's department for the key and take a self-guided tour, but it was late in the day when we got there, so we decided not to ask. We might also revisit Elberton to see the exhibit at the historical society about the Georgia Guidestones. The Stephens State Park and historical site in Crawfordville might also be interesting (but the rest of Crawfordville is a pass, especially Heavy's BBQ, which was bad. As in, parts of the food were impossible to eat without gagging), and Madison was a really pretty town that had lots of homes on a walking tour we didn't have time to stop and take.