12.

That was nearly the end of our trip. We came down out of the mountains and finally found a tiny restaurant to eat in like we had been looking for our whole trip. It was called Turner’s Corner Café, and it was tucked into a tight little valley looking over a mountain stream. We ate and were satisfied and finally rolled out of the hills of Northern Georgia as it was getting dark.

We still didn’t take the interstate though. We drove toward Adrian on old roads that I think even the towns along had forgotten about, and it was probably the most surreal experience in the entire trip. We had the t-tops down, and we stopped for a few minutes to try and take pictures of a full moon rising low under power lines. It was gorgeous, but in the pictures it’s only an orange ball in a dark sky. Then we were off, and Jon drove and I tipped my head back and watched the power lines follow us along the highway. They were batting stars back and forth between them as the car’s motion made them rise and fall like plucked strings. I imagined swamps along either side of the road, unseen in the darkness.

We passed through the towns like a ghost, past the silent courthouses that looked like whitewashed tombs in the center of empty squares, and we held empty bottles out the top of the car until the wind caught in their throats and made them moan. Then we probably did sound like some screaming ghost train to the people in the quiet houses that we passed. We drove all the way into Adrian Camp like that, howling as we passed down the streets and through the night.


End. (Thanks for the good times, Jon.)