31 big ones. Comfortably into my ’30s. Yikes. Still feel good, knock on wood. I keep my head up. Big plans for my 31st year, to be revealed at a later date. Thanks to mom and dad for life. Thanks to everyone who make it worth living.

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Woke up, showered up, checked a little email and headed east across the final chunk of Georgia. I thought the �Dirty South� would be a lot dirtier, but, it�s been a whole lotta �nicely maintained farmland.� Cotton fields, peanut depots, and the occasional chain gang with some very unfortunate laborers dotted the landscape.

Chain gangs. Fuck, I don�t know how to really dig into this one. I�ll say this much, �I felt bad for those guys.� Tough living.

01. “Cotton fields.”
02. “Cotton.”

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I made a quick and sobering stop at the Andersonville National Monument, to be surprised by the National P.O.W. Museum. Artifacts, exhibits, quotes and moving footage from P.O.W. nightmares from all the world wars. Pretty heavy stuff. I spent a good couple hours here, and didn�t miss too much. Seeing the footage of the troops arriving home to their families was the hardest to take in. Wow. Imaging spending five years of yer life in a cement box, not allowed to communicate with fellow prisoners, barely nourished�whoa.

Overall, the museum was nicely organized and presented, due to proper Federal funding. After you get blown away by the museum, you head out onto the grounds to take in the Andersonville site. Large numbers of Union troops were lost to the dysentery, weather exposure and infighting. Insanity.

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Another 30 miles east was Plains, the hometown of Jimmy Carter. Good stuff. Proud to be an American. Simple, honest, forthright. I saw the train depot that served as his campaign headquarters, Billy Carter�s dilapidated gas station and even hiked up to gazed through the fences at the heavily-fortified grounds of Carter�s home. Secret service rigs, surveillance cameras and overgrown brush secure Mr. Carter�s estate. A great stop.

Didn�t Billy Carter get caught pissing in the bushes at the White House? I seem to remember hearing of something along those lines. If so, the best.

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That evening I crossed over into Alabama and proceed to make good time down to the outskirts of mobile where I caught some z�s in a Pilot truckstop. All and all, a good birthday. I was a little sad to be so far away from home and mom and dad and Whitney, but, I had to get across that Deep South, and that�s what I did.