Tuesday Nov 13, 2012 From Atlanta,GA to Georgetown KY (near Lexington) 

It doesn’t seem possible , but the last day of this trip to Florida is in sight. We are lodging a few miles from the wonderful horse country of central Kentucky.  (Lexington) The big horse barns are even along I-75 and the white fences stretch for miles. 

Nothing special today , except the anticipation of driving through Atlanta at 8:30 this morning at the peak of rush hour. The traffic there is heavy anyway, and last evening when we come back from the Aquarium in the heavy rain, the traffic was almost as heavy.  But see one of the pictures to get the idea in five lanes of traffic.

We did however use the “DOV” lane for cars with 2 or more people and we moved right along without delay. Good thing to remember when hitting rush hour traffic.. that is... always carry extra passengers with you .It seems so strange that we did not see any cars with more than one person in them except on the DOV lane and that went all the way through downtown and out the other side of the city. I can only think of multiplying that by the many cities that have gridlock each morning. One DOT sign said” 6 miles to Swanson Parkway--- travel time 20 minutes”. UGH! I wouldn’t want to ride that each day. (TWICE) Yep, that's a 20 mph average.

These are those merging traffic stop and go lights that help to alternate the

vehicles entering the rush hour traffic. Many large cities, like Atlanta use them.

AM rush hour coming into Atlanta. Five lanes.

We drove the DOV lane so it went well. (read blog for more)

A bit of downtown Atlanta . This city is HQ for many 

of the world's biggest industries. Coca Cola the largest of them.

It  is also home to BellSouth, Delta Airlines, Home Depot, UPS,

 and Georgia-Pacific, among other big names.

There still is some color in the trees in this area  

as witnessed by these three shots.

We saw the change in the land from Atlanta (Stockbridge)  which is gently rolling to the NW Georgia where the hills turn into the mountains by the time we reached Tennessee. The southern Appalachian Mountains actually end about at that point. One “mountain” was just 2,000 feet high, but are easily passed over. There are lots of trucks using I-75.  There is still some good color along the road all the way from GA to mid Tennessee. In Kentucky there is less color.

Another picture of downtown skyline of Atlanta

See Wells Fargo HQ on the right.

As we drive north the land begins to get hilly and we start to lose the color.

The road has mostly trees on both sides and little infrastructure 

north of Atlanta. (That is buildings, etc)

Into Tennessee the mountains are more evident ,even

at 2,000 feet or so.

In Kentucky there are more cuts and limestone edges to the road. 

This road, I believe, follows the old US 23 route to Florida.

Very beautiful to the eye.

One striking thing I noticed about the land was that there was very little farmland anywhere along this route. There are a  few small scattered acreages of hay, and cattle, but little else until the horse ranches in the Lexington, KY., area.

The day was sunny all the way , but temps never reached 50 F until we went to eat at a  “Waffle House” this evening when it reached 52 F. Tomorrow the AM is suppose to be 22 F .  BRR!. But... I put my long pants on this AM and put the shorts away for the first time since Nov 3.

Tennessee has not much in the line of industry visible, but does expose many Museums, Civil War sites, and Exhibits to attract the people heading up and down I-75 each year. Tourism isn’t its main business but adds to the economy. Manufacturing and education each have about 18% of the activity and retail trade about 11%. Textiles, cotton, electrical power, and cattle are the main outputs. Fed. Ex., Nissan and Volkswagen are all in Tennessee

Tomorrow we will head north for the last day on the road staying on I-75 to Toledo and picking  up US 23 to I-96 and home.

I hope you have enjoyed the trip and I will post a brief account tomorrow to sum up.

Thanks to all of you for the faithful reading from time to time, and especially those of you from outside the USA of which there have been many  from France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Mexico,  Germany, Ireland, Australia, Canada and China. Your viewing is appreciated. We have had well over 1,000 "hits" on this blog of the trip.