An Afternoon in Plains, GA

Yesterday we spent the afternoon in Plains, checking out all things Jimmy Carter.  It is a REALLY tiny town!  Maybe not even as big as Winchester or Nortonville.  They have several sites to go see, though, and everything is kept very neat and everything is free to go see.  They also encourage you to take all the pictures you want.

The first stop was at the Plains Welcome Center.  It was a cute little building, nothing fancy, but a big wide porch (complete with rocking chairs) on both sides, and inside they have a few things to look at, but it's mostly an informational center.  The lady in there encouraged us to sign the guest book and put a pin in the map to show where we were from, and then gave us a map of Plains, and pointed out all the points of interest.

Next stop was the Maranatha Baptist Church, where Jimmy and Rosalyn still attend services, and he still teaches Sunday School a few times a month.  We may just have to check out a service while we're here.

Up the road a couple of blocks is the old Plains High School building, which is now the Carter Museum.  Jimmy and Rosalyn both attended this school from 1st-11th grades, when they graduated.  At the time, 12th grade was not required.

Here I am, President Janine.  This is a replica of the Presidential desk in the White House

President Carter's official White House portrait

There were quite a few of President Carter's paintings in the museum.  This is a self-portrait of him painting.

Weren't they a cute couple?

Headlines from the local Americus paper

Billy Carter's gas station was just a couple of blocks from the high school

President and Mrs Carter's current residence is just right there in Plains.  They pointed it out to us on the map.  There's a small secret service building in the corner of the yard, and a short black chain link fence all around, but nothing that would stand out if you didn't know what to look for.  We watched a video tour of the house in the museum, and this is the first and only house they've ever owned.  It's a nice looking brick ranch, but nothing fancy at all.  You can't see the house from the road, but these are a couple of pictures that were online that show the house we saw on the video.

Next we went to the farm where Jimmy grew up.  You really got a sense of who he is, and where his values came from, by visiting here.

I think this was dated 2005

The chicken yard.  One of the volunteers was gathering eggs when we walked by

The family added indoor plumbing at some point.  I like their "shower head".  Water poured into the bucket, which had holes poked in the bottom.

His father' store, which was next to the house.  It was open regularly on Saturdays, but they would open up any time someone came by.

I enjoyed the whole afternoon way more than I thought I would.  The people of Plains were wonderful, and they've kept the town and the historical sites very simple, not trying to fancy things up because of the President.

A cotton field down the road from the Carter family farm

Today Brad golfed with some of the men here, and I gave the inside of the RV a good cleaning.  After lunch, one of the men came over to see if Brad wanted to golf again, and said his wife was going shopping, did I want to go?  This couple is parked in the spot right behind us, and we've chatted with them a few times.  They are the couple we met the first or second day we got here, who started this RV life about a week before we did.  So Brad and Gene went golfing, and Brenda and I went out for a little retail therapy, and some frozen yogurt.  Brenda pointed out a few of the good restaurants in town, and showed me a good pizza place.  I told her Brad and I were always on the lookout for the world's best pizza.  About supper time, Brenda came over to see if we wanted to check out the pizza place... I was fixing a salad for supper at the time, so pizza sounded great!  It was a pizza buffet place, with pasta and calzones also, and a pretty good salad bar.  It didn't make the list of world's best, but it was pretty good pizza, and I always love a pizza buffet for the chance to try different kinds... Even though I stuck to pepperoni (everything else looked suspiciously like it had either black olives or mushrooms on it!).  

Today, 6 or 7 new "residents" arrived, mostly great big Class A RVs.  They must be a group, because they were all put right next to each other.  Nice to see the "neighborhood" filling up again.