The drive to Savannah on Friday through a small portion of Alabama and west to east across Georgia was beautiful.  Great back roads and freeway.  Lush green trees everywhere and wide expanses of grass/fields.  We are quite impressed.

First stop was Dotham, Alabama.  We'd read about over 50 five-foot high peanut statues that had been decorated by artists.  How can you pass that up?  We only saw one and when we asked about them, people were a bit evasive.  Seems they were a business promotion and there was no map, etc.  A closer look at the one we saw showed it was erected in 2002.  Perhaps I need to clear out the files of the older travel articles.  Dotham did have about two dozen murals that were nicely done.
 
Lunch  today (always the food, eh?) was amazing -- more barbeque in a warehouse in Albany, Georgia, which has a great historic downtown.  There was a 3-mile river walk along the Flint River that was very well done and a huge statue of Ray Charles and his piano.  It even rotated and there was music.  He was born in Albany.  Went to Radium Springs for a quick look.  We could have spent a day or two in Albany.  Who knew?!

We traveled to Dotham and Albany on very rural roads, which we are thoroughly enjoying.  We had planned two more stops on the way to Savannah but it was getting late so we found a four-lane highway and arrived after 7 p.m.