I’m learning that I need to post stuff right away or I’ll lose interest in posting it all together. I’m doing this just for the sake of completeness at this time. I think it’s kinda like research in that it’s really cool and fun while you’re doing it and it’s fun immediately after when you’re analyzing the data, but when you’re finished and it’s time to write it up, it’s boring.

Anyway, Daniel had given me a couple of Roadfood books, so I was looking to hit at least one recommended restaurant along the way. I ended up at Edna’s in Chatsworth, Georgia. I had a great meal of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cornbread for $5.37! Yum!

Growing up in the southeast, I figured that any day now, the Kudzu was going to completely take over the highways, but I was surprised at how little of it I saw in the Carolinas. I did see a lot in Georgia, though.

Western Tennessee is beautiful. I felt like I was driving through a Grateful Dead song.

I spent the night in Lawrenceburg, TN. I dissected flies until 4am, then hit the road again at 8am. The drive to Fayetteville was uneventful, but pretty. I was in a hurry to get to Bill Etges’ house at a reasonable hour. I arrived at around 7pm. He’d already put several traps out in his back yard, which was a forest, so we chatted over a beer. It’s funny the things you end up talking about. In addition to learning some really cool stuff about cactus-feeding drosophila, I got some good gossip about other biologists! Bill is a super-nice guy, as is his wife. I really enjoyed spending time with them. The next morning, we caught a ton of flies at the traps and took them back to the lab to sort them. This is how it’s supposed to work! By 11am, I was on the road again.