In a movie at the NPS visitors center Jimmy Carter says that when he was young, a trip to Plains was a trip to the “big city”. My goodness! Arriving in Plains felt like arriving at a crossroads, there was very little substance. The boyhood home was another three miles down the road in the middle of absolutely nowhere. In a sense it really is amazing that someone from the hinterlands became president of the world’s most powerful nation.
In truth, I really enjoyed my visit to Plains because it was so untouched and genuine. I walked around in his boyhood home, strolled the hallways of his high school, stopped by the house where Jimmy courted Roselyn, drove by his current residence, and saw all that lay in between. There was the train depot which they used as campaign headquarters for the presidential campaign. There were the grounds of his father’s farm and the outhouse they were happy to finally leave behind when they got an indoor toilet. It was all so real.
However, it really was in the middle of nowhere!
Other sites I visited had nothing to do with the 39th president of the U.S. There was Americus, GA where Lindburgh had his first solo flight. There was Camp Sumter where 45,000 Union POWs where held and almost 13,000 died. There was Florida State University and the State Capital in Tallahassee. Lastly, there was the leisurely ride along coast of the Florida panhandle.
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