March 23rd to March 29th

We headed to the southeast corner of Georgia and spent two nights at Stephen C. Foster State Park, which is on a small island in the middle of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.  The Okefenokee Swamp was made "famous" long ago as the home of a cartoon character named "Pogo".  We saw a deer, 8 large turtles and more alligators. 

Heading north again, we traveled to Andersonville, GA.  During the Civil War, neither side was prepared to house prisoners.  For several years prisoners were exchanged with the promise that ex-prisoners would not take any future part in the war.  Since this "gentleman's agreement" was not upheld, each side started keeping the prisoners.  The largest Civil War prison was in Andersonville.  In the 14 months it was in operation (until the end of the war), 45,000 Union troops came through there.  Of those, 13,000 died from disease, malnutrition, etc.  After the war, the soldier in charge of the prison, Captain Wirz, was brought up on charges and hung.  In his defense, he lacked food and other supplies because the Union forces were blockading materials.  Also, prisons in the north, for the Confederate prisoners, had almost as high of a percentage of death.  Of course, his side lost the war.  In Andersonville, there is a large monument to him.  It strongly implies that he did everything he could to care for the prisoners.  It was not much.  The "prison" consisted of walls around a 29 acre space.  Prisoners were given blankets and they could buy wooden poles from which they could construct tents.  There were no other structures inside.  They also had to dig their own wells to try to get water.  Andersonville is now a national monument to all prisoners of all wars.

A few miles south of Andersonville is Americus, which is the international headquarters for Habitat For Humanity.  We toured their Global Village which shows how many people live in slums that we cannot imagine.  They also have examples of homes that Habitat has built around the world.  We learned more about how ex-President Jimmy Carter has been very involved in Habitat and other ways to help people.  So, we then drove another 9 miles over to Plains.

Jimmy Carter was born in Archery, GA which is 4 miles from Plains.  He lived with his family on a small farm.  His dad ran the farm and also a small store; then taught Sunday School at the local Baptist church.  After high school Jimmy Carter got a commission to the US Naval Academy and spent several years in the Navy.  When his father died, he and Rosalyn decided to return to Plains. In 1961 they bought some property and built a house.  He started getting involved in local politics and finally became President in 1976.  Since his presidency, he and his wife have been very involved in humanitarian activities.  This earned him the Noble Peace prize in 2002.  The Carter's still live in the same home (the only one they have ever owned).  People we met talked about seeing them riding bikes around town, buying groceries, etc.  When they are home, Jimmy teaches Sunday school class at the local Baptist church and anyone is welcome to attend.  We saw the schedule and he taught the class 3 days in March and will be there every day in April.  The population of Plains is less tan 700!

Wednesday we visited the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.  It opened in November and is the largest aquarium in the world.  Pretty amazing stuff!  After driving around Atlanta for awhile, we went out to the Kennesaw Mountain  National Battlefield Park.  This was the location of a battle during the civil war.

By the way, if you compare this week's map to the one I gave last week about what we might be doing... well... we changed the plan just a bit and headed north.  Next week we head south towards Mobile, Alabama.  (I think!) If this does not make any sense... we must be doing something right!