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18 OCT 04: DAWSON CREEK-LESS

You can identify some towns by their architecture - but you can also spot a few by their smells. I visited one of those places Sunday, only this time it let me down. Did that many south Georgia peanut farmers lose their crops to the hurricanes?

We took a trip down Highway 520 to Dawson, the Terrell County seat. There's a big peanut processing facility at the north edge of town, but on this Sunday you couldn't smell any peanuts as you drove by. I suppose it's because the plant was closed - or they'd switched to making corn for all the deer hunters.

(A side point for newcomers who may not know, it's pronounced TERR-ell County. It was NOT named after football star Ter-RELL Davis. I never even saw any ads with his mom, for Chunky Soup.)

Deer hunting season was obviously underway, because signs promoting it to some extent were up all along Highway 520. I even passed what I assumed was a deer stand out in the open - either that, or the crescent moon on the outside made it the state's only elevated outhouse.

When I stopped at a convenience store at the north edge of Dawson, several men were inside wearing camouflage outfits. I assumed they'd been out hunting deer all day long. Of course, they could also explain the military discounts offered by some Dawson stores.

I took a drive down Main Street in Dawson, which is normally a safe bet for seeing the downtown area. Unless, of course, you're in Columbus - where Main Street is little more than a Village.

Dawson's Main Street seems rather nice, with few rundown buildings at all. At the key intersection of Main and Lee Streets, you can see faded paint on a brick wall for "Cosmopolitan Insurance." Dawson -- Cosmopolitan?! I'm not sure anyone would admit reading that magazine in this city.

Not many streets in Dawson are marked with paint, and many of them seem only about one-and-a-half lanes wide. Apparently the Mayor hasn't donated much of that half-million dollar lottery prize he won several months ago....

Dawson has turned into sort of a distant suburb of Albany. I was surprised to find several businesses open in the noon hour on a Sunday, including a Harvey's supermarket and a Family Dollar store. Come to think of it, I never spotted a big Baptist church in town to oppose such things.

Listening to the radio is a bit confusing in Albany. I could hear traces of Columbus's "Rock 103" three turns down the FM band from Albany's "Rock 103." I thought Clear Channel would have combined all of them from coast to coast by now....

All in all, we had a nice time in Dawson - but for mid-October, the bugs certainly were flying around outside at some of the places we visited. Didn't anyone tell them the hurricanes were past, and they can return to the swamps south of Tallahassee?

BLOG UPDATE: Speaking of road trips, we now return to exclusive coverage of our trip to Kentucky - exclusive because no one else rode with us in the car:

DAY 4: The church convention we attend has a "drop-in" room for singles one hour before the daily church service. I drop in and find about 25 single people there - practically all of them older than I. If it's my "hunting season," the meat is really tough.

I'm not allowed to sell my CD inside the convention hall, so I open my trunk in the parking lot after the service and try to sell it there. People walk by staring, as if I'm selling books on why they really should become Catholic.

In the afternoon, the singles gather at the most unique miniature golf complex I've ever seen. It has 54 holes, and all of them have Biblical themes. The only problem is that no one is on duty, to explain the two or three I disagree with theologically.

In the midst of this Christian golf course is the most difficult mini-golf hole ever created. It illustrates Mount Sinai, and the ball has to climb a five-foot-high volcano-shaped hill. As many strokes as this hole took me, it's no wonder Moses was up there 40 days.

That night is a Friday night, and the coordinator of the convention promises "a Bible study for everybody" at the hall. But as I mentioned, the hall in Lexington is attached to Rupp Arena - and much to our surprise, Kid Rock is booked there for a concert. Well, at least you can tell the concertgoers and convention visitors apart....

I have to park a couple of blocks from Rupp Arena, to avoid paying seven dollars in a lot - and when I take the short walk to the convention center, I find another competitor for Kid Rock: an elegant fund-raising dinner for a Children's Advocacy group. I can't resist walking to the entrance and asking: "So it's Children's Advocacy - or Kid Rock?!"

After dinner from a Chinese restaurant in the food court, I head to the part of the center where Bible study is scheduled - only to find signs revealing it's been cancelled. Apparently our ministers simply can't preach loudly enough.

(This cancellation admittedly disappointed me? Don't our ministers have enough faith that God can shut Kid Rock up -- even if Zell Miller couldn't?)

Saddened by this development, I head back to my motel and turn on a Lexington Christian TV station. The minister is so into his message on Revelation that he forgets what verse he's reading a couple of times - because somehow he's turned it into a complaint about purple-haired children in Knox County and earthquakes in Appalachia.

(BLOGGER'S NOTE: More notes from our Kentucky vacation as time permits in coming days....)

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