Makin' Macon

      This is our Makin' Macon story which took place in 1997, and many of the following paragraphs are from a write-up of the story from 2009.

       Macon is about an hour or so south of Atlanta by auto. It has a lot of history, I am sure. But Macon today is mostly known for being an exit off of Highway 75, a major north/south artery through Georgia. There is not much more to it than the usual exit-off-the-highway attractions - gas stations, fast food restaurants, and a few hotels; and if you want to avoid all that congestion, Macon even has a bypass.

        It was spring, and one of the girls' Odyssey of the Mind teams had advanced past the local level. The state competition was being held in Milledgeville that year. I was not familiar with Milledgeville or how to get there. Others who were also going advised that we drive south to Macon, take a room for the night, arise early the next morning and finish the drive east to Milledgeville. A hotel expense was not in the budget, but I decided it might be better than trying to do everything in one day.

       Mid-afternoon the day before the State Odyssey of the Mind competition, Sarah, Amanda, and I drove south on 75 to the Macon exit. Of the hotel selections there on the access road, we picked the Holiday Inn. We checked into a room and then asked what time the restaurant started serving dinner? We were surprised to hear that the hotel did not have a restaurant!

        In the same parking lot as the Holiday Inn was a building that looked very much like an eating establishment. Yes, the hotel clerk told us, but it was not a Holiday Inn restaurant.

Well, we were hungry, and this restaurant was right there, within walking distance, and I was in the mood for being waited on and sitting at a nice table. The fact that this particular place was not associated with the nearby Holiday Inn merely meant that it would probably be more expensive than I had anticipated, but we could look at the event as a treat, and later we could tell people about the dinner we had at a nice restaurant in Macon, Georgia.

         It was 5:30 in the evening. Amanda and Sarah and I walked into the Macon, Georgia Holiday Inn parking lot restaurant. Then we walked down two dark hallways. The end of the second hall opened to a small dimly lit foyer. Past the foyer was the dining room decorated like a wine cellar. My appetite was was shrinking as the imagined cost of dinner was expanding.

        There was little activity in the dining room, and from where we were standing, we could only see one table occupied. No one approached us for the longest time.

        There was an armoire in the foyer – a heavy, dark, sinister-looking piece of furniture.   The girls and I took turns making up lines to a spooky story about the armoire as we waited for the hostess.

         Finally a woman appeared and asked if we had reservations?

         When I said no, the hostess explained that there would be about a two hour wait.

         But just in case that was not enough to get rid of us, the woman leaned her head back so she could look down her nose at us as she spoke, “And you do not meet the dress code for the restaurant!”

        Oh my gosh! We were kicked out of a restaurant in Macon, Georgia because, oh my goodness, we were not dressed properly?! In Macon?

       “Come on Girls – I had promised you Beanie Baby Happy Meals from McDonalds on this trip; let's go,” and as Sarah and Amanda and I bid the armoire goodbye and started back down the dark, dark hallway – the hostess returned her head to its normally upright position.

        Beanie Babies and a story to tell about the dinner we did have and the dinner we did not have one night in Macon.

        There are easier ways to get to Milledgeville, Georgia – the best way is to get up early in the morning, drive 20 east and then 441 south – it is a beautiful ride to a very lovely place. And one can bypass Macon altogether.

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