Long live decay: Scenes along Route 301 in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida

 

Route 301, running from Deleware to Florida,  is one of those old highways that has been around forever and used to be the main way of getting from point A to point B. Then along came the interstate, with its fast-moving uninterrupted lanes and easy-on, easy-off exit ramps. Old 301 is still around and has parts that are thriving quite well, thank you very much, but there are also good chunks of it that have seen better days, with its abandoned motels and dilapidated old signs of places once prosperous but now left to rot along the roadside. These are the stretches we like the most and we had a nice, but all too brief, drive along the part of it from South Carolina down to the Sunshine State. The dreary weather seem very apt. And rock on, Dr. Doug Stein...17,000 vasectomies is quite a record, no matter how you slice it.

Unfortunately named business of the week

Gross Furniture of Trenton, Georgia.

Pop culture: Atlanta's World of Coca-Cola museum

John Pemberton, inventor of The Real Thing

They didn't side-step the New Coke debacle.

The Coke Store has lots of cool stuff like these salt and pepper shakers.

You can sample Coke products from around the world. These are from South America.

As far as beverages that taste like regurgitation go, Beverly is one of the best...

...and yet it still tastes better than Tab.

I don't care if it rots your teeth, has more sugar in one can than all of Cuba and gets you hopped up like a gerbil on a wheel, I love Coca-Cola. When I was a kid, those old Coke vending machines where you yanked out a frosty cold glass bottle and popped the top off with the built-in bottle opener were great. The first gulp always made you cry a little and would be followed by a satisfying "ahhhhhhhh" from your slightly burned throat. Atlanta is the hometown of Coke and they've got a really cool museum there called the World of Coca-Cola, right in the heart of downtown. There are historic exhibits, 3D movies, original Coke-inspired artwork, and a TV commercial viewing room. But the coolest room they have is called "Taste It." Coke makes many different flavored beverages that are sold in other parts of the world and here you get a chance to sample sixty of them, arranged geographically in five tasting stations. Some are fruity, some are earthy, some are God-awful. After sampling way, way too many flavors, my favorite was Inca Kola from Peru which offers a nice, fruity splash. Only the bravest pop aficionados should sample Beverly, however, an aperitif from Italy, which has a taste reminiscent of puke. There's also a great store with many fun, retro-designed Coke items. Yes, you do pay good money for the privilege of promoting a product that already permeates every corner of the earth, but why not? Coke adds life, it's the real thing, you can't beat the feeling, it's red, white and you, things go better, it's always Coca-Cola, and it's the pause that refreshes. Enjoy.

Baby, you're a wrench man: Norcross, Georgia's rat-faced wrench guy and other greater metropolitan Atlanta delights

Allen, the creepy U-Wrench It greeter

SCENES FROM THE SOUTHEASTERN RAILWAY MUSEUM:

I love when a train smiles at you

This is called the Flashing Rear End Device (F.R.E.D.), and I'm not making that up.

Beautiful Southern decay.

GREETINGS FROM THE DULUTH REXALL:

They make a mean tuna salad sandwich, and don't you forget it.

We had a lovely time visiting Sherry's cousin Bobby and his family in the suburbs of Atlanta. They took us out to a great lunch at place they knew we'd love: the Duluth Rexall Grill. At a time when old-fashioned Rexall drug stores are few and far between, this one in Duluth is thriving. Half the place is a drug store and the other half is a friendly eatery with great breakfast and lunch fare. A bit of fanciful lattice work divides the two. I'm told it's hard to get a seating here for breakfast, as the place is mobbed with regulars. Duluth also has the Southeastern Railway Museum, a fun place with lots of train-related artifacts and some real train cars you can poke around in. My favorites were the beautifully decaying models way, way in the back. But the piece de resistance was the half-man, half-rat-looking statue in front of the U-Wrench It in Norcross. This is an auto parts place that pays cash for junky old cars and its mascot is a hideous creation that appears to be made partially out of car parts. It looks like something out of a Stephen King story: Allen Badwrench, Mr. Goodwrench's hideous mutant southern relative.

Ollie-lujah! Harlem, Georgia: birthplace of Oliver Hardy

They're proud of Ollie in Harlem.

They've got a nice little Laurel and Hardy Museum there.

They've got Ollie's fez from the classic Sons of the Desert...

...and a pith helmet he wore in Bonnie Scotland.

Stan and Ollie appeared together in 106 films. 106!

Linda and Nancy kept the museum open past closing time for us so we wouldn't miss out. Thanks Linda and Nancy!

The house where Ollie was born is no longer standing...

...but there's a nice laundromat there named in his honor.

They've been sprucing up the town theater for the upcoming Oliver Hardy festival.

Check out those murals on the side.

Oliver Hardy was the rotund half of Laurel and Hardy, one of the most beloved comedy teams of all time. He was born in the little eastern Georgia town of Harlem, not far from Augusta, and they want you to know about it. They've got his picture on the water tower, a laudromat named after him on the site of his birth address, murals of him and Stan on the side of the movie theater, and best of all, a little gem of a Laurel and Hardy museum in the center of town. In it you'll find lots of figurines, photos, posters, scripts, and other Stan-and-Ollie-abilia, all under the watchful eye of two of the nicest Southern museum hostesses you'll ever meet, Linda and Nancy. They will play Laurel and Hardy movies and shorts for you in the screening room, too. My personal favorite is "The Music Box," where our two heroes have to deliver a piano up a very long set of steps. Ollie's pain in this film is exquisitely funny. Those very steps are still standing in Hollywood and we were lucky enough to see them on one of our recent trips there. Harlem's biggest event of the whole year is just a few days away. Every year since 1988, they've held an Oliver Hardy Festival on Main Street, with a parade, 350 craft booths, a barbecue, film showings, and look-alike contests. Harlem's population of about 1800 swelled to 35,000 hearty Hardy partiers in 2008 and this year's event is this Saturday, October 3. On Friday night Harlem hosts the Sons of the Desert reception, in honor of the L&H fanclub members that go by that name that will be coming in from all over the world. So if you're in the area, check it out. There's no place like Harlem for the Ollie-days.