Travels With Lizzy: The Road Home I

The things we do to express who we really are.  On my recent cross-country trip -- well, my recent cross-two-state trip -- I was determined to return to Somewhere In Western Alabama the way I had come: expressing my better side.  Problem was, the check-out time at the motel was 11:00, but I had interviews until 12:30 or so.  Where was I going to change?


That part of North Georgia is not exactly trés modern, so there are not a lot of unisex facilities around.  I'd scoped out the Wal-Mart the night before, in drab, and knew there was a family restroom in the back, but I wasn't quite at the comfort level of sashaying through a crowded Wal-Mart at the height of the teenage-girl-festooned Saturday shopping period.  Then I remembered a place my wife and I had gone during our three-year stint in Atlanta -- we'd spent a lovely night in a lodge perched high on a mountain overlooking Amicalola falls, a beautiful park in the Georgia state system.  I reasoned that perhaps  I could find an isolated unisex bathroom to do my Claire Kent transformation.

Snake-handling at Amicalola Lodge

So I paid the five dollar entrance fee and headed up the mountain to look for the perfect t-girl phone booth.  No such luck: the park's last update looked to have been during the Nixon administration, long before the proliferation of unisex facilities.  And I could find no isolated restroom of any gender: they were all crawling with visitors, many of them with young children. Visions of horrified young mothers danced in my head: "Eek! A pervert in a dress! Merle, grab the kids . . . and call the ranger!"

High Falls Church Road

Disconsolately, I drove around the park, the clock ticking away -- I had to get home by six-thirty-ish that evening, and it was already going on two.  Then I saw a sign to High Shoals Baptist church, 2 miles down a road that looked primitive, but easily passable (no, not that kind) in my sub-compact car.

So, I headed down the road toward the church, but I didn't make it.  Instead, I found an isolated pull off, and managed to change there.  Do y'all know how hard it is to do all one's makeup in a rear view mirror?  Anyway, I instantly felt better, and headed down the mountain toward home.

And I'd have made it on time, too, if I hadn't gotten lost.  But more about that in a future post.