The Atlanta Botanical Garden is often overlooked by travelers in favor of other, glitzier attractions - the Georgia Aquarium, Coke, the High Museum, Stone Mountain.

Don't. It's well worth a visit any time and particularly now through October when 20 works of renowned British sculptor Henry Moore are nestled among 30 acres nature's beauty.

Tip: It's perfect for Levelers. There are a few steps but always alternative ramps and while elevations change, it's so gradual you'll hardly notice.

Moore in America presents Moore's sculpture as the artist meant for it to be seen - in the open out of doors. His reclining figures look right at home and his popular mother and child images are an artistic complement to the mothers and their children roaming the gardens.

Gardens

The gardens themselves are lovely. The Dorothy Chapman Fuqua Conservatory and Orchid Center is spectacular with its lush, tropical flora. You and the young ones will love the Children's Garden so save the energy to include it.

Best of all, it's in the middle of the city in Midtown, just north of Piedmont Park on Piedmont Avenue.  Admission will set you back $15 - $12 for seniors and children ages 3-17.

Tip: If Southern summer heat is too much for you - and it is for most Southerners - visit on Thursday for Moore at Night: Cocktails in the Garden, 6-10 p.m., through September. Come October it's Fest-of-Ale, same hours.

This is the largest showing of Moore's work in one place, let alone the best place, you are ever likely to see so if you are in the Atlanta area, don't miss it.

Tip: Where to stay. Kimpton's Hotel Palomar, www.hotelpalomar-atlantamidtown.com,  is the newest spot in the Midtown area; cool, contemporary but friendly, especially to dogs, and very well equipped. Pacci, the adjacent restaurant,  serves superb Italian inspired cuisine.
W Atlanta-Midtown, 404-892-6000, on 14th Street is the closest. The Sheraton Atlanta downtown has undergone a multi-million dollar transformation and with its large, lush pool is especially good if you are traveling with children.

If you grew up listening to the tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear and their cohorts that Uncle Remus told to the Little Boy, you'll want to travel to the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, GA, a pleasant and easy drive north from Macon.

If you've never heard anything of Uncle Remus except that Harris' books of his tales are considered politically incorrect, you ought to stop and pick up a book to decide for yourself.

Personally, I'd hate to think of these richly evocative tales of African folklore being lost to posterity, which they probably would have been without Harris popularizing them. The dialect, which many find offensive and demeaning, is one of our few links to the language and ingenuity of generations of involuntary American immigrants. 

The small museum, made from three slave cabins, is in Turner Park right in the center of this pretty town, which was the birthplace of Joel Chandler Harris. The park was part of the original home place of Joseph Sidney Turner, the "Little Boy".

Harris chronicled the folklore of African slaves at Turnwold Plantation where, at the age of 13, he was hired as printer's devil for the plantation newspaper, "The Countryman."

The Civil War and General Sherman's army ended Harris' job, but he went on to an illustrious career as a journalist.

The museum features artifacts from Harris' life, Civil War era Southern life, the development of the Uncle Remus tales, the Disney movie about them ("Song of the South") and 12 charming vignettes from the tales carved by Frank Schnell.

It won't delay your trip by much and you can arrive in Atlanta in time for a late lunch.

Favorite Food

Tip: Or, you can cut over to I-75 and stop at Buckner's on Bucksnort (!) Road in Jackson, a stomach-filling tradition for 29 years. The barn shaped and sized eatery is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays, 11-9 Friday and Saturdays and 11-7 on Sundays. You'll be seated at one of the large round tables for a family-style, all-you-care-to-eat meal of downhome Southern style cooking.

Each table is centered with a lazy susan on which are piled bowl after bowl of delicious fried chicken, green beans, fresh beans or peas and coleslaw, rolls and cornbread plus a so-so peach cobbler. These are augmented, depending on the day and season, by BBQ pork, roast beef or ham, potatoes in various styles, Brunswick Stew or stewed tomatoes, cream style corn or boiled cabbage. 

The cost is $13.95 for adults, $12.95 for "60-year-old recycled teens," $3 for youngsters ages 3-8. The experience is memorable.

Museum and eatery are both totally level.

For years I and too many others have traveled by Macon en route to Atlanta via I-75, never taking the time to stop. It won't happen again.

 Macon is well worth a two-or three-day stay.

The city is large enough to offer a lively downtown yet small enough that you can still find a parking place.

The first thing you notice is its beauty. Macon wasn't on Sherman's route through Georgia so it wasn't burned down which means 70 of those elegant antebellum homes are still being lived in.  Newer additions have been blended in and the city is an architecture lover's dream.

Warning: The Macon Plateau is where Georgia starts getting hilly but you don't have to navigate them by foot if you don't want to. Just park nearby. 

Macon's Beauty and history

A lot of history has occurred in Macon. People have been living here since the Ice Age. Towns of giant earth lodges and burial grounds can be explored at Ocmulgee National Monument. When the first Europeans arrived, beginning with Hernando de Soto in 1540, this was a thriving area with planted fields, stockaded villages and impressive earthen structures.

Tip: Stop by the attractive Visitor's Center downtown to get an overview of what the city has to offer. While there, pick up a Self-Guided Tour Map and tickets for the Historic Homes Tour and/or the Museum District Tour.

Macon soon became an inland trade center with all the advantage wealth brings, from architecture to the arts. This is where the genius poet-musician Sidney Lanier was born and developed his remarkable talents. The Sidney Lanier Cottage has triple landmark status - it is on the National Register of Historic Places, a Landmark of American Music an a National Poetry Landmark.

Tip: Schedule your visit when Marty Willett is on duty; he's a one-man show with encyclopedic knowledge and fun anecdotes about Lanier and Macon.

 What Lanier began, the likes of Graham Jackson, Jessye Norman, Gladys Knight, Little Richard, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Ray Eberle, Harry James, Travis Tritt, Trisha Yearwood, Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers continued, as you can learn at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame (if state budget cuts don't close it).

Best food and hotel

Tip: By all means catch lunch at the H & H, the landmark soul food restaurant where "Mama Louise" Hudson kept the Allman Brothers fed during their early "poor" days. 

African American culture is celebrated at the Tubman African American Museum which was named in her honor even though that revered woman had no Macon connections.  With its collection of art, history and culture it's definitely worth a visit. Regardless of your skin tone, you'll be amazed at the inventions and products - fire extinguisher, push lawnmower, collapsible ironing board - developed by African Americans. Currently in modest and cramped quarters, a new building is under construction in the Museum District.

Tip: The elegant 1842 Inn, a four-diamond, four-star property built - you guessed it - in 1842, is the place to stay. You'll love breakfast, cocktails and canapes and a mint julep nightcap served in front of the cozy fireplace. Be sure to ask for a first floor room because there is no elevator.

Come spring, you'll know why several of Macon's streets have pink cherry blossoms on them and a pink line between the yellow stripes.  With 300,000 - those zeroes are no mistake - cherry trees, Macon is the cherry blossom capital of the world!

Can't wait to travel back there to see them.

 Charming to look at, engaging to visit, by all means travel to and stop in Macon. You'll be glad you did.

Imagine hundreds of Union Army veterans and their families traveling to Georgia pine country, the heart of Dixie, 25 years after the Civil War.

That's what happened in Fitzgerald, GA, a town designed for and built by Civil War veterans. Neighbors still were fighting the war but the soldiers themselves were ready for peace. They found it here alongside their former enemies in a town where streets were named for Union and Confederate leaders.

Industriousness kept Fitzgerald thriving through depressions, the railroads and the timber and pulp businesses brought prosperity and the newcomers brought understanding and amity to what had been hostile territory.

Today, Fitzgerald is a small town where neighbors keep up with one another and take the time to welcome visitors. However, the love-hate dynamic is still very much present as you'll find when you travel here.

The old railroad depot may have become the Blue and Gray Museum but a train rumbles through town every 28 minutes, stopping traffic and cutting the silence with its whistles. The inconvenience and noise annoy some, please others. Love-hate.

Then there are the chickens. In the 1960s the Georgia Department of Natural Resources brought in Burmese chickens as new game birds to augment the existing dove, quail and pheasant. 

The chickens were small, feisty and more athletic and intelligent than their domesticated cousins. Flocks were released all over the state, including down by the Ocmulgee River several miles from Fitzgerald.

Other flocks disappeared, probably into the stomachs of predators, but the Ocmulgee contingent, preferring a more urban - and probably safer - environment, migrated into town and thrived. 

Now they rule the roost. Some residents feed them, others shoo them away, again with the love-hate dynamic. But mostly the town folks tolerate them. Chickens have the right of way on the streets and roads and the third weekend in March the Wild Chicken Festival attracts visitors.

Train whistles and cock-a-doodle do's are the sounds of Fitzgerald.

Tip: Nabila's Garden Restaurant is the place to eat and the Dorminy-Massee House Bed & Breakfast is the place to stay. The ever-changing buffet at Nabila's is a local favorite, especially the fried chicken and desserts although I was partial to the vegetables.

The white-columned  B & B will remind you of antebellum mansions and it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places although it wasn't built until 1915. All eight bedrooms come with private bath, phone, TV and computer modem and two of them are on the first floor. However, the stairs leading to the second story aren't bad.

Also good, there are no hills in Fitzgerald and very few steps with which to contend, making it a good stop for levelers. 

If you've been wondering, I've been on the fly - to a digital photo institute in Milwaukee - and on the road, one that took me through south central Georgia to the ankles of the Blue Ridge mountains and on to the peach fields of South Carolina.

Lots of goodies to tell you about but I'll start with level-worthy spots in the Blue Ridge.

Gorilla Haven is a remarkable facility developed by Jane and Steuart Dewar in Morganton, GA., between Blue Ridge and Blairsville. Jane envisioned a home not unlike their original environments where captive gorillas could be placed while better arrangements could be developed or found. Stueart, a genius at creating and building better mousetraps, made it happen on a level that no individual zoo or animal park could imagine or fund.

At the moment there are two gorillas loving life in their Haven: Oliver, a profoundly deaf but gentle and handsome giant who shares his compound with a pair of goats, and Joe, the third oldest gorilla in captivity, whose condition is a testament to the Dewars' quality of care.

With no outside funding and zoos too financially strapped to participate, the Dewars have begun opening their Haven to visitors for limited tours. Dates for this year are Sept. 5 and 9, October 10 and 14 and Nov. 28, all for 2-3 hours beginning at 11 a.m. Cost is a $50 donation per per adult, with a discounted family rate possible.

Tip: The terrain is mountainous, you'll be walking on gravel roads and there are flights of stairs to be climbed, but the experience is so unique it's worth pushing yourself. Bring your walking stick and of course, camera and video cam. Contact Emily Moreland at 706-851-9440 or Email angelofahhs@live.com.

This could be your last opportunity to see these magnificent creatures. Oscar may be relocating to a gorilla family in a zoo this winter and Joe is defying veterinary science living as long as he has, but with extensive medical issues including a heart problem, no one knows for how much longer.

You'll never forget the delicacy with which these giants reach for favorite morsels of food.

Around Back at Rockys Place in Dawsonville, GA., is the best and most intriguing gallery of folk art you'll find in the Southeast. Begun by a pair of art collecting school teachers in their backyard, it displays the work of more than 200 artists, many recognized by major museums like the Smithsonian Institute and awarded grants by the national Endowment for the Arts. They work in all sorts of mediums - paintings on tin, "found" objects sculpture, paintings using caulking on board, wood of all varieties, fabrics, clay and glass.

They are everywhere you look - overhead, under foot, in trees, on shelves and walls, in cases, leaning against buildings, on the ceiling, in the bathroom. You won't be able to pull yourself away from the visual overload and when you start hearing the stories about these creators, you won't want to. Dare you not to buy something. I lost the dare but gained a double-headed alligator bench by J. L. Nippers.

Tip: No steps either. Rockys Place is open on weekends and by appointment and can be found at the intersection of Hwy 53 East and Etowah River Rd. You can day trip there from Atlanta and you can't miss it. Just look for the gigantic wooden angel out front.

After feeding your soul and sense of humor, feed the body with a gourmet lunch at the nearby Blue Bicycle or a good old greasy Bully burger and hand-cut fries at The Pool Room.

Next post: Peach country.