Save Gas and take “Quik Trip” 
of Georgia at the Mall

   When it came to school, being the involved kind of mother I always was, I tried to provide my kids with activities to enhance their curriculum. Like back in 1987, when our next door neighbor Rob completed the 5th grade, I was aware that the 5th grade curriculum included Georgia. So that summer, when my son Ian was a rising 5th grader, I called the Department of Tourism- this was way back before Al Gore had invented the Internet - requesting every brochure they’d ever printed and mapped out a two week tour of the state. We visited every cemetery, Civil War reenactment site and every ghost town in the state. We even drove through the historic traffic light in Plains that was installed after Jimmy Carters’ presidency turned the town into a tourist trap. Ian knew as much about Georgia as any ten-year-old possibly could.

   What I didn’t know was that Gwinnett County schools has this way of changing the curriculum every few years and that the study of Georgia had been flip flopped back to the fourth grade. All that time, energy and gas – back then, still under $1.00 a gallon – had gone to waste. I took a bushel of brochures to the recycling center and said never again. I’ll just go with the flow and supplement my kids’ studies as they go along.

   I related this story to Andrew Shock, a conservationist from the Georgia Wildlife Federation, while hiking the trail at the Mill Creek Nature Center. I couldn’t believe his response. This he-man, Mr. Nature kind of guy said I could have just taken my son to the Mall of Georgia. A guy all turned on by a mall? He said the MOG was designed as a microcosm of the state and everything of significance was right there under one roof.

   Well, with gas prices being over four times what they were in the 80’s, I thought I’d look into Shock’s suggestion regarding a summer excursion with my friend Mary, my granddaughter KayLynne and her friend Renee.

   We started at Nordstrom’s in the Mountain region, where the carpet is patterned with leaves and a plaque containing facts about attractions such as the highest mountain in Georgia. As we entered the Piedmont area, the carpet changed pattern and we learned all about everything from Hungarian winemakers who’d made a living there to the richness of our natural resources.

   “Look here,” I said. “Georgia has the highest quality of kaolin in the world.”

   “What?’” said KayLynne, as she elbowed her way over the plaque. 

   “Well,” I said, “it’s spelled a little differently, pronounced a little differently, but it did get your attention, didn’t it?”

   We strolled through the Plains where the carpet changed again and picked up more trivia, like details about remnants of the Ice Age still visible in Georgia.

   As we entered the Coastal area outside of Dillard’s, denoted by magnolias on the carpet, Mary, a native of Savannah, really delighted in the accuracy of the history, especially about the silkworms that once thrived there.

   We concluded our tour at the food court with chili cheese dogs from Dairy Queen and reviewed what we’d learned with the Georgia maps printed on the tables. Kaylynne really impressed me with all she remembered. But then, why shouldn’t she? Didn’t we just learn that Georgia has the highest quality “KayLynne” in the world?

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