Woodbine, Georgia

So we’re comfortably toodling along on Route 17, the road closest to the coast through most of South Carolina and Georgia. We’re one town from Florida, about to pass through Woodbine Georgia. I’m not sure I have ever heard of Woodbine Georgia. Then we saw the sign:

Damn, I thought. That is the best sign I have ever seen for an antique store. Could it actually be an antique store? If it was, I wanted to send the picture to my good friend Rene in Grand Isle who owns and runs the “Den of Antiquity,” which I believe is the antique store against which all antique stores should be compared. So I turned around.

Yup. It was an antique store. Closed, but with amazing signs. A “Feuerwehrmuseum,” I have since learned, is a fire museum. I guess that makes sense.

We laughed and kept driving. (At this point, there is no reason to include the diversion about how Rebecca needed to pee so we stopped at a sketchy-seeming gas station/country store that turned out to be clean and fun and fine, so I won’t.) Then we saw a very large group of Harley Riders … the Warthogs … and Stan’s Smokehouse … an utterly nondescript barbecue joint on the side of the road. (We would never have noticed it if Rebecca hadn’t needed to stop to pee.)

Neither of us was very hungry, but we ate nonetheless. The place was just too interesting and too cool. The leather-vested, heavily tattooed Warthogs were super nice and fun; the staff at Stan’s won our hearts: the utterly aloof waitperson had a world-class sleeve of tattoos and the counter lady had a heart-winning smile; the ribs were very decent; the lima beans were some of the best we have had anywhere; and the cole slaw was just fine. The decor was amazing! A fantastic roadside interlude!!!

Monumentally wonderful and totally real folk art at Stan’s.

We split our BBQ’ed rib plate and left Stan’s bound for Fernandina Beach, the northernmost point of Highway A1A that would carry us south through Florida. But we barely drove a mile until we reach a fork in the road. Highway 17 went right. “DooDad’s” Seafood was on the left. I turned around. It just looked too wonderful! I was right!

Larry Geter and his wife Lois have been married for 54 years. He takes the orders; she runs the fryer. He is in-your-face sociable; she is droll and hilarious. Larry’s claim to fame is that he looks exactly like James Brown the King of Soul. So much so that he was asked to serve as an usher at James Brown’s funeral. I asked Larry and Lois about their lawnmowers, both heavily decorated in red and silver. (They like them that way.)

I ate the smallest bit of fried chicken I could order (because I was already stuffed from Stan’s) and we left. As we turned around, we noticed their house. In addition to being one of the best-kept places we saw, it was also bright pink.