Running across the middle of Georgia, US-80 follows the “fall line,” a geological divide where rivers drop in a series of rapids from the higher Piedmont Plateau to the lower coastal plain. Because the fall line marked the limits of navigation in from the sea, settlements naturally sprung up along it: Columbus was founded on the banks of the falling Chattahoochee, while in the middle of the state, Macon was built along the Ocmulgee River.
These, the second- and third-biggest cities, respectively, in this still-rural state, are the only real cities our route passes through, and both are fascinating places in very different ways. Apart from these exceptions, however, in its trip across Georgia US-80 takes in more than 300 miles of rolling countryside covered with dozens of dozens of small towns; runs along ancient-looking two-lane blacktop winding through thick hardwood-and-pine forests; and passes stately white-columned farmhouses with wide lawns and run-down tin-roofed shacks with yards full of rusting refrigerators and old bangers-on-blocks.
In the west, you can detour to explore the surprisingly simple homes of two U.S. presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Warm Springs, and Jimmy Carter at Plains. At the heart of Georgia, Macon is home to the engaging Georgia Music Hall of Fame, and a prehistoric Mound City. Continuing east toward Savannah and the Atlantic Coast, US-80 has been replaced by the much faster I-16 freeway, bypassing numerous small towns across an agricultural region that was devastated during General Sherman’s Civil War “March to the Sea.” Fortunately, Sherman spared the colonial capital, Savannah, a lushly verdant gem generally considered to be among the most beautiful cities in North America.
