Evening star., 1962-04-17
The .-....-
Rambler
-. Meets
The Spring
By GEORGE KENNEDY

~ A41CCt ~
He intended to follow it
back to Washington, but
somehow or other he got
ahead of it.
It's down there all right.
/ Right now it is just below
the Virginia-North Carolina
border, and its coming with a
rush of new leaf and bios
SONS.
We started south on Sat-
urday, April 1.
This was a leisurely motor
trip. In fact we didn't get
started until noon. No rec
ordS were broken.
! It's been IL years since he
last motored to Florida.
Right now he would much
prefer to go to Friendship,
board a jet and take a short
nap until the hostess says:
"FaSten seat belts for
Miami landing"
But this was a family va
cation, not a reportorial as
signment.
THE MOTORING is much
better than it was a decade
back.
For the most part towns
are bypaSSed by the new
highways. The biggest by
pass of all is the new Rich
mond-Petersburg toll road.
It's an improvement COM
parable to the Baltimore
Harbor Tunnel and the New
Jersey turnpike in speeding
up motor travel on the East
ern Seaboard.
Attenuation has further
speeded things up. If you
have the exact change, a
quarter, you can toss it in a
basket at an unnamed toll,
gate. A green light will flash
Thank You," and on you go.
There are ton gates every
7 or 8 miles. It costs 80 cents
TO do the entire IS miles.
Mrs. R., who was driving,
became so adept at tossing
quarters in the baskets that
she tried one on the fly
merely slowed the car down.
She missed.
AS she got out and re-
trieved the quarter-and put
1t in the basket without toss
ing it-a line of cars formed
behind. The drivers were all
gentlemen. They did not
honk at a lady in distress.
We stopped at Raleigh at
a nationally known motel.
The luxury motels and res
taurants en- route are an i'm
provement almost as impor-
tant as the superhighways.
A dozen years ago one ap-
preached eating places along
Route / with alarm. All the
horrors of Southern cook
ing at its worst could be ex-
perienced-everything fried
in lard, even beef steaks, and
vegetables boiled to death.
IT WAS APRIL in North
Carolina - late April. In
South Carolina it was May.
At Sumter the wisteria and
azaleas and camellias were in
profuse bloom. We took the
time to go a little out of the
way and see Sumter's Swan
Lake, a public park of small
lakes in a cypress grove
graced by swans, both white
and black. bred by the city.
It was a thing of beauty.
Then on and on through
the endless savannahs of the
Eastern Coast to the port of
that name and along the
Georgia coast to Brunswick.
No longer do razorback
hogs and scrawny cattle
wander out onto the main
highways. I was told a fenc-
ing law went into effect 10
years ago.
At Brunswick we expert
enced a bit of a scare. We
motored out to Jekyll Island,
once the winter home of the
late J. P. Morgan and other
millionaire members of the
Jekyll Island Club and now a
State park with luxury mo-
tells on leased land along the
ocean front.
The county commissioners
of the State were having a
convention addressed by Gov.
Ernest Vandiver, and there
wasn't a motel room on the
island-nor back in Bruins
wick.
The sun was setting as we
headed south for Jackson
vile ready to stop at any
motel on the way. We got in