Sunday, January 24, 2010

Poultry Capital of the World!!

Part 2 of the "vacation" Bailey and I took a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, it really wasn't a vacation - we were there (Gainesville, GA) because our friend was having bypass surgery in the Northeast Georgia Medical Center.
The post-op CCU had extremely limited visiting hours, so we had a lot of time to kill in between our treks to the hospital, and I'll tell you how we filled up our time in my next post.

John was moved from CCU to the Step-Down Unit on Wednesday morning, so we left the hospital around 10:15 AM, hurrying back to the hotel to check out, and then we were off to grab some brunch.
As we stepped out of the hospital, we both noticed immediately that the whole town smelled like fried chicken - it was very strange, but it was a great smell! But we wondered why Gainesville would smell like Fried Chicken....
And then we remembered this strange little monument that we passed on our way to the hospital everyday (and it is conveniently located next to the IHoP!)


All we had really noticed everyday was there there seemed to be a statue with a rooster on top of it.
We didn't give it a whole lot of thought until that day we smelled chicken wafting through the town...

so I stopped at this little park on my way out of town.




Yep, that's a rooster all right.

And can you tell by that brilliantly blue sky that it was about 11 degrees outside?








I had stumbled upon Georgia Poultry Park!

Sorry kids, there are no rides at this park...





Georgia Poultry Park.... Who knew?

No chickens running around, either - so this isn't the poultry equivalent of a dog park.



Apparently, Gainesville is the cradle of Georgia's Poultry Industry.

At this point, I was revising my opinion of what we had smelled earlier at the hospital. Probably NOT fried chicken.




We passed this sign everyday on our trips to the hospital - apparently in Gainesville, if you are DUI, this is where you go.

This is good info for the rest of us who are out driving around. - at least they collect 'em all in one place!


More fascinating Gainesville tourism info in my next exciting post!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woot! Gainesville!

The chickens mostly are in neighboring towns but the plants are in Gainesville and downwind on Lake Lanier is somewhere you want to be. Or on a chicken farm anywhere. (Although, I can't complain too much - those smelly things mean $$.)

I had a teacher who traveled the world as a teenager and said she saw packages of chicken in Asia that said they'd been produced in Gainesville, GA.

What did you think of NGMC? I had surgery in their new tower in August and it was so much nicer than the old building. I hope your dude is feeling much better!

Sweet Freedom said...

Hi Cynthia - my friend is doing terrific, and we were very impressed with the entire hospital.

He started out in the South tower, and we were very impressed with the care he received there, and when he moved to the North Tower, we had a lot of time to walk around, and we were blown away by the architecture and design of the whole building. Plus, there is even a Starbucks in the food court!

Are you living in Gainesville now?

Thanks for stopping by!

Tiffany and the Munchkins said...

Thanks or stopping by! I found you through Bailey's blog. My Munchkins (Munchkin Memoirs) follow Bailey's blog, and I believe we found Bailey's blog with Dogs with Blogs! I'm in Charleston but I went to school at FMU in Florence. I was in the PreMed program there and am currently studying for my MCATs. I am hoping to go to MUSC School of Medicine.

The stuff in your Etsy shop is fab!!!

Sweet Freedom said...

Thanks, Tiffany - nice to meet you!