The six days of the pre-tour and rally are a wrap and we are busy reorganizing and repacking for our next trip. I’ll catch up on my sleep during our drive north. Meanwhile I’ll give you a quick review of visits to two NEW cities during what we like to call “GTR Week”!

We began by hosting 25 teams in Moultrie, Georgia, a tiny town with a lovely town square that bills itself as “The City of Southern Living”…whatever that means.

We certainly did enjoy some “southern living”, some very low traffic roads, and some superlative camaraderie.

As for social events, we had a “tandem takeover” at the “Wall Huggers Saloon” which is on one side of the Blue Sky Grill. Fun times for all.

After three days of riding and getting know each other, the pre-tour gang packed up and moved 35 miles south to the main event in Thomasville, GA. We met up with an additional 52 teams and got the rally going. Most of our social events including registration, the ice cream social and our Saturday tandem takeover all happened in, at or around Hubs and Hops. They, and their staff rocked!

Friday was a remote start from Cairo, GA (pronounced karo).

Yes, there was a beautiful rural ride on Friday, enjoyed by all – but the main event on Friday was the ice cream social!

It was a beautiful evening. Just before sunset, we all gathered for dessert.

The next big event of the weekend was the debut of the new (every 5 years) GTR jerseys!

It looks like it took just over one minute to get everyone out of the parking lot on Saturday.

After the ride we had a catered taco bar back at the hotel ballroom.

The Sunday ride was a short 19-mile ride through the city. We went on the bricks through the commercial area, past the courthouse, out to see the oldest live oak in the south, and the famous rose garden before wrapping up and heading home.

In the picture on the left, you can see how the 300+ year old tree is supported by telephone poles, there are also heavy metal chains inserted to hold up some of the limbs. There are strong storms in this part of the state so I am sure there is always concern about losing part of this stunning tree.

Finally, a stop to smell the roses and visit the garden. We were a few weeks past prime bloom.

Before we knew it, six days of GTR were done and we were packing up, coming home, taking care of business, and getting ready to head north.

I’ll be blogging from the road to keep you up to date on our travels.

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