Busman’s holiday to Georgia

The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page.

–St. Augustine

Earlier this winter, Jerry and I took some time off and traveled to Georgia. The warm climate was one draw, as was the opportunity to see historic quail plantations set in piney woods. Several days in a cottage on an island off the coast near Savannah was also on the itinerary.

Here are the highlights of our trip.

Best puppy/exercise pens

Dog trainers in Georgia are serious about their puppy raising. At most of the plantations and training facilities, it was clear that much time, money and energy is spent on giving puppies a good start in life.

What struck us most were the really big, really nice puppy pens. There was ample space for a dozen or more puppies to exercise, play, rest and find shade. One plantation had fenced an area about the size of a football field.

For the record, all the litters we saw were pointers.

Chance to see old friends

Jim Tande and Chuck Wingard have been friends of ours for a long time—going back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when we were all field trialing in the grouse woods. We’ve gotten puppies from their litters and they’ve bought from us. We’ve bred dams to their sires and vice-verse. An auspicious start to our pointer line was when Jim’s extraordinary CH Northern Dancer (call name War) was bred to a 6X grouse champion from Maine, Vanidestine’s Rail Lady, and produced our CH Dance Smartly.

Jim and Chuck have moved on to horseback shooting dog and all age competition and, since both are now retired from careers with the U.S. Forest Service, they spend winters near Arlington, Georgia.

Jerry and I spent a fun day with Jim and his wife, Kathy. They gave us a fabulous tour of southwestern Georgia and many of its plantations.

Venerable quail plantations

The main quail plantation area stretches from Americus in the north, through Albany and south to Tallahassee, Florida. The heart is Thomasville, Georgia.

We saw fancy gates, long driveways lined with live oaks, beautiful plantation homes complete with tall columns and wrap-around porches. We saw original dog wagons, vast stretches of piney woods and even a dog cemetery.

We toured the famous Pinebloom, a 20,000-acre plantation that was the setting for Tom Wolfe’s excellent book, A Man in Full.

The history of quail plantations is equally fascinating. As far back as the 1880s, newly rich, northern business owners discovered the area.

Finding plentiful game birds–particularly turkey, dove, and quail–they first leased then began purchasing small parcels of farm land and forests, consolidating them into thousands of acres of hunting plantations–larger than any of the antebellum cotton plantations…

Because the area remained somewhat isolated after the Civil War, it retained many vestiges of antebellum plantation life, a life that the new plantation owners sought to emulate and the old ones wished to preserve. The region today contains more than a hundred working quail hunting plantations, proving more durable than the cotton kingdom they replaced.

~ Susan Hamburger, Ph.D., from a paper presented at the North American Society for Sport History Annual Conference, May 27, 1996

Tybee Island and Savannah

We squeezed in some days at the beginning of our trip to spend time on Tybee Island and tour the area.

Tybee Island is a small island connected to Savannah and the mainland by 18 miles of bridges over marshes, the Intracoastal Waterway and various channels and rivers.

Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia. It was founded in 1733 by a group of English colonists who traveled under the auspices of King George II, after whom the state is named. The city plan was agreed upon before the ship left England and was based on London’s squares. Twenty-two of the original 24 squares remain.

Savannah had block after block of beautifully maintained townhomes. I could live in any one of them, although preferably one with a curving staircase and plenty of intricate wrought iron.