Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Georgia Travelog #10
Macon - Thursday, 10 Apr 2025, 12:30pm

Today we're shifting gears on our 9 day trip to Georgia. We left Savannah this morning after finishing 4-5 days of visiting my sister and her family last night. This morning we packed our bags at the hotel, I picked up a rental car at the airport— successfully this time— and we checked out of the hotel and hit the road by 9:30am.

We're off to northwestern Georgia for the next few days. We'll hike a bunch of waterfall trails in the southern Appalachian mountains. Today's a lot of driving, but we're planning to squeeze in our first falls hike this afternoon, at Amicalola State Park. And yes, it's a lot of driving: 325 miles or so to the park, then another 20 back to Dawsonville, where we'll spend the night tonight and tomorrow night.

Right now we're maybe halfway through the trip, in Macon. We've stopped for a quick lunch at a QuikTrip (QT) gas station. The trip so far has been pleasant. It's been made easier by a nice rental car assigned to us this trip, a Mazda CX-50.



I rented an intermediate SUV, so this isn't an upgrade; it's what I booked & paid for. But within that category the manager on the lot gave me a choice of 3 vehicles: a Ford Edge, some Chevy POS, and this Mazda CX-50. She told me she thought the Ford would be the most luxe of the three, but a quick peek in the window showed it to be a base model. This Mazda is close to a base model, too; it's just one step up from base. But it has good standard equipment and a few tasteful upgrades— most especially heated seats, which make these long road trips more comfortable. I drove 2.5 hours straight before stopping here at the QT.

I picked the Mazda also because Mazdas are good drivers' cars in general. No, it's not a BMW— I know because I've owned several BMWs— but Mazdas can generally be counted on to have tight handling and a sporty suspension. They just don't always have engines that go... well, zoom-zoom.  This one's base engine is decent. On this trip I'm just out to knock down the highway miles comfortably, not set a Cannonball Run speed record while doing so. Thus I'm also getting a decent 30mpg on the highway at somewhere between 75-80 mph.



Another nice thing about this Mazda CX-50 is its capacious cargo area. It swallowed up our large suitcase (the gray one), a medium suitcase, a small one, and a few extra bags with ease. And look how much room there still is between that gray suitcase and where the hatch will close. Most comparably sized SUVs have way less cargo room than this. For example, when we did rent a Ford Edge a few trips ago, we had to put the smaller suitcases in the back seat because the big gray one basically filled the cargo area. And all this fits in the trunk of the CX-50 despite it looking and driving like no larger a car.