Plains, Georgia

there was a Bed and Breakfast in Plains, Georgia, associated with the Carters, but it doesn’t show up when I look for it from my loft in my home in North Carolina. My husband and I stayed there in the mid zero years, when he worked as a home loan closing attorney all over the state. The grand mal seizure he had a week after our wedding took him out of the driver’s seat for six months, so I drove and acted as a witness and second notary for the signing.

Along the way on these road trips, I found fantastic B&Bs to stay in overnight, and the one in Plains was the most memorable. There was also a hotel in Valdosta that had fresh gulf grouper that was to die for. In Plains, we didn’t have grouper, but our host greeted us cordially with a chilled pinot grigio, something forgettable to nibble on, and fantastic conversation.

I believe it was Jimmy Carter’s maternal grandparents’ home, where his mother, Lillian (Gordy) Carter was conceived. Since we were newlyweds, our host said with a wink that we should stay in the Conception Room.

Without missing a beat, I looked at my husband and said, “Maybe we’ll get some ideas!” It landed, and I was rewarded with laughter.

The room had a brass plaque declaring its title, and it was historically preserved, furnished with antiques (I have cousins who could go into detail about antiques, but that’s not my gig), including the headboard and footboard of the sleigh bed, mahogany or walnut, I forget which.

When I put my bag down on the bed, the punchline of the joke embedded in the room was delivered cleanly. It wasn’t the original eider down; it would have been silly to expect that. But never in my life has a waterbed been more hilarious.

*note: I was inspired to write this when I realized I erroneously commented on Kendall Defoe’s poem, Political Thirty-Nine that the Conception Room is in the Plains Inn. I apologize for the sloppy comment.