Welcome to a very special The Walking Dead edition of Bullet Sunday!

As I mentioned yesterday, when I travel for work I have to go a day early to be sure I arrive on-time. What I didn't mention is that I also stay an extra day later just in case my work time has to be moved. Like it did today. Instead of starting on the job this morning, I'm instead starting tomorrow morning... leaving me with a free day to do whatever. So after getting caught up on some other work, I decided to explore the beautiful rural Georgia countryside... which just so happens to be filled with locations from The Walking Dead comic book! I've been meaning to do this for a while, but work always comes first and I've never had the time.

   
• Map! Luckily for me (and every other fan of The Walking Dead comic), somebody has created a very cool Google Map overlay with updated information of location from the series (WARNING: MAP CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS!). This makes it easy to plan a trip to see some of the sights. I decided to focus on those around the Thomaston area where I'm staying...

I could have gone a bit further north, but many of those locations are private residences and the like, so I restrained myself to the more public locations.

   
• Woodbury! Introduced in issue 27 of The Walking Dead, Woodbury is a critical location where a lot of stuff goes down (for those watching the television series, this is a ways off). While the town in the comic book is quite a bit different than real-life Woodbury, it's still worth a visit. Seeing the actual place makes the comic come to life. Like many places I've seen in the area, the Woodbury Police Dept. was decked out for the holidays, which is kind of nice...

But the most interesting thing about Woodbury to me was to be found in front of the Woodbury Pharmacy...

Soda pop machines! (in the Pacific Northwest we say "pop" but I'm originally from California where it's "soda" so I usually merge the two... here in Georgia, everybody says "Coke" for most every soda pop type beverage). And it wasn't just any kind of soda pop they were selling... there was a lot of really cool flavors, some of which I have never heard of before, including "Grapico" and "Sunkist Peach"...

But the best part? The sodas were cheap! Fanta cans were 40¢! Pepsi product cans were 50¢! Bottles were just $1! I haven't seen it this inexpensive in a very long time. Interestingly enough, there was a steady stream of cars stopping at the pharmacy to use the soda pop vending machines... even though the pharmacy itself is closed on weekends. As I sat there drinking my peach and grape fizzy drinks, I saw some pretty interesting people show up for their non-Coke Coke fix.

Woodbury has a rather sad number of empty (abandoned?) buildings, some of which were very cool to photograph...

   
• Gay! As I headed to my next location, I stopped off in Gay, Georgia, home of the Cotton Pickin' Fair twice each year...

The city of Gay has a very small population, but they still have a Town Hall building...

   
• Concord. I had no intent of stopping along the way to my next destination, but as I passed through the small city of Concord, I saw something that changed my mind...

It's the Concord United Methodist Church facing off with the Concord Baptist Church at high noon! It was a bit strange how they were built not facing the main road... but instead facing each other. I'm sure there's a story there, but I can't guess what it might be...

   
• Zebulon! I remarked on Twitter that "Zebulon" sounds like a town that has been taken over by space aliens. Because, seriously, doesn't "Zebulon" sound like an alien overlord right out of Planetfall or something? Despite the rather odd name, the town itself is quite nice, with the beautiful Pike Co. Courthouse Square and charming shops. But I was not here for Zebulon, I was here for "The Prison"... AKA "West Central Prison"... AKA "West Central Pre-Release Center of the Georgia Department of Corrections"...

Introduced at the end of issue 12, "The Prison" is arguably one of the most important locations in the entire run of The Walking Dead so far (and is probably going to be introduced in the second season of the television show). The sheer volume of story that happens here dominates the first 50 issues of the comic, and to see it in person... even just from the outside... is kind of chill-inducing...

I drove next door to a sports park so I could see the location from the vantage point of "Hershel's Garden." Again, it's quite different from the prison in the comic, but seeing the location still adds atmosphere to the story...

   
That's it for The Walking Dead Bullets... but I've got more in an extended entry!

   
• Barnesville! Not knowing what I wanted for dinner, I remembered that there was a Pizza Hut in Barnesville, so I decided to go there. The pizza was good, but there was some kind of kids party going on, so it was rather noisy. Somewhere along the way, I looked up and saw a bird waving the American flag. Or that's what it looked like. Actually it was a bird sitting on a hedge with a flag on a clock tower behind him...

Barnesville has another in a series of beautiful classic churches right downtown thanks to the First United Methodist Church...

   
• Stop! Since the car I was driving was borrowed, I stopped to gas up the tank to make up for all the fuel I burned with my running around Georgia. This, in itself, was not noteworthy. But while I was inside asking for a receipt (the pump was out of paper), I heard a kid saying to his mother "I want these." She replied "Put them back." He said "But I want them." The mother, rapidly losing patience, said "No. I said put them back, now put them back!" Silence. Then I felt something hit me in the back. The kid had thrown the baggie of treats at me. I turned around and said "Well I'm definitely not buying them for you." This caused the mother to burst out laughing while the little boy just stood there fuming. Finally he screeched "I hate you! I hate you both!" and stormed outside. The mother apologized as she picked up the bag he threw, then said "I honestly don't know what goes through his head sometimes." I just smiled, grabbed my receipt, then left. As I passed by the kid standing outside, he glared at me with a laser-like intensity that amused me greatly. After I made my way back to the car and was getting inside, I heard him scream "I'm sorry!" while his mother grabbed onto him by the arm. Something tells me she made him say that, and he wasn't really sorry at all.

It's nice to know I can be roundly hated no matter where I go!

   
• The Rock! On Twitter I remarked "I'm in The Rock, Georgia... soon to be known as Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Georgia." I thought that was pretty funny, probably because it's so not funny. But funny or not, they have a classic church of their own, thanks to The Rock Baptist Church...

   
• Thomaston! Which brings me back to where I started... Thomaston, Georgia. Home of the beautiful Upson Co. Courthouse, all decked out for the holidays...

   
• Sign! I'm addicted to taking pictures of restaurant signs with animals on them. Something about animals inviting you to eat them appeals to me. Probably because I'm a vegetarian. Rural Georgia has some really great ones. I could spend weeks just driving around the state snapping photos of beautiful churches and restaurant signs...

   
Annnnd... I suppose I should wrap this up since I have to be awake for work in a little while. All-in-all it was a pretty good day! I rarely have time to explore like this when I'm working (though miracles do happen), so I'm just going to consider myself lucky and call it a night.