It seemed an easy thing by the map to get to Benning by tonight so we didn’t get started until about nine ten. Before we left we went to the Chattanooga auto mobile club and they gave Pop some very discouraging news about the road but our spirits weren’t daunted. We tho’t it would be easy to make it. But we came almost all the way on detours. It wasn’t so hard driving, but it was such slow work. We tho’t we’d have lunch in Atalanta but it was twelve when we got to Rome so we stopped there and it was a good thing we did because it was four o’clock before we got to Atlanta. By that time we knew we couldn’t get to Benning before dark but we wanted to get as close to it as we could. They told us there that this was about the best place to stay. We stopped about six thirty. But the wreck we stopped at. It might have been a grand place in its day but it certainly was run down. Now it is like the haunted house you see in movies.
Jane’s Notes: Chattanooga to Rome would have been on highway US 27. Can’t find Benning, GA on the map, although I swear I’ve heard of it. Not sure how they got from Rome to Gainesville. There doesn't seem to be a direct route.
Ft. Benning is located right on the border of Georgia and Alabama near Columbus. According to Wikipedia the installation was closed as a military base after WWI and did not reopen until 1934. Could this have been the Benning mentioned in the diary?
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