This is Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle. When we travel, we learn. That’s one of the great things about traveling together. We all get to go places that we may have normally not known about. It’s not like all places worth visiting are on tourists maps, or even recommended by others. Sometimes, when you think you see something interesting, stop. Even if it’s just a marker on the side of the road.

Boy Person said that when he was a kid, his family used to stop at many roadside attractions when they traveled in their RV.

These places were good spots for lunch and to have a sandwich. At least that’s what Boy Person’s dad, Wild Bill thought. And as we started traveling, Boy Person said he imagined us stopping at many places like that too with a sandwich. I’m always up…or down…for a sandwich! Who isn’t?

So yesterday, we went out to explore the area of St. Marys, Georgia. We saw a sign for something to do with history and I wasn’t that excited because it wasn’t a peanut butter museum. But Digby was excited because it had to do with sugar! It was a very old sugar mill where they used sugarcane to make syrup. It had been there a very long time.

Girl Person explained that long ago, the walls were built very thick with a material called tabby.

We read about tabby and how its made. The persons said tabby is a type of concrete made by burning oyster shells to create lime, then mixing it with water, sand, ash and broken oyster shells. Tabby was used by early Spanish settlers in present-day North Carolina and Florida, then by English colonists primarily in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Like here at the sugar mill plantation.

The walls were built very thick in order to keep the heat in to make the syrup better and easier out of the sugarcane. Many people had to make the tabby buildings. Many of these people were not treated fairly or nicely. Many did not come there by choice. And this made us sad. History has a way of doing that too. That’s maybe why some people don’t want to learn. Because you see, if we learn, that makes us more aware and gives us a responsibility to change things and acknowledge things. But we have to. It’s not right to just appreciate the beauty of things left behind and not appreciate the people who were there too.

This building may be in ruins, but the beauty is still so obvious. The care and skill it took to make it lasted all this time. But are all walls good? What about the ones persons put around them?

Maybe they are trying to keep things or others out to protect themselves or because it’s just easier. Maybe they have walls about the past. Maybe they want to keep things in. Maybe they think that if they don’t deal with something, it’s not there.

That’s another thing about travel. It makes those walls come down. You realize that even roadside stops like the tabby ruins can teach us about ourselves and respect for others.

Just like Boy Person’s family who stopped for the little places along the way, stop and think how you can learn about others, and therefore learn about yourself.

We are here in this Georgia place until Monday! Where will we go next? Will the Big Blue Treat Wagon cooperate? Stay tuned!

–Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle