Thanksgiving family gathering took us on a drive up I-75 out of Florida
and have a few observations to share:
1) There is a monster gasoline station called Bucc'ees (pronounced Buckeys} outside of Macon, and the franchise is showing up in Florida. I can understand how this is drawing people in a place that is as heavily traveled as I-75 in Georgia. We dropped in just to see what it was about. What a sprawling monster! Inside is a Southerner's dream come true. Walls full of bags of gourmet jerky, trail mix and nuts. There is something there for everyone, regardless of your culture preference.
Now, that's just one small corner of this huge building that is probably bigger than a Hobby Lobby. In the center of the building you have a choice of grabbing hot sandwiches that are cooked, put together, wrapped and piled into the proper display. All kinds of brisket sandwiches. There were at least two of these kind of carousels, offering all kinds of sandwiches, including the prewrapped turkey sandwich basics and salads. If you had more time, there was also a counter to place special orders. I was not in the mood to stick around. This place was HUGE. I didn't even walk to the other side, which seemed to sell non-food related items.
I grabbed quickly my selections and headed for the shortest line to cash out.
The only indication that this place might just be attracting more traffic than expected was the woman's line which was 20 women deep. I was told that inside there were 25 stalls. It does seem to attract white, Southern clientele. Aside from a black man outside of the store, I was the darkest person there.
It is obvious that this place is pulling vast number of drivers away from the other gasoline stations, so I wondered how they would fare in the long run.
I hear there is another monster in Daytona Beach. If we're up that way, I might stop in for a brisket sandwich. I didn't buy one at the Macon place because I didn't know how my stomach would handle brisket on a long drive.
2) Coming back, in Florida we encountered heavy traffic, as heavy as Atlanta, in a place where we encountered it on the last trip, so we suspect that this is normal for Florida. It was right after Gainesville, past the entrance for the Villages, and didn't begin to clear up until we were will on the Florida Turnpike. Three lanes, and the congestion was bumper to bumper. An indication that Florida isn't keeping up with its growing population. It is hard to visualize five lanes on that stretch of road, but I think that's where we're headed. Oh, and a Bucc'ees since that seems to be the kind of traffic they're looking for.
= new reply since forum marked as read
are spotless, huge, private, clean, plentiful. ( I wonder if some of them have showers for truck drivers, etc?) So nice they should be on postcards. 
Some of the Buccee's might include a franchise like Burger King or Subway.
