The GPS urged me, again, to turn left in one mile. The GPS repeatedly demanded I turn left then enter Interstate 75.

As soon as I ignored one of its demands, the GPS voice immediately suggested the next left to I-75 just a little further up the road.

“What part of I don’t want on I-75 don’t you understand,” I said aloud, to the robot voice, but thought to myself, “I’m staying on Highway 41.”

You don’t need a GPS system to navigate 41. The highway is a clear ribbon of road from town to town, and city to city, stretching from Miami, Fla., to upper Michigan and back again.

The GPS is more for when you reach the destination city, to navigate street to street, and a reminder on the way of how long it will take to reach where you’re going.

Traveling Highway 41 takes a little longer, especially during a rain storm, which is why the time-conscious GPS nudges – nags – me to divert my 41 route and take the interstate at every opportunity.

But 41 has fewer hurries and hassles than I-75. Fewer semis to compound the rain with the spray of water gushing from their 18 wheels. On 41, you may get stuck behind a Pepsi truck headed north from Hahira to Sparks and a Coca-Cola truck traveling south through Tifton to the Coke plant but you won’t be dueling with semi after semi like driving I-75.

More to see along Highway 41 from Valdosta to Tifton. More of South Georgia, more of a taste of America. Fewer neon McDonald’s signs looming repetitively over interstate exits and more locally owned places to eat.

More of America by region and less of America by corporate logo.

Though Highway 41 parallels I-75, a traveler can experience Hahira, Cecil, Adel, Sparks, Lenox, Eldorado.

On Highway 41, these names are actual places, with people and shops and food and intersections; houses, schools, sidewalks, trees, courthouses, race tracks, convenience stores, dogs, bicycles, banks, parallel parking, angled parking, traffic lights, starts and stops …

Places with their own speed limits. Places that demand a traveler slow down.

Places that are just names on the interstate. Blurred white letters on green signs, speeding along I-75.

Barely seen names, then gone, not places at all on 75, unless you’re low on gas or need a bathroom break.

But 41. Highway 41. The road has personality. The route has an aura, a glint of past glory, something akin to the fame of an aging movie star.

I recall moving to South Georgia 33 years ago and driving Highway 41 for the first time.

A feeling akin to being on the elevator of the Empire State Building or crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

This thing from stories and song was real, is real.

As the Allman Brothers sing in “Ramblin’ Man”: “Well, my father was a gambler down in Georgia / And he wound up on the wrong end of a gun / And I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus / Rollin’ down Highway 41.”

And now I’m on that same path, in Georgia, I thought way back when, rolling along Highway 41. I drove 41 a lot then, back and forth, up and down.

Now, 41 is like an old friend I haven’t visited in a long while. No longer impressed by any hints of fame but just as impressed with the character it reveals.

Even in the rain.

Even with the GPS nagging me the whole trip north to turn left and get on the interstate.

I’ll turn off the GPS on the way back to Valdosta and play some Willie Nelson songs instead.

Keeping the GPS on is like keeping the TV on while visiting with an old friend. There’s too much catching up to do for all that racket.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.