Community Corner

Five Things to Know Today, March 29

Guaranteed to tell you something you didn't know yesterday.

Welcome to Thursday. Here are some things to know today.

The weather: Sunshine again today, with a high of about 84 degrees, the National Weather Service says. There's a 20 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms tonight, and the low will be around 58.

Gas prices: The lowest price reported for Lilburn on www.georgiagasprices.com for Wednesday was four cents higher than yesterday -- $3.75 (at Citgo, 331 Rockbridge Road, and at Shell, 5474 Lawrenceville Hwy). The highest held steady at $3.89 (at Texaco, 4785 Lawrenceville Hwy).

Find out what's happening in Lilburn-Mountain Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Road trip. The first federal highway across the country was the Cumberland Road from Maryland across the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River, then west across Ohio and Indiana to Illinois. Construction was first authorized on this day in 1806 by President Thomas Jefferson. Also known as the Great National Pike, it connected the Mid-Atlantic region with the Ohio River valley, a major route for the westward-expanding nation. Construction didn’t start until 1811. It was meant to go all the way past St. Louis , but a financial panic in 1837 ended the project in Vidalia, Ill. U.S. Highway 40 later followed much of the same route, and then along came Interstate 70, which also runs roughly parallel.

Getaway. Thinking of somewhere cool, quaint and well-watered as the Georgia summer bears down on us ?. Here’s a lovely thatched roof, three bedroom stone cottage near Cork, Ireland, for sale for just $260,000. A Facebook friend posted it last night as a sweet idea. You can always dream, right?

Find out what's happening in Lilburn-Mountain Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Stars. It's spring, but there’s a wintertime feature in the night sky you can enjoy until next month or even May. It’s a ring of prominent stars in the western evening sky called the Winter Circle, which at one point will be looped around the moon. The bottom point is a star below Orion’s Belt, the top is the star Pollux. EarthSky.org has a nice diagram and tips on spotting the ring.


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