Visiting The Carters In Plains, Ga.

A generation ago, Jimmy Carter came out of nowhere to become president. In doing so, he made his hometown - Plains, Ga.-the best-known small town in America. It has since slipped into the landscape of America's back roads, but as The Early Show national correspondent Jon Frankel reports, the former president is still there and wants you to visit.

The Carters on bikes is what passes for a presidential motorcade these days in Plains. Downtown is just a block long, but not short on memories for the 39th president.

"This building was built in 1901. Later, it was post office and I sold hamburgers and ice cream out of that window, right there," says President Carter. If it were not for him, Plains would be just another small town.

"Plains was transformed in 1976," the president notes. "We sometimes had 10,000 visitors a day."

Back then, there were barbecues ith his brother Billy, softball games and the "Peanut Express" which took crowds around town.

When Carter left the White House, the crowds left Plains.

But Carter stayed on.

"We have found freedom here, a place to breath, a place to be involved in community affairs, a place to be challenged and gratified," the president says. "It's home," former first lady Rosalynn Carter adds.

And the Carters want others to feel at home at the town's newest attraction.

"I was in charge of the construction; Rosalynn was in charge of the decorating," says President Carter.

The Plains Historic Inn is a 7-bedroom live-in museum covering the decades of the 78 year-old Carter's life. He and Rosalynn hope it will bring visitors to a town that is a national historic site, full of Carter landmarks.

Carter's family settled in Plains sometime after the revolution. And you know the rest; his father owned a farm and a store. In 1924, Jimmy Carter was born, the first American president born in a hospital. But he came home to a house with no running water or electricity.

"Well, we got running water in 1935," says Rosalynn Carter. "But I lived in Plains and I had running water all my life."

"She was a city girl, that's right," adds President Carter with a laugh.

Another sightseeing highlight might even be the former president himself. And in Plains you never know when he's going to pop up.

"Two weeks ago, I was locking up and here comes President Carter and Mrs. Carter riding up," says National Park Service Ranger Mark Rockwell. "Jimmy shouts at me, 'I'm going to raid the gardens,' he makes himself at home."

"He could go to Paris or Vienna or Moscow, but he doesn't want to, this is where his heart is," says Jimmy Bagwell of the Plains City Council.

And his soul, too. On Sundays, you're likely to catch him teaching Sunday school.

When asked if he could live on Pennsylvania Avenue for the next four years, he says he would prefer to live in Plains.

"I would like to see him be president again, but he would never do it," says Rosalynn Carter.

"I don't have any ambition at my age to get involved politically. I've had my opportunities to reach the highest political office in the world but since then, I've had the most remarkable and gratifying part of my life," Jimmy Carter says.

And Plains will always be a big part of that.

An excursion train will begin ferrying tourists to Plains in the fall. Mr. and Mrs. Carter's three children do not live in Plains, but President Carter says they're thinking of coming back some day.