Shit, unless I was riding a motorcycle to get there, I'd just have it shipped to save the money on gas
Well, a lot depended on sales; sometimes a particular sale more than made up for the gas cost going to ATL.
Then, we'd also plan other stops for shopping. Mu other favorite stop was Bass Pro Shops in Macon. That particular store is a shipping point for online/mail orders, which also means they get a lot of returns. The Outlet section is where I hit. Stocked up on RedHead polo shirts when we found them for $6.95/ea there.
But, yeah, we'd always have to calculate the gas and time cost vs. driving to ATL. Most times, it wasn't worth it. But in some cases, like when Fry's put the 2500K on sale for $149.99 and MC was offering socket 1155 motherboards for $40 off when bought with a 2500k cpu, it's well worth the drive.
In that case, I PM'd Fry's 2500k price at MC, bought a Gigabyte board that was already listed in MC $20 cheaper than Newegg to begin with, and I saved $130 off Newegg prices.