Atlanta

After arriving in Atlanta, we hopped a plane to San Francisco for a family wedding.  It was really great to see family and share in such a joyous occasion!  Hurricane Sandy traveled up the East coast while we were gone.  When we flew back we traveled through the southernmost part of the storm and had some moderate turbulence when we reached Charlotte.  But we flew on to Atlanta and arrived safely, despite the cold, windy weather.  While in Atlanta we stayed with some family and really enjoyed being able to visit with them.

At Centennial Olympic Park, we admired the Olympic Rings fountain, and the torches.  The fountain puts on a display set to music, but because of the wind we weren't able to see it.

We drove past Swan House, a famous mansion in Atlanta.

We went to the Carter Center and enjoyed Jimmy Carter's Presidential Library and Museum.  It was great to see (and remember for me) the US during the 70's and learn all about his political and personal life.

in the Carter Oval Office

Next we went to Margaret Mitchell's house.  It was great to see her little apartment where she wrote the novel, and the "Gone With the Wind" movie museum there as well.  We learned about many of the people in her life who provided some of the inspiration for her novel.  I didn't know she was related to Doc Holliday, one of her cousins, who inspired the romance between cousins theme because he was in love with a first cousin he couldn't marry prompting him to go west.



Her apartment was the lower left one

the front door of Tara from the movie



the famous painting from the movie

The CNN studios tour was fascinating. To start the tour you ride one very tall escalator up 8 flights. We really enjoyed seeing how the news is broadcast on TV. We saw how the control room works, the news rooms, and the many studios used to air the news on both CNN and HLN



the CNN newsroom

inside the CNN building...
that's part of the escalator to the world on the right






         

We drove to The Varsity and enjoyed our lunch with Coke. Yum!

cheeseburger, slaw dog, fries, and a fried pie

two chili dogs and fries

















 We went to the World of Coca Cola and watched some old TV ads, some videos about Coke, saw the history of Coke (and the short lived New Coke), the secret formula vault, the bottling process, and even tasted samples of Coke products from each continent around the world.  There were some pretty awful tasting and some quite flavorful ones too.  It was fun to try most of the 65 flavors.  We even received a bottle of Coke at the end of the tour! 


the first coke dispenser

recognize some of these?



  

Asian flavors



European flavors




We camped at Stone Mountain for a night and really enjoyed it, despite the noisy party a few campsites away. Finally getting our new tent poles made such a difference!  It was beautiful along the lake and we enjoyed the birds, the squirrels talking to us with their chirping and cat like noises, and the graceful Canadian geese honking as they went swimming by.  The lake had rowers occasionally which were fun to watch too.  There were 4 person and 8 person sculls speeding past us. 

can you see the sculls racing past in the lake?



our beautiful campsite!



the geese swimming past



 

We walked around the park and viewed the carving of the famous Confederates on the mountain, and the Pow Wow that was mostly vendors, but we did see a funny show of the East vs. West tribes in the US. 







East vs. West show

We enjoyed our visit to Atlanta, and headed on to Florida next.