Day 4: The King and I, Pt 1

To kick off the morning, I treated Nick and Brigid to breakfast at Ria's Bluebird, an awesome joint near the Oakland Cemetery. The cemetery was unfortunately hit hard by the tornadoes that flew threw recently, and the cleanup process is preventing pedestrian traffic.


Atlanta is known for at least three things: Sherman burning it to the ground, Martin Luther King, and Coca Cola. I spent the first part of my day at the Martin Luther King Center. This museum is awesome. It's basically a chronological summary of his life and the times. A lot of audio and pictures telling a moving story.



Out of curiosity, I researched whether Sherman really burned Atlanta or whether it was an exaggeration. Turns out it happened, and Sherman justifies his actions in a letter to the mayor and councilmen:

But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war.

I'm sure this observation isn't unique, but most people view the succession as "It was a Constitutionally valid action" or "We must protect the Union," the latter having the implied notion that it was just a "bad thing." If you look at Mexico, it has never been a stable country. IIRC, they still have major issues with drug lords, corruption, and revolutionary groups, not to mention their economy. There are a plethora of alternate histories based on the South seceding, and I think all of them predict the same thing: war, so maybe violating the Constitution was the right thing overall...

Anyway, back to the trip... The World of Coca Cola and the humongous aquarium were both booked, the lines to get in almost joined each other, so I wandered around a little bit and ended up at the CNN offices where it appears Chinese-(americans, immigrants, ...) were protesting CNN's coverage of Tibet and the Olympics.


I waited a bit for something exciting to happen before heading to the hotel for the bachelor party w/ my friend Chris Bray and his buddies I've never met before, though Mark seemed familiar from somewhere. Lucky for Bray and I we already had facial hair so we didn't have to wear the faux ones.

Day 3: Sherman had it easier

Now that the pictures are all up, I can just get on w/ posting the literary (laugh) portion of this blog...

This morning I listened to Rebekah give a report on the water cycle. She had really good slides and presented them very well. Hopefully my comments helped her out.

The highway in and out of Raleigh to the west is not a pleasant ride, so I decided to take Rt 64 to Charlotte before continuing to Atlanta. The ride was very nice and relaxing until I reached Rt 85, which is not pleasant as you approach Charlotte. I drove this way in a car last summer, but it is very different on a motorcycle.

For miles I saw signs in SC for a peach this and peach that, so I stopped since I needed a break anyway. Guess what? No fresh peaches in the entire store. I don't care if peaches weren't in season, there wasn't anything fresh in the store except some scraggly looking strawberries. I did pick up some great Vidalia Onion and Peach salsa as a gift for Nick and Brigid who were gracious enough to have me as a guest, seeing as I only knew Nick from IM and his time doing some great Drupal work for my old company.

I eventually rolled into Atlanta around 7pm. The traffic to get to Nick & Brigid's house was painful. I now know what giving birth must feel like for the baby, as they were trying to squeeze watermelons through these tiny roads with heavily imbalanced light changes. Their neighborhood is a bit sketchy, but their house and yard are nice. After numerous breakins last year, Nick bought a safe. I wish I had taken a picture because it is very impressive. I'm worried it will disrupt their foundation. Maybe it can be offset by their future washer and dryer... For dinner, Nick grilled us some awesomeness: stuffed green peppers, corn, and some bratworst for me (they are pretty strict vegetarians, but their grill isn't, thankfully!)

As you know, my parents and brother are in the dark about this trip. My friend Tim suggested I send them postcards along the way. I've made them fairly anonymous, but I'm sure they'll figure it out from the handwriting.

Day 2: A leisurely ride to Cary, NC

Google wanted to send me from Charlottesville, through Richmond and south on a major highway to the Raleigh area, but Tim said to take Rt 29 and bear east. I saved time and it was a much prettier and less stressful trip!

In Cary I visited with my friends Alicia and Craig, including their adorable children Rebekah, Isaac, and relatively new Elsah. Isaac is as rambunctious as my god-kids Lawrence and Drake, but at 1/3 the volume. After an excellent beef kabob dinner by Alicia, Craig had a roller hockey at a very impressive indoor facility. His team led going into the final period when a really bad penalty call at the end of the third allowed the other team to tie it up. They ended up losing when the other team outworked them down low. Faster line changes, people!