Georgia - Rome

Oh, how I wish it was Rome, Italy, I was writing about.

But it's not. It's Rome, Georgia, and I was pleasantly surprised at my little trip over there yesterday. I'm used to attending staff retreats at Berry College (located in Rome), so this time I went straight downtown because I've never been down there before and it was pretty darn nice. They're in full revitalization mode, so it looks pretty beautiful.

After walking around downtown and window shopping, I ate a late lunch at a local restaurant that made excellent homemade key lime pie with fresh whipped cream. It was very tasty. I purposefully bypassed any restaurant that promoted itself as a "country kitchen." Last year on a road trip with Nicholas, I had a gastrointestinal reaction to a country kitchen HE made us eat at, so I avoid them now. The restaurant name was spelled "kountry kitchen", which irked me to no end. I like to refer to that as "the road trip of a thousand emergency bathroom breaks."

Back to Rome... I didn't get nearly as many good pictures as I like, but it was a beautiful day to be outside, so no regrets! Here are the pictures:


I intentionally shot this picture to get a nice shot of downtown with the Coca-Cola logo on that brick building. Doesn't this picture just scream Americana? What I unintentionally got in the photo was the orange caution sign on the back of an SUV that reads: "Prison Work Detail." Although it totally ruins the idyllic image I was going for, it made me laugh pretty hard when I saw it!



This is the clock tower of City Hall. Just thought it was pretty because I have a soft spot for clock towers. Don't know why, just do.



Another unintentional shot. I wanted to take a picture of this storefront because it's the epitome of a downtown storefront to me. What I got was a self portrait I didn't see until I downloaded the pictures onto the computer. Ha! Can you find the photographer?



This one made me laugh out loud on the street all by myself. It was on a tattoo parlor storefront and, if you can't read it, the sign says, "%^& yeah it hurt." HA! This phrase would never come out of my tattoo-loving sister's mouth, but it definitely would come out of mine.

Pennsylvania & Delaware

Ah, the mid-Atlantic. My ticket out of the Georgia heat and humidity for four glorious days.

Home of the Steelers, Penn State, mushrooms (more on them later), and, most importantly, my friend Tiffany, her husband Mike, and their new puppy Milo. We didn't do anything tourist-y (only a real word if you really want it to be) this visit, but when you're with folks you like, it doesn't really matter what you do.

I learned quite a bit on this trip about the area, plus I got to take some fun pictures. Tiffany was an obliging driver and pulled off the road whenever I asked to get out and take a picture. I risked my life and hers on those backroads for some of these pictures....

Tiffany lives in Pennsylvania near the Delaware border, so there was quite a bit of crossing state lines. I frequently asked, "What state are we in?" Delaware has high property taxes, but no sales tax, so the Pennsylvania folks just drive over to Delaware to do their shopping. Pretty smart, eh?


So these were two of my favorite road signs near Tiffany's house. For someone with acute motion sickness, these are signs to be feared.














But all of the crazy roads were totally worth the amazing views of the landscape. This is what Tiffany gets to drive through on her daily commute!!!



This is one of my favorite pictures. It's a red covered bridge. Just a cool shot with all of the trees overhead.


Mushrooms. Do you like them? You should go to Pennsylvania. Specifically, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. It's the Mushroom Capitol of the World. Occasionally, as you're driving on the aforementioned crazy roads looking at the beautiful views, you will smell a strong unpleasant odor. To give you a reference point, it's like leaving a dirty diaper out on a hot day. For a couple of days in a row. And then poking it. It's not pleasant. This smell is from all of the mushroom farms in the area. Tiffany said that when you're buying a house (which they just did), you have to take into consideration the proximity of your new home to a mushroom farm. Smart move.



So this is a fun story. Apparently, folks in Delaware are just super-proud of being from Delaware. (Who knew?) Tiffany told me that this pride even extends to their license plates. (Seriously?) So the "PC" you see stands for Personal Car. These are some super-duper difficult to get license plates. The lower the number, the cooler you are. They are passed down from generation to generation. I was so intrigued by this, that I did some research. When the #6 plate went up for auction in 2008, a guy from Delaware bought it for $675,000. Yes, you are reading that correctly. Again, I ask - seriously? This car was the lowest number I saw, so of course, I took a picture. Tiffany knows the guy who has #3. Try to contain your excitement.



The coolest gas station/market in the country resides in the mid-Atlantic. It's the Wawa. I didn't believe the hype either, but this coffee bar and the in-house deli sold me. Here's a picture of the coffee bar:


Last, but not least, here are my two hosts, Tiffany & Mike Brown. All-around great people and owners of the world's comfiest guest bed. This is outside the restaurant "Twelve" they took me to on Friday night. Absolutely excellent food. All in all, a truly great visit!

Georgia - Social Circle

Yowza! Social Circle was disappointing. And I wholeheartedly feel like it should NOT have been. I mean, c'mon, with a name like "Social Circle," don't you just have higher expectations?

My sister asked me why in the world I was going there and now I understand why she was questioning this week's pick for an adventure outing. Here's a picture of the town center.



I think I was there all of 3 minutes. I would have stayed longer to look around, but nothing was open. Nothing.

There are two lifestyles I've always romanticized over: small Southern towns with wide porches and brownstones in Brooklyn. I blame the editors of "Southern Living" for raising my hopes about small towns and I blame the creators of "The Cosby Show" for the Brooklyn brownstones. (Although now that I've seen both in real life, I'd pick the brownstone to live in, hands down).

There is just not a lot going on in small towns. That is why the local Wal-Mart is so gosh darn popular. Which is, I'm sad to say, where I ended up. Can you believe it? Now, I've never been a big fan of Wal-Mart because the ones I've been in have always been gross and dirty. But, after driving for so long, I needed a restroom and the gas station I filled up at was not even close to an option. So I went to Wal-Mart to use the facilities. It was pretty nice! They had everything under this roof, so it was no wonder it was full of country folks filling up for the week.

Overall, it was a sad little adventure indeed, but at least now I can say that my curiosity about Social Circle has been satisfied!

Atlanta - Oakland Cemetery

This week's adventure was a guided walking tour of the historic Oakland Cemetery. It's the oldest cemetery in Atlanta and many historic figures and famous Atlanta families are buried here.

My favorite story that the guide told us was about the Egleston family (the folks who founded the children's hospital in Atlanta by the same name). He showed us their family plot and then said, "There are their tombstones, but they're not buried there anymore." Huh? According to folklore, their descendants had the bodies moved to Westview Cemetery (the second oldest cemetery in Atlanta). No one knows why they were moved. But being buried in Oakland is an incredible honor in Atlanta and since they didn't want to lose their "place," they just kept the tombstones there. Weird, eh? Talk about being snobby until the end!

The guides showed us the main pauper's field, but explained that anywhere you saw green space, people were buried. Poor people, slaves, and criminals were rarely given markers. It was interesting to see the groups that segregated themselves voluntarily (the Jews) and those that were segregated involuntarily (African Americans). You could also see obvious class differences among the tombstone markers and the mausoleums.

It was interesting to hear about the 2 businessmen who loved their work so much they had their graves facing the buildings they used to work in so they could oversee their workers even after death. Wow. Then we noticed that Mayor Jackson's grave is facing at an awkward angle. Why? Because he wanted to be facing the city he loved. So if he were to "wake up," he would be looking directly at the Atlanta skyline. It's fascinating to me how people take death so darn differently.

All in all, it was an excellent 2 hour tour. I would highly recommend it!


The gorgeous brick entrance into the cemetery.



This guy's name has completely escaped me, but his nickname was the "Mayor of Oakland." That's why he had a statue of himself built on top of his small mausoleum - he faces the gate so he can watch who comes into the cemetery.






I thought this was... um...sweet? Golfers pay homage to Bobby Jones by leaving golf balls when they visit his grave. His wife is buried next to him. I wonder if she appreciates that?


Margaret Mitchell's grave... this one's for you, Angie!


Our guide told us that during the late 19th century, folks started to make graves look more like beds so that they wouldn't be so sad that someone died. They stopped saying, "She died" and instead began saying things like, "She fell asleep" or "She passed away."


This was my favorite statue in the whole cemetery. It's of a mother and daughter. The daughter, an only child, died very early in her life and the mother was incredibly distraught. If I remember correctly, the father had this built.


This is the Orthodox Jews section of the cemetery (they voluntarily segregated themselves). See how close together the graves are? It's because they had such a small plot of land to use, they didn't want to lose any space and not have enough room to bury their dead. The fronts of the tombstones are in Hebrew. The English translation is on the back.


This is probably the most famous statue in the cemetery. A women's group got together after the Civil War and picked up the bodies left behind and buried them here at Oakland. Since they couldn't possibly know everyone they buried, they built this statue as a reminder of the fallen heroes. They felt their soldiers were brave as lions. If you look closely, the lion is lying on a broken rifle (or musket) and the Confederate battle flag. There's also a tear running down one of his cheeks.



This was the Confederate soldier section of the cemetery. Flags by a tombstone mark where a Union soldier is buried. The guide told us that Atlanta was a medical hub for all soldiers during the Civil War, so it's not surprising that the Union soldiers who died here were buried here. Transportation of dead bodies during war time would have been nearly impossible.

Atlanta - Piedmont Park

I started these little adventures last Friday, so I've got pictures to post from that outing. These were taken at Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta. I've gone before to the park for events (Dogwood Festival, Screen on the Green, Saturday Markets), but I've never gone just to meander around and take pictures. It was a gorgeous day, so the pictures turned out great with a beautiful blue sky as a background. Here are some of my favorites:

A great climbing tree!

I love this one because it looks like the tree is overtaking the city!

Seeds....

Bud....

Magnolia!

Why a Blog? Why Now?

The answer: I'm bored. Seriously bored. So bored that I told my friend Jayne that I either needed to find a hobby or seriously consider pursuing a life of crime.

So, since the church I work at frowns upon both misdemeanor and felony charges (it's in the employee handbook), I've chosen to travel Georgia this summer.

I don't have a ton of money to spend on a vacation this year, so these trips will be close to home. The main purpose is to take pictures and write about where I go. Kind of sounds like a book report, doesn't it? You can take the girl out of school....

I hope you enjoy reading them. I know I'll enjoy writing them!