Our Atlanta Trip 2024

 

So swiftly fly the years!

Once again, it's the schedule/routine we've grown to love:  one week with daughter Amy, a week at the cabin, followed by a week with son Mark.

1:  At Amy's, October 17-24.

First and foremost, we met her new cat, Nacho, her lover-boy!

And then reacquainted ourselves with her neighborhood on our daily walks

at this fun time of year, with Halloween and Thanksgiving just around the corner.

That first weekend we rendezvoused with Mark and g'son Nicholas for Mexican,

celebrating all our birthdays in one swell foop.

[photo credit:  Astrid]

And then Amy and I voted.  [More on that at the end.]

Even Nacho wanted to vote:  "Please, oh, pretty please???"

I think Kamala wanted to let him!

As we had done in 2015 with Dennis and Nicholas, we decided to go back to Six Feet Under,

the restaurant across the street from the Oakland Cemetery, with just the 3 of us.

Oakland Cemetery is Atlanta's oldest "public park," worth seeing over and over again,

which I'm sure we'll do maybe even next year...again.

But what was new for us this year was Gibbs Gardens in Ball Ground.

It's one of Georgia's best-kept secrets I never knew!

And we saw only part of the 300+ acres!

[photo credit:  Astrid]

2.  At the Cabin in the North Georgia Mountains near Blue Ridge, October 24-28.

It was a new cabin this year and, even before opening the door, I took this pano iPhone pic

and immediately said to g'son Nicholas, "This is the one!"

[photo credit:  Astrid]

4 bedrooms, 4 full baths, 1 powder room, for 8 people (but only 6 of us).

A kitchen for Amy (the cook) to die for, great walking access, and a view for the soul.

Absolutely nothing to complain about; everything to praise!

And we finally got to meet Mark's girlfriend, Melissa!

Sorry for the duplicate image but what a joy it was to meet her

and to see them both happy and in love with each other.

[right-middle image is from Mark's house the next week]

Speaking of good walking access, Astrid and I got back inside just before the only rain of the stay.

And, yes, that's actually a rainbow in that top-middle image.

One day Mark drove Astrid and me to the nearby Stanley Rapids off the Toccoa River.

[Melissa had to go back home early--long story--and wasn't with us, sadly.]

Lots of Swoop (new card game), movies, football, and GOOD FOOD,

thanks to Amy who loves orchestrating the breakfast and dinner meals.

All I did was bake Mark's all-bran  muffin mix each morning and wash the breakfast dishes!

3:  At Mark's, October 28-November 5.

First order of business once down the mountain at Mark's house

was getting reacquainted with Piper, his cat of 14 years.

As Nacho is to Amy, Piper is to Mark!  She's very loyal to him.

Besides lazing around and playing lots of Five Crowns, the 3 of us took 2 trips.

The first was to the quaint city of Dahlonega for lunch, 33 miles away,

followed by a visit to Amicalola Falls another 20 miles further.

Both were past memories I wanted Astrid to see.

The second trip was to the Cherokee Bluffs Park less than 5 miles from Mark's house

and a new place for all of us, which we will definitely want to visit each year

for the exercise and the therapeutic, soulful beauty.

We had one last chance to see Melissa, who came over for a game night,

while grieving the loss of her dog of 10 years, Watson, who had to be put down

because of terminal cancer (which was the reason why she had to leave the cabin earlier).

All that plus movies in Mark's newly-upgraded home theater, plus one evening of football

for GEORGIA (Mark) and OREGON (Nicholas) and MICHIGAN (moi).

The grand finale with Mark, 3 years in a row now, was his Dungeon's & Dragons potluck,

where Mark cooked a brisket on his pellet grill.  Enough food to sink a ship!

Needless to say, we left for home with full tummies and hearts and souls.

* * * * * * * * * *

That was the 5th, Tuesday, Election Day for America's Presidential Election.  We arrived home in the Netherlands the next day, finding out soon thereafter that Trump was to become our next President.

This is the only story I can tell right now, a week+ later, following the initial gut-punch:

Kamala Harris did NOT lose.  

She ran one of the greatest campaigns in American history FOR the middle class.

Trump did NOT win.

Sadly, it won't be long before Americans and the world find out why.

DISINFORMATION won!

And it's happening all over the world, including here in the Netherlands.

Can we figure out how to counter it?  I sure hope so!

The Historic Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, GA

What is it about cemeteries?!

Here's the short version, as shone on Facebook shortly after we were there.

And now, the longer version....

Where was I all those 25 years when I lived in Atlanta?

The thing is, it's been there since 1850...the Oakland Cemetery.

And if you look carefully, you can see the  Atlanta skyline in the background.

Daughter Amy was the one who thought up this day trip for our free Saturday, 17 October.

 And the five us went together:  Amy, Dennis, Astrid, Nicholas and moi.

You could safely say we were all gobsmacked...

...even down to the tiniest details, inside and out.

Do you think "they" minded us peering into their final resting places?

Because famous Atlanta people are interred there, we were on a mission, with a map, to find them:

Margaret Mitchell Marsh (author of Gone With the Wind)

Bobby Jones, Jr (the "greatest amateur golfer ever," from the 1920s)

Maynard Jackson, Jr. (the first African-American mayor of Atlanta, serving 3 terms)

Some areas of the cemetery were dedicated to particular groups of people:

The African-American Grounds

The Old Jewish Burial Grounds

The Confederate Memorial Grounds

It wasn't hard to tell which were which.

But it was the individual gravestones that struck all of us, I think.

Like this one, for instance, of such a wee child.

And this one from someone's ingenious imagination.

Tombstones everywhere, in remembrance of loved ones.

Stairways to heaven, perhaps?

With plenty to remind us of ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

At some point in the middle, we walked across the street to the Six Feet Under Pub & Fish House,

across from the cemetery and overlooking it.  Who comes up with such a name for a restaurant!

You wouldn't have to ask me twice to go back to both places again one day/year.

Both were totally worth the time and effort.

Thank you, Amy, Dennis and Nicholas!

Atlanta Trip 2015: The Overview

WE'RE BACK!

And for the record...and for you who might have missed it on Facebook...here is a quick synopsis of our just-finished two weeks in the Atlanta area for our annual trip to America.  In the coming days and weeks, I'll fill in the blanks with individual posts, of course.

We arrived on a Wednesday evening and the next day ate supper at son Mark's new apartment.

It's the second year in a row that he made our old-timey favorite potato-sausage soup,

so we're calling it a tradition, including the amazing coconut pie I used to make.

 The next day, Friday, we went to the Cumming Country Fair with g'son Nicholas,

but this time with his dad, Nick...the first time.

It was wonderful to watch them having so much fun together!

This was Nicholas' 13th time at this fair in his 15 years...and the last with us, we decided.

He can always go again but maybe on his own or with someone else.

We've had our memories and can now move on to more flexible times for visiting.

And he agrees.  What a great finale to that tradition.

The next day, Saturday, we went as a family (minus Mark) to the Historic Oakland Cemetery

near downtown Atlanta, founded in 1850.

Where have I been all my life!  I lived in Atlanta 25 years and never knew it existed.

I'd go back again because there was so much to see.

Then we had our annual Sunday-Thursday visit with Bob and Peggy in Jackson, GA.

They always find fun day trips for us, like this Skyview Ferris wheel next to Centennial Park,

where the 1996 Olympics were held.  What a great way to see the city of Atlanta.

We bought discounted Groupon tickets and rode it twice, once in daylight and then at night,

with a delightful restaurant supper in between.

Last year was when we first saw this 1951 MG that Bob had just bought.

This year, after restoring it bit by bit, he took us for a ride in it.

Talk about feeling like the Queen of England!

We took another day trip to the Candler Field and Museum in Williamson, GA.

It's always fun to see the small aircraft that people still fly.

And if the for-hire biplane had been there, Astrid and I would have taken a ride!

Once back to Amy's on Thursday, we drove up to the cabin in two cars.

THIS is THE tradition every year now for 6 years in Georgia's Blue Ridge mountains.

Within the first 15 minutes of arriving I had taken the above pics.

The leaves changed every day before our very eyes.

How can you resist that!

We weren't there for the full moon but almost.

Mark and I both took astronomy in college but he was the one who remembered the "terminus:"

the line dividing the bright and dark side of the moon.

Look at these two images Astrid took below, standing on the cabin deck!
We were the only ones up each morning to see the sunrise around 7:30 a.m.
 

 You remember, of course, that Astrid and I fell in love because of our photography blog!
Needless to say, I keep falling in love.

So many memories from the cabin still light up the corners of my mind:

pool, ping-pong, fabulous meals, s' mores, Spades, jigsaw puzzle, etc.

What a great way to spend quality time with the family we love.

In between everything, I took care of 2 doctor's appointments and my eye exam,

plus getting new (but basically the same) frames for my glasses, which broke after 11 years.

Now I feel all set to go for another year or two before I get checked up again.  HA!

As we like to say, LIFE IS GOOD!