Trip to atlanta

We took an extended weekend visit to Isaac & Ricci's in Atlanta, Georgia this past Saturday through Tuesday. We had good flights, ate and drank too much, the weather was perfect, saw some sights, and all lived to tell about it!

We flew out of Fort Wayne and had a direct flight on a Delta connection. The plane had 13 rows of seats and we had the same ones in row 9 on the way there and back. Flight time was right around 1 1/2 hours. Daughter Carrie drove us the 5 minutes from our house to FWA, and Isaac & Ricci picked us up at the Atlanta airport. It's about 20 minutes from their new house.

This was our first time seeing the house they currently live in. It's their 3rd place of residence in Atlanta. First was Ellis Road, then the place where they house/dog-sat for half a year or so. Those both had Stone Mountain addresses. Now they reside on E. Ponce DeLeon Drive with a Scottdale address. It is much closer to Ricci's work, and you can take Ponce right into Decatur just down the street. That's where we usually went for food and whatnot.

It's a nice little home in a row of what used to be "cotton mill houses." Many of them look the same and are about 100 years old. It sits pretty close to this fairly busy road and is right across the street from a steel mill, but it has a nice fenced-in back yard for the dogs to play in and they're also able to pull both cars inside the gate if need be.

The interesting thing about the house is that the guest room has a separate entrance off the back porch. That would be fine, but you have to go outside to get to the lone bathroom right inside the back door. It was never a problem and worked out nice because we spent most of our time around the small table on the back porch anyway. Otherwise, it's a cute house with tall ceilings and works well for them.

Ponce City Market

I can't recollect exactly what and when we did everything, but I believe the first day we took a walk along the Atlanta Beltline Trail, stopping off for awhile at the Ponce City Market and then a beer joint/garage thing. The beltline is pretty cool in that it's made for walking, biking, rollerskating, scooters, and has plenty of places where people are playing music or doing all sorts of other outdoors-y stuff. There are also a variety of businesses and places to eat and drink along the way.

Center for Civil and Human Rights

One day we took in the Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta. It's one of those cool places that then leaves you feeling very torn inside. I will write a separate post about that one of these days.

Arabia Mountain

Another day we took a hike at the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve. It was not a huge mountain, but made for a nice trek up and down the rocky landscape overlooking some splendid Georgia tree lines.

Besides going out to eat at least once a day, we also spent time playing this game call 'Chronology.' It was kind of fun in that it didn't require much concentration but did require some thought and you learned stuff at the same time. We also watched a couple movies: 'Three Amigos' (since Ricci had never seen it), and 'Chariots of Fire.'

Fortunately Isaac and Ricci both had Monday off of school (apparently it was Columbus Day or something), and Isaac was off Tuesday as well. Ricci had to do some work Monday afternoon, and then she had to go in Tuesday morning, so we didn't see her the last day there. Isaac took us to the airport in the afternoon and we arrived back in Fort Wayne around 8 pm.

I can't say I am a big fan of Atlanta. It has lots of hills and trees and curves, and the clay soil seems to make everything look dirty. However, it is a nice place to visit the kids - especially when they do all the driving! It's a magnificent city with an interesting history. So, we had fun and enjoyed getting to spend some rare time with the boy and his bride - and the two dogs and the rat (the rat is from Ricci's classroom - apparently no one wants it anymore). A nice time was had by all...