Gone with the Wind

Back to Atlanta...

A storm blew through Georgia the evening we arrived which provided some welcome relief from the insane humidity that accompanies summer in much of the United States. Walking down the jetway into Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, a blast of moist heat hit me full face and produced an instant hot flash. My personal hot flashes involve beads of sweat all over my face which, if left long enough, merge into something not nearly as cute as beads. Not very attractive, but handled very effectively by blasts of air conditioning in a car or fans in the house. Moving air, that’s all I need, and plenty of it.

Leaving the airport, monsoonal weather all around us. Drenching rains for 10 miles and then sun baking the red Georgia clay for another 10 miles, followed by more blinding rain. Acres of pine forest obscuring any real views and churches. Churches everywhere, most with insanely complicated names like Church of the Foursquare Gospel and Redeeming Savior and Holy Spirit Church of God. We were headed to Rome, Georgia, deep in the Bible Belt. (This picture is supposed to perfectly impress upon you just how red that clay soil is...but it just looks like dirt.)

The wedding was perfect. I've already nattered on about that. The tough part of this whole trip was the length of time we had to stay there. In an ideal world our free frequent flier redemption tickets on Delta would have allowed us to fly in on Friday and back to L.A. on Sunday. Nope, we had to stay until Tuesday. Needless to say the entire wedding party and every guest was gone by noon on Sunday except our old and dear friends, the bride's parents. Their flight to NY wasn't until later that evening so we could at least spend the afternoon together. But then they left. We spent a lot of time talking about going out to dinner, seeing a movie, getting up early the next morning and getting the hell outta Dodge, but there was not one, NOT ONE, restaurant open in town. NOWHERE. So, we headed to some mall on the outskirts of town, grabbed the new Asian salad with Paul Newman dressing (good) at McDonalds, felt virtuous since we didn't eat what we wanted and then saw The Da Vinci flick (not brilliant, not horrible...very average...wait for it to come out on DVD).


Monday was full of museum stuff. Civil War Train museum...hmmm, I thought. Yippie, Himself thought. It was co-curated with The Smithsonian and was actually quite good. Then we headed Atlanta way. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum...very good and then the Martin Luther King Memorial and Museum. Also v.g. The highlight of both places, for me, was walking into MLK's old church, Ebeneezer Baptist. I'd seen so much footage of him preaching from that pulpit that it was familiar.




Hi Jimmy. I wish you were still our president.