PatanRich's Excellent Adventure: Atlanta, Georgia- a remarkable city

Ellen, Claire, and I go on vacation for about a week every fall. We leave our respective spouses at home:-). We choose places we have either never been to, or really liked and want to see again. This year, we chose the south! None of us had ever been here before, so it was going to be an adventure. We decided on Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. It was going to be grand:-). Loved Atlanta- the subject of this post. Not to go too far ahead, you remember Hurricane Mathew? Yea- that bastard screwed up our trip:-). We had to make a lot of changes, and Charleston was totally eliminated:-(.

Back to Atlanta- a major American city, we were a bit worried! After booking 5 days here, suddenly we met people from Atlanta that said there really weren't alot of things to do there. After our 5 days, we all decided those people did not actually live in Atlanta:-). Tons of things to do!! Oh- and the food is fantastic!!!!

We toured CNN, Coca Cola, Jimmy Carters Presidential Library, MLK Historic Site, Museums, and ate our way through the city:-)

CNN is at home in Atlanta! You can tour the studios- all tours are guided, and sadly, no photos. But- when in Atlanta- you must tour it. It is fascinating

Lobby of the CNN building

Studio you can practice in

Cutouts of CNN anchors:-)

Coca Cola is at home in Atlanta! You can tour the Coca Cola museum!

Throughout, there are Coke bottle art from each country

The Coca Cola Polar Bear!!!!

The vault holding the secret recipe:-)

A model soda fountain from yore

THE vault!

There are free tastes of every Coke roduct from around the world! Some are good, others- not so much:-)

Lunch:

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and Historic Site. Contains Ebenezer Church as well as a museum of his life

Final resting place of MLK and his wife

Jimmy Carter Presidential Library! None of us had ever been to a Presidential Library, so we had no idea what to expect. Very interesting place- filled with memorabilia and explanations of the life of the president

Mock Oval Office:-)

The Atlanta museum. Two parts: 1st part are 3 examples of architecture thru the ages: a frontier home, an 1840'sfarm house and slave home, and a 1930's mansion. The 2nd part is historical artifacts relating to Atlanta and Georgian history. I am not posting photos from this section of the museum. As you can imagine, it focuses on the civil war and slavery. It was incredibly educational, but also heart wrenching. It was hard to go through. But- I recommend everyonego thru it.

1930's mansion