On the Road With Big Chuck: Atlanta, Georgia!

Well, I just got back from Atlanta.  My first time there!

The city positively sprawls with a downtown area that just goes on for miles and miles.  I was visiting my two daughters in the little town of Lawrenceville, Georgia.  It is about a 45-minute drive from downtown Atlanta.  It was here that I could really get the "small town Southern feel" for the Peachtree State.

Lawrenceville has a tiny but vibrant and very walkable downtown business district.  It is about two blocks long.  The whole downtown is anchored by a gorgeous county courthouse.  On March 6,. 1978 porn publisher Larry Flynt was on trial here facing obscenity charges.

During a court break he was shot by a sniper right here on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse!  The shooting left him in a wheelchair to this day.

We ate oysters, Southern desserts and homemade crab and avocado dip.  It was a very nice little town.

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is the busiest airport in the world.  A thousand planes a day land and take off from this airport.  With 55,000 employees it is the largest income generator in the state.  It was a bit confusing and a lot different from the airport we took off from...Elmira!

The South is an interesting place with a lot of history, particularly all around the Atlanta area.  Turner Field is a huge ballpark in the downtown area and we saw the torch from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics nearby.  I also noted that on the historical markers around the area they refer to the Civil War as "The War Between the States."  Interesting.

Two things that really stick out on a leisurely drive around Atlanta are some ubiquitous businesses.  There is a church on every corner and almost as many Bail Bond stores and "Cash-Your-Checks-Here" storefronts.  The air is sweet and refreshing (yes even in a big city) and the farther out of metropolitan Atlanta you get, the architecture really takes on a Southern ambiance to it (think miniature Tara plantations and lots of hanging moss).

I enjoyed it a lot and want to go back.  And I want to visit the Coca Cola Museum!