Tag Archives: family

Oh, Atlanta

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view of downtown Atlanta skyline from Piedmont Park

And so the 2018 Fall Family and Friends Road Trip draws to an end. We said goodbye to Chattanooga, and my nephew and his wife, and headed for home. Atlanta, Georgia, just happened to be directly in our path, so we thought we’d stop for a few days to see what the city has to offer. It’s been almost 40 years since we last visited.

I was immediately struck by how beautiful the city is—pleasantly hilly and beautifully wooded. I read somewhere that Atlanta is the most wooded metropolitan area in the US. The trees really make you feel more like you’re in the suburbs, rather than a sprawling city. Every section we drove through felt like a cozy neighborhood I could live in. I love the architecture of the homes. Most have a traditional, but modern, feel—lots of stately brick and stone. The more contemporary homes look stunning with all that wood and glass surrounded by trees. There’s new home construction everywhere.

potting shed in Piedmont Park–not your typical Atlanta architecture!

To see the city, we rented a tandem bike and rode the marvelous Eastside Beltline, a rails-to-trails convert. First stop was Jimmy Carter’s presidential library and museum. After visiting FDR’s library last spring in Hyde Park, I’m making a point of visiting every presidential library I come across. It’s fascinating to look back on the particular challenges each president faced while in office, especially given the perspective of time. To follow the issues while they are developing is completely different, I find, than seeing how they stand up in the context of American history.

Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum

We continued north up the Beltline to the fabulous Ponce City Market where we stopped to have lunch at an amiable little Cuban restaurant. Then on to Piedmont Park, the crown jewel of Atlanta. Lots of greenery to take in and great views of the downtown skyline.

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site

On our return to the bike rental shop, we stopped at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. A touching tribute to a man who devoted his life to bringing about change on such an emotionally charged issue through non-violent means. That his life was ended prematurely by the violence he worked so hard to avoid is a genuine tragedy. 

tomb of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King

Oh, Atlanta, we have enjoyed our time with you, but home beckons and we must go.

Chattanooga

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the riverfront, with Lookout Mountain in the clouds

Absolutely love this city! It’s the perfect size–large enough to offer great museums, shops, and restaurants, but small enough that you can conquer it in a day. And then the rest of your stay is getting to know your favorite areas in more detail.

the Hunter Museum of American Art on a bluff overlooking the river

Our favorite area is the Bluff View Arts District. It’s not large, but it is jam-packed full of beautiful art and architecture perched high on a bluff over the Tennessee River. Our favorite part of the District was the Sculpture Garden.

These guys welcome you into the garden.

 

my favorite sculpture

 

cool–an angular Death Star?

And did I mention the food? Fortunately we have family living here who helped us hone in on the some of the best places.

amazing bakery across from the Sculpture Garden–love the architecture!

On the Delaware shore

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observation tower at Cape Henlopen, Delaware

After Rockville, Maryland, we continued on our FFF (Family and Friends Fall) Road Trip to Bethany Beach, Delaware, where my brother and his wife have recently purchased a home. 

We love these concrete observation towers along the Delaware coast. Built from 1939 to 1942 to guard the entrance to Delaware Bay after world war broke out in Europe, there are eleven on the Delaware coast and two across the bay in New Jersey. They were built to last only 20 years, but are still standing after almost 80. (And, yes, I did go up in one, despite the rusty old stairs.) 

view of Delaware Bay from the top

German ships were a real threat to American shipping even before we were directly involved in the war. When the Luftwaffe was unsuccessful in defeating the Royal Air Force with its eleven-month campaign of daily air attacks against the UK (the Battle of Britain), Hitler shifted gears and imposed a naval blockade in the Atlantic, hoping to starve the British into surrender. German U-boats and destroyers patrolled off the US Atlantic coast looking for American ships headed to Britain that may contain relief supplies.

bunker with Howitzer guarding the bay

These towers are a poignant reminder, especially now that our Greatest Generation is almost gone, of the sacrifices Americans were asked to make to defend their homeland. I hope they last another eighty years. Thank you, Delaware, for honoring the memory of those who served.

2018 Family & Friends Fall Road Trip

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detours on I-95 as a result of Hurricane Florence

We left Stuart on September 21st on a rare (for us) road trip. Since we began our extended travel in 2013, we have always flown to our destination, rented a car, driven the most comprehensive route I could comfortably squeeze into two to three months, returned the car, and flown home. And that’s what we intended to do this time, but then Marcus got the itchin’ for a road trip–from start to finish in our own car. Having grown up seeing the USA from the back of a (Chevrolet) station wagon, I was down. I love nothing more than to pack a car to the gills, stash a cooler full of goodies, and hit the road.

This trip is also different in that we’ll be doing much less sightseeing than usual. This trip is dedicated to visiting some family and friends that we haven’t visited or seen in far too long. The first leg of it, from Stuart to Rockville, Maryland, to visit Marcus’s sister Sheri and family, involved driving through North Carolina only eight days after Hurricane Florence whipped through. Although most of I-95 was in great shape (primarily due to speedy recovery efforts on the part of NCDOT, is my guess), there were still a few detours to negotiate.

The parts of I-95 we did travel had lost quite a few trees and billboards (no loss there!), but the saddest thing we witnessed was the number of dead wildlife along the shoulders. Of course there are always deer, raccoons, and possums who wander across the highway at night, but we saw many more than usual, including a wild pig–something I’d never seen. Made me realize how many animals must have been displaced from their homes due to flooding and had nowhere to go but to seek higher ground–on the interstate.

Best wishes to the state of North Carolina for a full recovery, and our condolences for your losses.

Familiness

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Rarely in our travels do we get to visit family. It’s not intentional, it’s just that we’ve been focusing on knocking off the foreign countries on our bucket list. We’ve been traveling internationally every other year, and only this year decided to use the years in between for domestic travel, which gives us the opportunity to visit more with family and friends. 

For our Niagara trip, we decided to fly into Westchester County Airport, just north of New York City, an easy, direct flight from West Palm Beach. This would allow us to add some places to our itinerary that we’ve been wanting to see in upstate New York and begin and end our Grand Loop of Lake Ontario with Marcus’s brother, Elliot, and family in Greenwich, Connecticut, only eight miles from Westchester.

Our “easy” flight got in four hours late, and it was after 9:00pm when we rolled into Elliot and Christine’s driveway. Their kids, Alex and Sascha, ages six and five, were supposed to be in bed, but materialized at the bottom of the stairs as we came into the house. They were too excited to sleep. They escorted us to our bedroom where personal notes of welcome lay on our respective nightstands. Throughout our visit, they followed me around like ducklings, never more than a hug away. Well, except for those times when decorum dictated that I excuse myself. And even then, upon opening the bathroom door I would find them just where I’d left them. I loved it!

Over coffee in the mornings, I taught them how to solve kenken puzzles, and they reciprocated by helping me time my dry-eye therapy. I was the “mystery reader” in Sascha’s kindergarten class and attended Alexandra’s piano recital. I climbed the playscape with them at school and cheered them on during their running time trials around the cul-de-sac. We celebrated the weekend with “pizza-and-movie night” in the basement and munched on delectables out of a picnic hamper at a polo match. We (and a stuffed monkey) explored deep space in our rocket ship on the couch before dinner and, after dinner, played board games at the table. (The monkey excused himself from board games, however, saying he had an early start the next day.)

The days were packed with activity, but I vividly remember one quiet moment after Alex and Sascha had both rehearsed their upcoming recital pieces with their parents. I looked up from my spot on the couch and was struck by the familiness around me. Elliot and Christine were still at guitar and piano, enjoying some time together to dig into their own music. Sascha constructed skyscrapers with Jenga pieces in the light from the piano, stopping now and then to capture his creations with the camera on an iPad. And Alex and Marcus played chess at the dining room table in the room beyond. It’s been too many years since we’ve been this intimately engaged in the dynamics of a family. I miss it, but am so thankful that we had this opportunity to experience it again.

Thank you, Elliot and Christine, Alex and Sascha, for inviting us into your family, and for reminding us of an often-forgotten benefit of travel.♥