Last Weekend for December 28-30, plus New Year's Eve
M and I went to Atlanta to visit tigerlily_blue for New Year's Eve. We flew down Friday night after work. My sister picked us up and took us to her new house, where after food and drink we were ensconced in their third floor guest suite.
Saturday was very relaxed. After sleeping in and having a leisurely breakfast, the three of us went out to Doll's Head Trail at Constitution Lakes Park. Due to heavy rains earlier in the week the trails were quite muddy, and the boardwalk around the lake had clearly been flooded based on the volume of debris on them. On the plus side, it was a sunny day and Doll's Head Trail was super creepy. It is described as "folk art" made up of various pieces of trash that were found there, but honestly some of it looked like some stoners got tired of hauling their trash out of the woods and made it into little sculptures while listening to Tom Petty and Neil Young. We then ended up back at their house. We had a late lunch at the original location of the Varsity, which is a long walk from my sister's house. After a relaxed afternoon we ate smoked chicken courtesy of the Big Green Egg I got my sister and her husband as a wedding gift when I visited them to see the Braves new stadium.
After dinner, M and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden for their holiday lights show. My sister and her husband had gone with my parents early in December and highly recommended it. They were right. Even with an occasional light rain, the main part of the light show was as good as any holiday light show I had ever seen. The lights were programmed to synchronize with music, and it was gorgeous. I particularly liked the "lightning" and "rain" that happened with the thunderstorm music.
On Sunday morning we slept in again (so very nice) and walked to brunch at Babs. From there all four of us took the train to the World of Coca-Cola, which was actually a fairly interesting corporate history, very comparable to the Guinness Tour. It was extremely crowded due to the holiday weekend, but for the most part it was laid out well enough that this didn't cause problems.
In the evening we went to Ponce City Market and dodged the hordes of scooters on the Beltline to eat The Brasserie, which was an upscale French-ish type place in an old warehouse dating from the days when the Beltline was a train line. The meal fell squarely in the "that was good, I'd go again if somebody wanted to, it wouldn't occur to me to eat there again" area; I had a fine Nicoise salad and M had a fancy cocktail with a very solid ice cube. We then got a few more cocktails at Biltong.
On Monday M and I went off on our own again, this time to the Georgia Aquarium. I had been there before (possibly when I was at Turner Field), but M was super excited to go. We got there a little later than intended, and it was extremely crowded. In a few exhibits you literally couldn't move due to the packed halls. Fortunately, there was more than enough room to view the giant tank with the four whale sharks and the manta rays.
From there M and I borrow my sister's and headed west to a hotel about 75 minutes away in Bremen, Georgia. After a nap we went to our destination for New Year's Eve: Tallapoosa, home of the The Possum Drop. And if that link doesn't work one day in the future, imagine the most Geocities thing ever.
Alas, the Possum Drop did not quite match the Walleye Drop for New Year's hijinks. Heavy rains suppressed most of the planned street festival early in the evening. M bought some souvenirs, then we had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, then wandered down to Johnny's, the local watering hole. It was the kind of place where the guy who welcomed us in was featured in photos on the wall that were clearly 20+ years in the past, and where Yuengling Beer and Corona are the listed "imports". We had several rounds, and with no sign that the rain was going to let up, we paid the cover to listen to a cover band called South of Nashville.
Fortunately, South of Nashville was actually a very solid band. Their listed opener / female vocalist was a woman named Alley Sweatmon who was just ok, but the main band played a broad mix of country hits, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s. M and I had many beers. I ate some pork rinds and some cookies from a local bakery. A nice lady asked us why we were in Tallapoosa, and seemed blown away to learn that we'd actually come from out of town to see the Possum Drop. When we said we'd come from Cleveland they thought we meant the one in Georgia, and even that was far enough away to be impressive.
At around 11:45 the rain lightened considerably, so we wandered out the street. Spencer the possum is taxidermied and hung by his tail in a wire ball that has was hosted by pulley up to the corner of a local building. Due to the rains, he'd been covered in a plastic bag, so it was somewhat less inspiring visually, but there was kissing, and Auld Lang Syne, and fireworks, and it was really a pleasant evening overall.
While the rain may have reduced the impact of the evening, you'll be happy to know that there are many other places that drop things on New Year's Eve, so the saga may continue in the future.
On New Year's Day we went to Alabama for breakfast, which merits a post in its own. We then went back to my sister's, attended a small New Year's Day party she had and flew home.
In book news, on the way to Atlanta, I read Three Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger. I'm not sure it's even the best book about Tony La Russa that I've read (see: Men at Work), but it's well worth reading for any baseball fan.
Over the next few days I read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. This overview of the pre-European Western Hemisphere is one of the very best popular history books I have read. Most of what you learned in school is no longer the accepted version of history. The new, often competing, visions, are much more interesting, at least the way that Mann presents them. I finished it on the flight home and highly recommend it.
Saturday was very relaxed. After sleeping in and having a leisurely breakfast, the three of us went out to Doll's Head Trail at Constitution Lakes Park. Due to heavy rains earlier in the week the trails were quite muddy, and the boardwalk around the lake had clearly been flooded based on the volume of debris on them. On the plus side, it was a sunny day and Doll's Head Trail was super creepy. It is described as "folk art" made up of various pieces of trash that were found there, but honestly some of it looked like some stoners got tired of hauling their trash out of the woods and made it into little sculptures while listening to Tom Petty and Neil Young. We then ended up back at their house. We had a late lunch at the original location of the Varsity, which is a long walk from my sister's house. After a relaxed afternoon we ate smoked chicken courtesy of the Big Green Egg I got my sister and her husband as a wedding gift when I visited them to see the Braves new stadium.
After dinner, M and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden for their holiday lights show. My sister and her husband had gone with my parents early in December and highly recommended it. They were right. Even with an occasional light rain, the main part of the light show was as good as any holiday light show I had ever seen. The lights were programmed to synchronize with music, and it was gorgeous. I particularly liked the "lightning" and "rain" that happened with the thunderstorm music.
On Sunday morning we slept in again (so very nice) and walked to brunch at Babs. From there all four of us took the train to the World of Coca-Cola, which was actually a fairly interesting corporate history, very comparable to the Guinness Tour. It was extremely crowded due to the holiday weekend, but for the most part it was laid out well enough that this didn't cause problems.
In the evening we went to Ponce City Market and dodged the hordes of scooters on the Beltline to eat The Brasserie, which was an upscale French-ish type place in an old warehouse dating from the days when the Beltline was a train line. The meal fell squarely in the "that was good, I'd go again if somebody wanted to, it wouldn't occur to me to eat there again" area; I had a fine Nicoise salad and M had a fancy cocktail with a very solid ice cube. We then got a few more cocktails at Biltong.
On Monday M and I went off on our own again, this time to the Georgia Aquarium. I had been there before (possibly when I was at Turner Field), but M was super excited to go. We got there a little later than intended, and it was extremely crowded. In a few exhibits you literally couldn't move due to the packed halls. Fortunately, there was more than enough room to view the giant tank with the four whale sharks and the manta rays.
From there M and I borrow my sister's and headed west to a hotel about 75 minutes away in Bremen, Georgia. After a nap we went to our destination for New Year's Eve: Tallapoosa, home of the The Possum Drop. And if that link doesn't work one day in the future, imagine the most Geocities thing ever.
Alas, the Possum Drop did not quite match the Walleye Drop for New Year's hijinks. Heavy rains suppressed most of the planned street festival early in the evening. M bought some souvenirs, then we had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, then wandered down to Johnny's, the local watering hole. It was the kind of place where the guy who welcomed us in was featured in photos on the wall that were clearly 20+ years in the past, and where Yuengling Beer and Corona are the listed "imports". We had several rounds, and with no sign that the rain was going to let up, we paid the cover to listen to a cover band called South of Nashville.
Fortunately, South of Nashville was actually a very solid band. Their listed opener / female vocalist was a woman named Alley Sweatmon who was just ok, but the main band played a broad mix of country hits, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s. M and I had many beers. I ate some pork rinds and some cookies from a local bakery. A nice lady asked us why we were in Tallapoosa, and seemed blown away to learn that we'd actually come from out of town to see the Possum Drop. When we said we'd come from Cleveland they thought we meant the one in Georgia, and even that was far enough away to be impressive.
At around 11:45 the rain lightened considerably, so we wandered out the street. Spencer the possum is taxidermied and hung by his tail in a wire ball that has was hosted by pulley up to the corner of a local building. Due to the rains, he'd been covered in a plastic bag, so it was somewhat less inspiring visually, but there was kissing, and Auld Lang Syne, and fireworks, and it was really a pleasant evening overall.
While the rain may have reduced the impact of the evening, you'll be happy to know that there are many other places that drop things on New Year's Eve, so the saga may continue in the future.
On New Year's Day we went to Alabama for breakfast, which merits a post in its own. We then went back to my sister's, attended a small New Year's Day party she had and flew home.
In book news, on the way to Atlanta, I read Three Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger. I'm not sure it's even the best book about Tony La Russa that I've read (see: Men at Work), but it's well worth reading for any baseball fan.
Over the next few days I read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. This overview of the pre-European Western Hemisphere is one of the very best popular history books I have read. Most of what you learned in school is no longer the accepted version of history. The new, often competing, visions, are much more interesting, at least the way that Mann presents them. I finished it on the flight home and highly recommend it.