WARNING, THIS IS LONG.<\/p>\n
I will fill in a few items from last week that weren\u2019t in this blog previously.\u00a0 All the effort I went to get the letter from my doctor was useless as was putting all my wallet cards in a conference name tag around my neck.\u00a0 The TSA people only looked at my driver\u2019s license and my boarding pass.\u00a0 They took my word that I had a chest full of metal and let me stand at the X-ray machine or the one that \u201ctakes off your clothes\u201d.\u00a0 Nothing was said, and because I was in a wheelchair, I think my trip through was faster than most.\u00a0 I walked through the machines, stopped, stood on the yellow footprints facing sideways, held my breath and was X-rayed, I guess.\u00a0 Airporter Shuttle bus trip over from Eburg to SeaTac was uneventful and fine.\u00a0 We did not lose any time with stops for construction.\u00a0 AirTran was just within the gate and two doors down.\u00a0 My one complaint was I had to stand in line (a long one) for requesting a wheelchair.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what would happen for people who are unable to make it through the line.\u00a0\u00a0 You will see later that Atlanta has a different policy in place.<\/p>\n
I was wheeled out to my plane and the plane flight was non-stop, a 5-hour trip.\u00a0 My trip was in seat 27 F (window) and next to me was a couple from Spokane.\u00a0 We got to talking and found out their son was at CWU and is a pilot on AirTran.\u00a0 I asked his name because I used to get lots of Flight Tech students in my classes, particularly the Map Reading and Map Interpretation one.\u00a0 What a surprise when I said, \u201cHe was my student; I remember him well.\u201d\u00a0 I described my memory of him and they pulled up their phone with pictures.\u00a0 Yep, I was sure that was him.\u00a0 What a small world!\u00a0 The man gave me his card, and I gave him one of mine.<\/p>\n
In Atlanta I had a wheelchair waiting for me at the exit from the plane.\u00a0 Then the man who pushed me actually pushed two chairs.\u00a0 He had to take us both on the train and in the elevators.\u00a0 It was very nice to have the help.\u00a0 In the wing where the gate was I needed for departure, there were no electric cars; only moving sidewalks, and it was a long way to baggage claim.<\/p>\n
When I got to Atlanta\u2019s baggage claim, there were my friends waiting for me.\u00a0 I was so happy to see them late that night.\u00a0 Not too far to the parking garage and \u201chome\u201d to Decatur.<\/p>\n
Thursday, my visit to cousin\u2019s houses and transportation by other cousins, went as planned.\u00a0 The only additions are that we enjoyed a tour of the stables and horses at the Marietta stop.\u00a0 We met her 30-year old Stallion and what a nice boy, gentle and still willing to stand in a \u201cshow\u201d pose.\u00a0 All of the horses loved the carrots my cousin brought for them.\u00a0 At the Mableton stop (to meet my 3rd<\/sup> cousin once removed), we viewed pictures of our old relatives, and talked about genealogy.\u00a0 It was totally fascinating.\u00a0 In Marietta, I met a whole bunch of cousins and their kids and grandkids that I had never met.\u00a0 We did plan a trip for lunch into the day, and had a good meal in a fancy restaurant.\u00a0 It was not fast food by any means.\u00a0 Dinner (Pit BBQ and Brunswick stew) we picked up on our way to Mableton and then once done with dinner in Marietta, we had leftovers, of which I carried some home to the place I was staying.\u00a0 The dinner was scrumptious.\u00a0 Added to the BBQ we brought, was potato salad , a great cake (cream cheese pound with thick creamy caramel frosting, rolls, chips, fruit, lettuce\/pea salad (best I\u2019ve ever had\u2014see the link below for the directions from my cousin-in-law who made it):<\/p>\n http:\/\/thewannabecountrygirl.com\/pea-salad\/<\/a><\/p>\n What a fantastic time and beautiful view of the woods down from the house to two pastures for their horses.\u00a0 They are sited on about 37 acres.\u00a0 Very neat.\u00a0 Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the house and people for John to see.\u00a0 I did take pictures of my cousin showing us her horses.<\/p>\n Friday. Was another full day, and after a breakfast with the family, the lady of the house and I went to The Container Store.\u00a0 We have been friends a very long time \u2013 because our mom\u2019s raised us as babies together.\u00a0 Most of our baby pictures have the two of us in them. \u00a0Back to the store, of which there is one in Bellevue, WA.\u00a0 This one was in Buckhead (old neighborhood near where I grew up); a fascinating place. I have never been in one.\u00a0 For the location of stores, check out this map:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.containerstore.com\/locations\/index.html<\/a><\/p>\n We were in search of a shoe container and two plastic boxes, one an egg box for storing decorated Easter eggs.\u00a0 While there my friend showed me around and we only saw a few rows of the store.\u00a0 I was amazed at all the containers I saw, and intrigued by the display of real things in them.\u00a0 Kinda like a mannequin in the window of a downtown department store with clothes of interest.\u00a0 We drove around in my old neighborhood of Garden Hills where I spent my grammar and high school days.\u00a0 She drove me by my old high school and my old grammar school:\u00a0 Garden Hills Elementary School, which is still in operation.\u00a0 My old house is no longer there on Piedmont Road, so that was a pity.\u00a0 Then on the way home we drove by my other house where I lived later in life (after 1963).\u00a0 I swear it is so ugly and unkempt that I\u2019m almost sorry I saw it.\u00a0 It had an extra driveway added across the tree roots, and not paved, and a large dark brown fence as if they did not want anyone to see in.\u00a0 They even fenced off the old carport.\u00a0 I think something was going on there that they didn\u2019t want seen.\u00a0 If you look on Google Earth, there is a large white roof in the structure in the backyard.\u00a0 I think it is a greenhouse and they are growing pot.\u00a0 We considered reporting it, but didn\u2019t.\u00a0 In case you want to see what I mean, look on Google Earth, or the Satellite view on<\/p>\n http:\/\/maps.google.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n for 1938 Fisher Trail, NE, Atlanta, GA.\u00a0 You will see the large white structure in the backyard (west of the house) in the image.\u00a0 My friend also drove me by Echo Lake further up Briarcliff Road to bring back memories.\u00a0 That\u2019s where I caught a large fish when I was a kid (won a contest\u2014it was a \u00be lb Catfish).\u00a0 That\u2019s also where I learned from my uncle, how to fly cast.\u00a0 My dad had already taught me to do regular casting.<\/p>\n We came on home and I rested for an hour or so, and then my friend and I went to the reception and registration at the Atlanta Marriott Buckhead Hotel & Conference Center<\/a> at Lenox Square.\u00a0 She knew many of my classmates from her church, but she graduated from a different high school (and they had their reunion the previous weekend).\u00a0 She and I met several of our crew in the elevator and found our way to the proper ballroom.\u00a0\u00a0 I grabbed my registration materials and we found a mutual friend.\u00a0 I visited a bit with folks and had a good time.\u00a0 It was amazing to see how some people had not changed that much in 50 years, but others were unrecognizable.\u00a0 It was loads of fun to reminisce.\u00a0 I came from the farthest distance, but there was one fellow who is in Budapest who would have \u201cbeaten me for the prize,\u201d but there was none.\u00a0 After the reception was done we left to be at the Druid Hills Country Club for an evening meal with the couple and me and her friend from my class.\u00a0 We had a great dinner of scallops with a nice salad, and I had a cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e<\/em> for dessert.\u00a0 Yum.\u00a0 Something I never remember having in my life.\u00a0 It is composed of egg yolks, white and brown sugar, vanilla, and heavy cream.\u00a0 With a blowtorch, it is flamed on top to have a little hard crust.\u00a0 Pretty neat and very tasty.\u00a0 Check out the you-tube video below to see how it\u2019s done and what the final product looks like.\u00a0 Mine was served with a dollop of whipped cream and a strawberry on top.\u00a0 (Don\u2019t even try to start counting calories or carbs or fat or cholesterol !)<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=b_16ZZtTH_Y<\/a><\/p>\n Saturday morning I was picked up by a friend from high school days, who lives in Decatur, 1.5 miles from where I was staying.\u00a0 She drove me to our old high school for the 45 minute tour, led by one of our classmates on the Reunion Committee and still living in Atlanta.\u00a0 Small groups of about 12 went through, and we went on the \u201creverse tour\u201d only running into one group we passed in the hallway. John has already included in last week\u2019s blog the use of the school now.\u00a0 I took a lot of pictures for memories.\u00a0 After that tour we piled into my friend\u2019s car with the addition of two classmates, and drove to the Varsity down town.\u00a0 Again, John mentioned that to you last blog, but you don\u2019t know what I had.\u00a0 I ordered an order of Fried Onions, a chili dog, and a frosted orange.\u00a0 Twenty of our classmates showed up and we sat at adjoining tables and booths.\u00a0 A lot of fun was had by all.\u00a0 The most interesting thing that happened there was hearing from my fellow classmate that he had worked in the medical industry on cardiac devices.\u00a0 I asked which company.\u00a0 It was Medtronic.\u00a0 He showed me his ring from the company.\u00a0 I said, \u201cOh, I have a Medtronic artificial porcine heart valve, and pulled out my wallet card for it.\u00a0 He looked at it and held it over behind his left side and started telling me a story about something he had marketed and the fellow\u2019s name.\u00a0 It was a neat story and the name Hancock was mentioned.\u00a0 After that build-up, he brought the card back to the front of us and turned it over and showed me that I had that \u201cissue\u201d of a Hancock porcine valve, called a Hancock\u00ae<\/sup> II Mitral valve.\u00a0 It has been used in patients for the past 25 years.<\/p>\n On the link below, read more about it, if you want:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.medtronic.com\/health-consumers\/heart-valve-disease\/about-surgery\/our-heart-valve-products\/hancock-ii-tissue-valve\/<\/a><\/p>\n Although I met a wonderful bunch of friends all the way back to grammar school days, I think this was the most memorable occurrence while in Atlanta, May 20, 2011.<\/p>\n That evening I saw many of my old classmates and we shared memories.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t get around to everyone there.\u00a0 Guess we will have to reconnect at the 55th<\/sup>.\u00a0 One other special one was the gal in my class who also was in my church, and we started in the Cherub Choir together at 2.5 years of age.\u00a0 She brought a photograph taken of us when we were about that age, maybe 3 or 4.\u00a0 I tried taking pictures of the picture but had trouble with the flash reflection.\u00a0 I hope to get her to scan it and send it to me on email.\u00a0 It was very clear where we were and the gal between us was also a NFHS graduate, but she has since died.<\/p>\n I was too tired to make it to the ending at midnight, and I had gone with my friend and her friend in his convertible.\u00a0 They stopped in Decatur, to pick me up.\u00a0 I made a call about 10:30 to my friends where I was staying and asked if they could come pick me up.\u00a0 Thankfully, they did.\u00a0 It had just been too long a day.\u00a0 I was fading fast.<\/p>\n I neglected to say we had a fabulous dinner.\u00a0 Everything was excellent and hot.\u00a0 That\u2019s quite a feat with 95 classmates (including two teachers from our day and their wives), and about 40 spouses, or significant others.<\/p>\n On to Sunday.\u00a0 It was going to be spent entirely with the couple I was staying with and their children and grandchildren.\u00a0 It was a wonderful day.\u00a0 We actually started out going to an event at the historic Oakland Cemetery downtown — Tunes From The Tombs: \u00a0A Weekend of Music and Spirits Benefiting Historic Oakland Cemetery<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 The temperature was in the mid-90s and there was no driving through the cemetery allowed.\u00a0 My father and grandfathers and mothers and great grandparents are buried there.\u00a0 We decided that parking so far away and walking in was not something I was up to doing and they didn\u2019t want to try either.\u00a0 So, we left there and went on out to Snellville (by Stone Mountain, where John and I spent our honeymoon, once canoed in the lake to watch fireworks, and also our high school class went there after graduation to climb to the top on the \u201ceasy\u201d side.).<\/p>\n A fascinating slide show is on their website of restoration necessary after damage done to downtown Atlanta by a tornado on March 14, 2008.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even know about this.<\/p>\n http:\/\/oaklandcemetery.com\/restoration.html<\/a><\/p>\n Another neat website is the Southern Hiker coverage of the 1.3 mile hike up the mountain to the top:<\/p>\n http:\/\/southernhiker.com\/stone-mountain-walk-up-trail\/<\/a><\/p>\n Of further interest is the bas relief carved on the side of the mountain of 3 Confederate generals.\u00a0 The one in the middle is Robert E. Lee with his horse Traveller.\u00a0 I am kin to him, and my maiden middle name is Lee.\u00a0 I\u2019m Nancy Lee Brannen Hultquist.<\/p>\n http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:STNmtn_closeup.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n will show you the carving on the side of Stone Mountain.\u00a0 The mountain is an igneous intrusion and composed mostly of quartz Monzonite forming a dome or monadnock.<\/p>\n We were going to Snellville to watch their grandson (#22) play baseball.\u00a0 We got to meet him before the game, see him bat, and then we had to get back home to meet their son and another grandson.\u00a0 That night dinner was grilled pork loin roast, snow peas, and I\u2019ve forgotten the rest of the menu.\u00a0 We had two kinds of ice cream for dessert.\u00a0 We had an enjoyable visit with the family and with a 2-year old Boxer, who loves to hug people.\u00a0 He was very well behaved and part of the family, completely at home at the grandparents\u2019 home.<\/p>\n Monday brought another great visiting day.\u00a0 A college friend and her sister picked me up and we drove to a newly (2006) incorporated town called Johns Creek in north Fulton County.\u00a0 There we visited with my first geography teacher (1962) and his wife.\u00a0 They were also the chaperones on my 1965 Geography Field Trip to Europe.\u00a0 You have already been introduced to a little of this in last week\u2019s blog, with John\u2019s additions and edits.\u00a0 While there we got a complete tour of their house.\u00a0 Then we went with them to lunch in an eatery fairly close by, called Egg Harbor.\u00a0 Really a cool place:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/egg-harbor-cafe-johns-creek<\/a> will give you reviews, but this is their website:\u00a0 http:\/\/eggharborcafe.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n My geography professor had Barrington Benedict (grilled Canadian bacon and poached eggs on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce, with Harbor potatoes.\u00a0 I had a Bacado Omelet, with crispy bacon, fresh avocado, melted Jack cheese, topped with sour cream and a great salsa, served also with a side of harbor potatoes and an English muffin.\u00a0 It was excellent, but after looking at the menu on line, I might have ordered something unique such as their GA cheese grits and eggs.\u00a0 One of us had French toast, and I don\u2019t recall what the other two had.\u00a0 We took a few group pictures, and left.\u00a0 Our tour continued down Piedmont Road and to the \u201cMidtown\u201d area, where the sister of my friend lives.\u00a0 It is right across the street from where my friend who housed me grew up as a child and I visited her and her grandparents\u2019 house on the corner.\u00a0 Small world, because these people knew each other from their church.<\/p>\n That evening we went to an Irish pub for dinner with one of their friends and had fish and chips.\u00a0 The guys left and went over to the other guy\u2019s house to sharpen his chain saw so they could take it with them this weekend to cleanup some of the fallen trees at their Lake Burton house that was damaged a lot by the tornado that went through on May 4th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n Tuesday was another visiting day, first attending the Voter\u2019s Guild meeting and lecture after lunch at the Druid Hills Country Club.\u00a0 I was fascinated by the hats worn by most \u00a0of the women in attendance.\u00a0 One woman had on a particularly large and interesting light green hat, which turned out to be one she wore to this year\u2019s Kentucky Derby.\u00a0 I was snapping pictures left and right and meeting people.\u00a0 The meal was excellent too.\u00a0 My friend\u2019s husband joined us for lunch, and then went back to work at his office downtown at the State Bar of Georgia, now housed in the old Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta building on Marietta St.\u00a0 After lunch, we went for a visit and tour of the building.\u00a0 Meanwhile, we listened to an after dinner speaker on the importance of privacy rights to citizens.\u00a0 His name is Bob Barr, and he was a former federal prosecutor and former member of the US House of Representatives.\u00a0 He represented Georgia\u2019s 7th<\/sup> congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003.\u00a0 He was the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the US in the 2008 election.\u00a0 He was an interesting speaker.<\/p>\n We left the country club and made our way downtown, through Georgia State University, and by the parking garage I used to park in.\u00a0 The school has expanded so much that I didn\u2019t recognize anything.\u00a0 I was there from 1962 till \u201965 and then came back and taught 2 years, \u201967 to \u201969 in Geography.\u00a0 John and I returned the summer of 1970 and taught a summer course together and John worked on a research project at the Atlanta Airport.\u00a0 We made it by back streets to the parking garage of the old Federal Reserve building and went inside to my friend\u2019s husband\u2019s office.\u00a0 He was the General Counsel for the Georgia bar for many years till 2010 (I think).\u00a0 He now is still going to the office every day and taking part in business.\u00a0 Every 2 weeks he is on call for Ethics questions from lawyers all around the state.\u00a0 The week I was there he talked one day over his 8 hours to 30 lawyers.<\/p>\n He took us on a tour of the building, the old Federal Reserve. It was particularly interesting seeing old telephone booths, the old vault, the windows where John and I bought $100 of pennies for his dad long ago (probably in 1970), we even saw the first floor rebuilt office of Woodrow Wilson, who practiced law in Atlanta, long ago.\u00a0 They have his old office, the roll-top desk he used, and the wooden door of the office.\u00a0 There are huge conference rooms and old furniture and beautiful rugs the Feds left there.\u00a0 We even saw the shooting range in the basement where the guards practiced their gun skills.<\/p>\n That evening we went again to the Irish Pub for dinner.\u00a0 This time we had Shepherd\u2019s Pie.\u00a0 We went back because they have an open mike type environment for Irish and Celtic music.\u00a0 There was one group of folks there who played a little Irish music mixed in with some Appalachian blue grass.\u00a0 There were several fiddles, a mandolin, and guitar.\u00a0 I was in heaven but we could only stay for an hour, because I needed to pack for my trip home the next day.<\/p>\n When we got back to the car, my friend put in a CD of Appalachian Fiddle music.\u00a0 Then she brought it in the house and found another so we sang and listened all the way home and then sat there for a couple hours in their house.\u00a0 She pulled out her birthday present, a Dulcimer, which she just got last November, and hasn\u2019t yet learned how to play.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how to tune one from scratch (yet) but I did play the melody on the bottom string (or I tried).\u00a0 It was really hard to keep up with the fast tempo of the music being played (even though I knew most of the songs).\u00a0 If I had had my fiddle I would have not been able to keep up either.<\/p>\n So, we stayed up till late, and we enjoyed ourselves very much for our last night together.\u00a0 We got up at 6:30 the next morning, ate a nice breakfast, and took off for the airport.\u00a0 It was a good trip back, and my nicest item to mention about the Atlanta airport is that I did not have to wait in line to request a wheelchair.\u00a0 Instead, the staging area for wheelchairs was across from the check-in counters (and long lines of people).\u00a0 I was off and being pushed to my gate, very soon.\u00a0 I got on the plane easily, and the trip was on time, but when we got over Kansas, we ran into horrible turbulence \u2013 the worst I have ever experienced for an extended time.\u00a0 The pilot even moved down from 38,000 feet to 32,000 and it helped for 5 minutes and then started up again.\u00a0 I was happy the plane didn\u2019t break up.\u00a0 We had no view of the ground the entire trip (so much for paying extra for a window seat).\u00a0 It was raining in Seattle when we arrived, but we had a nice landing and we were early by a half hour.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that time was made up by waiting on the tarmac for a slot to pull into.\u00a0 I was the last person off the plane and there was no wheelchair waiting.\u00a0 I was in the wing without electric cars and the trip to baggage was more than I could attempt.\u00a0 So, I waited.\u00a0 They recalled for a chair for me.\u00a0 I waited.\u00a0 Finally a person appeared.\u00a0 I was starting to worry about making it to baggage claim gate 00 where I was to pick up my Airport Shuttle, but thankfully, I made it with only 5 minutes to spare.\u00a0 Phew.\u00a0 Rained on us all the way back across the pass and into Ellensburg.\u00a0 We were early because we didn\u2019t have to stop in North Bend for anyone, and we didn\u2019t run into a 30 minute delay on the Snoqualmie Pass road construction that had happened every day for the past several.\u00a0 John met me at Starbucks in Ellensburg, and I was so happy to see him and be home safely.\u00a0 Coming home was also nice when I walked into the house and all the dogs and cat greeted me with open paws.<\/p>\n It\u2019s taken me a couple of days to recover and I have been sleeping as much as 9 hours\/night.<\/p>\n Thanks to all the people I saw while in and about Atlanta the region.\u00a0 This was a very special trip for me and I am very happy I was healthy enough to make it.\u00a0 I\u2019m very grateful to my friends for housing me for a week and chauffeuring me all over town.\u00a0 Thanks, as well, to my other friends and relatives who transported me to various visits and events.\u00a0 I\u2019m already looking forward to the 55th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n All our best regards from Nancy<\/p>\n (home on the Naneum Fan)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WARNING, THIS IS LONG. I will fill in a few items from last week that weren\u2019t in this blog previously.\u00a0 All the effort I went to get the letter from my doctor was useless as was putting all my wallet cards in a conference name tag around my neck.\u00a0 The TSA people only looked at … Continue reading “Reflections on Trip to Atlanta”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-cG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:STNmtn_closeup.jpg<\/a><\/p>\nwill show you the carving on the side of Stone Mountain.\u00a0 The mountain is an igneous intrusion and composed mostly of quartz Monzonite forming a dome or monadnock.<\/p>\nWe were going to Snellville to watch their grandson (#22) play baseball.\u00a0 We got to meet him before the game, see him bat, and then we had to get back home to meet their son and another grandson.\u00a0 That night dinner was grilled pork loin roast, snow peas, and I\u2019ve forgotten the rest of the menu.\u00a0 We had two kinds of ice cream for dessert.\u00a0 We had an enjoyable visit with the family and with a 2-year old Boxer, who loves to hug people.\u00a0 He was very well behaved and part of the family, completely at home at the grandparents\u2019 home.<\/p>\nMonday brought another great visiting day.\u00a0 A college friend and her sister picked me up and we drove to a newly (2006) incorporated town called Johns Creek in north Fulton County.\u00a0 There we visited with my first geography teacher (1962) and his wife.\u00a0 They were also the chaperones on my 1965 Geography Field Trip to Europe.\u00a0 You have already been introduced to a little of this in last week\u2019s blog, with John\u2019s additions and edits.\u00a0 While there we got a complete tour of their house.\u00a0 Then we went with them to lunch in an eatery fairly close by, called Egg Harbor.\u00a0 Really a cool place:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/egg-harbor-cafe-johns-creek<\/a> will give you reviews, but this is their website:\u00a0 http:\/\/eggharborcafe.com\/<\/a><\/p>\nMy geography professor had Barrington Benedict (grilled Canadian bacon and poached eggs on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce, with Harbor potatoes.\u00a0 I had a Bacado Omelet, with crispy bacon, fresh avocado, melted Jack cheese, topped with sour cream and a great salsa, served also with a side of harbor potatoes and an English muffin.\u00a0 It was excellent, but after looking at the menu on line, I might have ordered something unique such as their GA cheese grits and eggs.\u00a0 One of us had French toast, and I don\u2019t recall what the other two had.\u00a0 We took a few group pictures, and left.\u00a0 Our tour continued down Piedmont Road and to the \u201cMidtown\u201d area, where the sister of my friend lives.\u00a0 It is right across the street from where my friend who housed me grew up as a child and I visited her and her grandparents\u2019 house on the corner.\u00a0 Small world, because these people knew each other from their church.<\/p>\nThat evening we went to an Irish pub for dinner with one of their friends and had fish and chips.\u00a0 The guys left and went over to the other guy\u2019s house to sharpen his chain saw so they could take it with them this weekend to cleanup some of the fallen trees at their Lake Burton house that was damaged a lot by the tornado that went through on May 4th<\/sup>.<\/p>\nTuesday was another visiting day, first attending the Voter\u2019s Guild meeting and lecture after lunch at the Druid Hills Country Club.\u00a0 I was fascinated by the hats worn by most \u00a0of the women in attendance.\u00a0 One woman had on a particularly large and interesting light green hat, which turned out to be one she wore to this year\u2019s Kentucky Derby.\u00a0 I was snapping pictures left and right and meeting people.\u00a0 The meal was excellent too.\u00a0 My friend\u2019s husband joined us for lunch, and then went back to work at his office downtown at the State Bar of Georgia, now housed in the old Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta building on Marietta St.\u00a0 After lunch, we went for a visit and tour of the building.\u00a0 Meanwhile, we listened to an after dinner speaker on the importance of privacy rights to citizens.\u00a0 His name is Bob Barr, and he was a former federal prosecutor and former member of the US House of Representatives.\u00a0 He represented Georgia\u2019s 7th<\/sup> congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003.\u00a0 He was the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the US in the 2008 election.\u00a0 He was an interesting speaker.<\/p>\nWe left the country club and made our way downtown, through Georgia State University, and by the parking garage I used to park in.\u00a0 The school has expanded so much that I didn\u2019t recognize anything.\u00a0 I was there from 1962 till \u201965 and then came back and taught 2 years, \u201967 to \u201969 in Geography.\u00a0 John and I returned the summer of 1970 and taught a summer course together and John worked on a research project at the Atlanta Airport.\u00a0 We made it by back streets to the parking garage of the old Federal Reserve building and went inside to my friend\u2019s husband\u2019s office.\u00a0 He was the General Counsel for the Georgia bar for many years till 2010 (I think).\u00a0 He now is still going to the office every day and taking part in business.\u00a0 Every 2 weeks he is on call for Ethics questions from lawyers all around the state.\u00a0 The week I was there he talked one day over his 8 hours to 30 lawyers.<\/p>\nHe took us on a tour of the building, the old Federal Reserve. It was particularly interesting seeing old telephone booths, the old vault, the windows where John and I bought $100 of pennies for his dad long ago (probably in 1970), we even saw the first floor rebuilt office of Woodrow Wilson, who practiced law in Atlanta, long ago.\u00a0 They have his old office, the roll-top desk he used, and the wooden door of the office.\u00a0 There are huge conference rooms and old furniture and beautiful rugs the Feds left there.\u00a0 We even saw the shooting range in the basement where the guards practiced their gun skills.<\/p>\nThat evening we went again to the Irish Pub for dinner.\u00a0 This time we had Shepherd\u2019s Pie.\u00a0 We went back because they have an open mike type environment for Irish and Celtic music.\u00a0 There was one group of folks there who played a little Irish music mixed in with some Appalachian blue grass.\u00a0 There were several fiddles, a mandolin, and guitar.\u00a0 I was in heaven but we could only stay for an hour, because I needed to pack for my trip home the next day.<\/p>\nWhen we got back to the car, my friend put in a CD of Appalachian Fiddle music.\u00a0 Then she brought it in the house and found another so we sang and listened all the way home and then sat there for a couple hours in their house.\u00a0 She pulled out her birthday present, a Dulcimer, which she just got last November, and hasn\u2019t yet learned how to play.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how to tune one from scratch (yet) but I did play the melody on the bottom string (or I tried).\u00a0 It was really hard to keep up with the fast tempo of the music being played (even though I knew most of the songs).\u00a0 If I had had my fiddle I would have not been able to keep up either.<\/p>\nSo, we stayed up till late, and we enjoyed ourselves very much for our last night together.\u00a0 We got up at 6:30 the next morning, ate a nice breakfast, and took off for the airport.\u00a0 It was a good trip back, and my nicest item to mention about the Atlanta airport is that I did not have to wait in line to request a wheelchair.\u00a0 Instead, the staging area for wheelchairs was across from the check-in counters (and long lines of people).\u00a0 I was off and being pushed to my gate, very soon.\u00a0 I got on the plane easily, and the trip was on time, but when we got over Kansas, we ran into horrible turbulence \u2013 the worst I have ever experienced for an extended time.\u00a0 The pilot even moved down from 38,000 feet to 32,000 and it helped for 5 minutes and then started up again.\u00a0 I was happy the plane didn\u2019t break up.\u00a0 We had no view of the ground the entire trip (so much for paying extra for a window seat).\u00a0 It was raining in Seattle when we arrived, but we had a nice landing and we were early by a half hour.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that time was made up by waiting on the tarmac for a slot to pull into.\u00a0 I was the last person off the plane and there was no wheelchair waiting.\u00a0 I was in the wing without electric cars and the trip to baggage was more than I could attempt.\u00a0 So, I waited.\u00a0 They recalled for a chair for me.\u00a0 I waited.\u00a0 Finally a person appeared.\u00a0 I was starting to worry about making it to baggage claim gate 00 where I was to pick up my Airport Shuttle, but thankfully, I made it with only 5 minutes to spare.\u00a0 Phew.\u00a0 Rained on us all the way back across the pass and into Ellensburg.\u00a0 We were early because we didn\u2019t have to stop in North Bend for anyone, and we didn\u2019t run into a 30 minute delay on the Snoqualmie Pass road construction that had happened every day for the past several.\u00a0 John met me at Starbucks in Ellensburg, and I was so happy to see him and be home safely.\u00a0 Coming home was also nice when I walked into the house and all the dogs and cat greeted me with open paws.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s taken me a couple of days to recover and I have been sleeping as much as 9 hours\/night.<\/p>\nThanks to all the people I saw while in and about Atlanta the region.\u00a0 This was a very special trip for me and I am very happy I was healthy enough to make it.\u00a0 I\u2019m very grateful to my friends for housing me for a week and chauffeuring me all over town.\u00a0 Thanks, as well, to my other friends and relatives who transported me to various visits and events.\u00a0 I\u2019m already looking forward to the 55th<\/sup>.<\/p>\nAll our best regards from Nancy<\/p>\n(home on the Naneum Fan)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARNING, THIS IS LONG. I will fill in a few items from last week that weren\u2019t in this blog previously.\u00a0 All the effort I went to get the letter from my doctor was useless as was putting all my wallet cards in a conference name tag around my neck.\u00a0 The TSA people only looked at … Continue reading “Reflections on Trip to Atlanta”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-cG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:STNmtn_closeup.jpg\"){kind=link}