Atlanta — March 2022

Link to more photos. (View the photos individually to see the captions.)

This tour took us to Atlanta and vicinity. I chose this because although I have been through the Atlanta airport many times, I had never stayed to visit. 

I originally booked this for Spring 2020; COVID moved it first to 2021, then to 2022. During this delay, CNN stopped giving tours, and that was dropped from the itinerary.

We were to face further disappointments: Because of a winter storm in mid-March, the cherry blossoms were delayed.  This tour had been carefully timed to include Macon's International Cherry Blossom Festival:

but the entire festival was postponed a week. Instead of seeing multitudes of cherry blossoms, we saw very few. 

Also, when we visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park, the grounds were open, but the buildings, including the Visitor Center, were closed due to COVID. Of course, they re-opened the very next week.

Finally, when we visited Stone Mountain Park, the Summit Skyride was closed due to wind.

Despite all that, the trip was pretty good. The weather was mostly mild, with only a bit of rain one day and some strong winds on our last day. 

We did not choose the group air travel, but we did connect with the group when they arrived at the Atlanta airport, so we joined them for the bus to dinner and the hotel.

Monday, the first full tour day, included the Georgia State Capitol, a bit of the Atlanta Beltline, the World of Coca-Cola, and MLK Park. At the Coke headquarters, I finally was able to buy a couple of products I have been vaguely searching for: Coke Zero Starlight and Vanilla Coke Zero with Coffee. They were pricey — $2.50 and $3.50, respectively. I drank them later in the week; they were nothing special.

Tuesday, we went to Marietta for the Gone With the Wind Museum, and Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, then returned to the city for the Atlanta History Center, including Swan House and the Cyclorama. While on the bus, our tour guide showed us Gone With The Wind. I had not seen it in more than fifty years; now it seemed way too melodramatic, and Scarlett O'Hara was simply stupid.

Wednesday we were in Macon. A step-on guide showed us many historic Macon homes (we toured one, Hay House), and regaled us with stories of famous Macon musicians.

On Thursday, we went to FDR's Little White House in Warm Springs. On the bus traveling there, our guide showed us the movie Warm Springs, with Kenneth Branagh as FDR, which was quite good. I liked the displays at the park, but after the movie, I was disappointed that we didn't see pools full of spring water, just empty pools with one small bubbling water trough where we could touch the spring water. Later, we stopped at Callaway Gardens (more of a large forested park than a garden) and the included birds of prey program and Butterfly Center.

Friday was the last day with the tour group. We hit the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum and Stone Mountain Park, including its Historic Square of relocated period houses.

Victor and I stayed for one more day on our own. After considering many possibilities, we walked to Piedmont Park, where we stumbled upon the Atlanta Science Festival.

I was worried that Victor would not get much out of this trip, but he says he did enjoy it, even if he didn't know most of the history involved, including the U.S. Civil War!

And, repeating: Link to more photos. (View the photos individually to see the captions.)