Atlanta

Sat. Mar. 12-Tue. Mar. 15: It was an uneventful but nearly all day drive from Savannah to Atlanta in mid-seventies sunshine. We found the RV Park at which we had a reservation for two nights. It’s good we had the reservation because they apparently did fill up. It’s certainly no great shakes but it will do. By the time we were set up it was time to watch the Spartans play PSU in the third game of the Big Ten Tournament. Sadly, we lost big time but what ya gonna do? Our plan was to be up bright and early to go to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park but after I had taken an early shower in the morning we remembered that it was Daylight Savings Time and an hour later than we thought. Yogurt made a quick breakfast and we were still to the Park by 10:00. Even though we were one of only about a dozen cars in the lot and we could see very few people we found that the first guided tour of his birthplace home was at 12:30. That was a little bit later than we wanted so we settled for seeing the film, looking at the displays in the center, and walking up the block to see Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Historic Fire Station, and the house where he was born. After a stop at Zesto Drive-In (begun in 1949) for their famous Double Decker, the GPS took us right to Rachel and Michael’s house. We got “the tour” of their cute, cute house, chatted for a while sitting in the 75° sunshine on their back porch, and then Michael drove us all to Atlanta’s wonderful Aquarium where we saw all of their splendid displays—Arctic, Tropical, Amazon and Mississippi Rivers, the 6 million gallon ocean tank with 4 whale sharks, giant rays and numerous other fish. When we left at 5:00 we walked around the building and looked at the adjacent Centennial Park. Then Michael drove us to “Six Feet Under” for dinner. This Atlanta hot spot is across the street from the historic Oakland Cemetery, where generations of venerable Atlanta families are buried. After wandering around and looking at the amazing crypts, graves and statuary we had a fabulous dinner at the restaurant decorated with old beer ads, a huge collection of old beer cans and other eclectic items like an old balloon tire bicycle. It was great and the food was amazing. Marv had blackened catfish, I had bar-b-qued salmon, Michael had fried catfish, and Rachel had their specialty, shrimp and grits. During dinner we found out that MSU was a 10^th seed in the NCAA tournament, keeping Tom Izzo’s streak of NCAA appearances alive. We said our good-byes back at their house and Marv and I returned to the camper and watched most of “The Terminal” on TV before going to bed.