Atlanta, GA

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So we left Athens, having done little in the way of sight seeing, and much in the way of stressing out over car troubles and sickness. The next stop was Atlanta, Georgia. We knew the bus needed work, but there wasn't a mechanic in Athens who could do it, so we lined up a shop in Atlanta, and that was our first stop.

The Mechanics were so nice it was a little creepy. They took us to get food, and were super chatty and hospitable. They replaced our glow plugs and we were ready to go. Now Gimli starts up like a champ most of the time, and even when he doesn't, we know how to coerce him into starting.

We stayed with a really great girl named Danielle and her boyfriend, who we found on couchsurfing.com. They actually lived a little bit outside Atlanta. She had this beautiful house on a big piece of land. There was a huge pond and she had a cat, a dog, a parrot, two ducks, and five chickens. It was really freaking awesome and great. I guess it's a tradition in those parts to dye baby chicks around Easter, and Danielle's boyfriend worked at a feed store so they had a hookup, and got five baby chicks which were purple, green, yellow, blue, and orange. They were super cute, they ran around with a duckling that thought he was a chicken. Then there was Frodo, the strangest duck I've ever met. He was named for the puff of feathers on his head, he loved to bite toes, he would constantly be "talking," and crapping, and yet somehow you couldn't help but love the damn thing.

At night we lit off fireworks I'd purchased a while before, and that was really fantastic. The next night, Danielle wanted to show us Atlanta, so we went out and had a blast with her and her friend. The next day we had not much to do, and we figured it was high time Gimli had a wash, being that we'd never once washed him since we bought him. He looked great, so good in fact, that we decided to paint him a little bit. His name, as you know by this point, is Gimli, he's named for the Lord of the Rings Character who's full title is "Gimli son-of-gloin". So, in an attempt to have our bus look a bit nicer, while building on his name, we painted "Gloin and Son Co, Lonely Mountain District" (The character is from lonely mountain). So far only a small handfull of people have gotten the reference, but when they do, they love it.

We also went to the famous Atlanta Aquarium, it was pretty cool, although not anything you wouldn't see at other aquariums. Then we decided it was time to move on. We left for Memphis but only made it to Jasper, because one of the fuel lines that leads straight into our engine, just above the piston, broke. It was spraying veg oil all over the engine, smoking and smelling and other unsavory things. We got it towed to a local mechanic who wasn't able to replace the part, but was able to McGuyver (sp?) the broken part enough for us to get driving again. As time goes on, Gimli is starting to seem like the Millenium Falcon, with all the on-the-road patches and repairs. Atlanta was fun, but mainly for the people we were with, and less for the city itself.

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Photos

Hooray for explosives!!!
somehow lighting this right next to a bunch of other fireworks didn't seem like a bad idea at the time.

Frodo and Brandi
The coolest wierdest duck ever (I'm talking about the one on the left)

Gimli and Frodo
thank goodness for Lord of the Rings.

Comments

[jeff]

finally
i'm so glad wes finally got to shoot of some of those fireworks. it was a long time coming.