Georgia on my mind

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Atlanta airport is one mighty hub of an airport. Once we had disembarked, and then walked what seemed like half a mile through the terminal, we then had to catch an overground tube/train shuttle 7 stops to get to the airport exit!

For money saving, again, Paul had booked the hire car at an off-airport location. Hint - did you know that, especially in the USA, hire companies charge an extra fee for airport car rentals to cover the costs that the airport charges them for site rental, bus transfers etc. And that this extra charge is determined as a %age of the booking fee, rather than a flat rate. 10% or more is the going rate, which on a 13 week car hire can mount up to a significant lump. So we took a taxi to an Enterprise location around 5 miles north of the airport.

Car picked up and we were off to our 'Cabin In The Woods' - and yes, we all three have watched both films of that name! With a brief stop at a Walmart for provisions, it was quite dark when we arrived at the turnoff from the interstate road. It turned out that the road into the forest was, surprise surprise, unmade and very rough, but fortunately, given the very wet weather, it was quite solid and gritty rather than mud. So, after some 'I'm sure we've gone too far!' from Pip, and 'No we haven't ' from Paul and Simon, we found the sign for our cabin, Arapaho.

What a delightful place. On three levels, entrance at the top floor with kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom. A half middle floor, with double bed and top single bunk. Then a lower floor sitting room. Decked outside from both master bedroom and sitting room, with rustic rockers upstairs and a swing seat downstairs. Fully equipped, typical ginormous US fridge, gas cooker, 2 teles with satellite TV, and blistering fast WiFi - very useful as Simon is needing to continue to run Wraptious whilst he is with us for these two weeks. It was also stuffed with cabin and bear related knick knacks, stuffed toy animals, .... Even a Xmas tree!

In the morning we awoke to tremendous downpours, that kept us in the cabin til mid-dayish. So we kept our travels light, travelling just up the road into Blue Ridge town for a couple of hours. A neat, compact place which has been developed to cater for, shall we say, a classy type of tourist. That is, it had many retail outlets, almost all local businesses rather than national chains, but wasn't particularly full of what you might call 'tat'. We then just chilled out back at the cabin, Simon working, Pip reading, Paul reading and falling asleep.

The following morning, our 38th wedding anniversary, Pip was first up and found that outside our cabin the bin had had its contents strewn across the slope opposite. Given the marks on the very heavy box lid that the rubbish bin was inside of, and the claw shaped dirt marks on the side of the bin, it would appear that during the night a bear had come along, opened the very heavy box lid, lifted out the bin inside and then rifled through all the old rubbish. Paul, when he got up, said he had heard what sounded like a cupboard door shutting during the night and had assumed it was Simon. But Simon, when up, confirmed it wasn't him who loudly closed a door during the night. So, a bear it must gave been then.

After the excitement of clearing the mess up we took ourselves off to Brasstown Bald , the highest peak in Georgia at 4784 feet. The name has nothing to do with musical instruments but is derived from a Cherokee word for place of green vegetation. But then it does get 5 - 8 feet of rain per year!

You drive up most of the way, and can then shuttle to the top or walk. So we walked. We are sure the views are wonderful - on a clear day. Unfortunately this was not a clear day, and the distance could only occasionally be glimpsed between the clouds and mist. But we enjoyed eating our packed lunches sitting on oversized rockers looking out into the mists. A good visitor centre at the top gave us a good insight into local life, settlers and local environment. There were still references to 'climate change'. Presume Trump or his staff haven't seen this!

We returned via Lake Blue Ridge, spending a pleasant hour or more at the water's edge. In fact the water looked soooo inviting that Simon couldn't resist a swim. But, for this day he hadn't come equipped, so he decided to skinny dip it! Thankfully he went around the corner to get into and back out from the lake!

We dined locally that evening at the Pink Pig BBQ, a pit-BBQ of which I'm sure we will sample many more in the coming weeks. We are targeting to get out of the states with no weight gain, a very tall order given the portion sizes here. So we shared a combo plate of 2 ribs, pulled pork, pulled brisket, fries and house-made baked beans. Whilst Simon had the same, to himself!

We set off this morning towards New Orleans, due to arrive tomorrow, Sunday. Distance driving in the US is so very easy. We did around 300 miles on interstate highway today, at a pretty steady 70mph, with barely a few hundred yards of roadworks. Try doing that across the UK!

We had a major stop at the Alabama state capital, Montgomery.

Montgomery has two significant features in US history.

On April 11, 1861, the Confederate Secretary of War sent a telegram from the Winter Building to General Beauregard, giving him the authority to shell Fort Sumter. This was the opening skirmish of the American Civil War. Related to this the city also has the first White House of the Confederacy, the home for Jefferson Davis, and family, the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. Entry is free, and the house ( which has been relocated within the city) has been lovingly restored and furnished with period pieces from the 1850s and 60s.

The other area in which Montgomery is etched into US history is its connection to the Civil Rights movement in general and Martin Luther King in particular. In 1955 seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus - busses were segregated then - to a white man, and was arrested for this. This spurred the first large scale demonstrations against segregation in the US, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days until the Supreme Court declared segregation on public transport to be unconstitutional. .

A prominent figure in this campaign was a local preacher, Dr Martin Luther King. Just up from where Rosa Parks was defiant is the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where Dr King was the aforesaid preacher. We were just in time for the last tour of the day, full of uplifting messages and oratory from the guide. We all linked arms & sang, "We shall overcome" which, given the latest riots in Charlottesville Virginia, had a certain resonance.

Just slightly further up Dexter Avenue is the State Capital Building, the first capital of the Confederacy. And the steps here were the finishing point for the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March, led by Dr King, in March 1965.

Also, near to the church is the Civil Rights Memorial Centre, which remembers the 40 men, women and children identified as dying in the struggle for equal rights during the period 1954 to 1968 / the death of MLK. In addition to the Memorial Centre / building there is also a granite memorial designed by the designer of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. The martyrs include activists who were targeted for death because of their civil rights work, random victims of vigilantes determined to halt the movement and individuals who, in sacrifice of their own lives, brought a new awareness to the struggle.

A very poignant and thought provoking memorial. These people stood up for their rights and the rights of others. Unfortunately we still need to fight for that justice across the world.

One other interesting piece of information about Montgomery - we saw the building credited as being the location of the western hemisphere's first open-heart surgery - though not sure where that leaves the first in the world - in 1902!!

As we left Montgomery the car thermometer was reading 97°F, though that did ease off 5° or so when moving.

We have stopped over for the night at Monroeville, a place that Pip has particularly wanted to visit since......well, whenever. That is because it is the home of Nelle Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Pip's favourite book. We had enough time after checkin to go into town centre and see the court house, several monuments and find Harper Lee's grave. Pip had always hoped that she would get to meet NHL, and unlikely as that ever was NHL's death in February 2016 put paid to that.

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