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Published: October 1st 2011
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Atlanta; home of the Olympic Games (1996), home of Coca Cola, a huge sprawling city known as the Capital of the South and the home of the incredible and inspirational Martin Luther King Jr;. We were only passing through on our road trip back to Memphis where we had to return the damaged car and face whatever consequences lay ahead.
Before arriving at Danielle’s; our next couch-surf host, we stopped off at the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site. This comprised of his birth home, his grave and a museum dedicated to his work - all in the same block as the Ebenezer Baptist Church he used to preach at. Unfortunately we only got just over an hour before the museum shut, but it was still well worth the visit and we wish we could have spent longer there. The writings, short videos and pictures took a grip on both Mary and I, bringing us both close to tears. It was fascinating the belief this one man put in his followers by travelling over 350,000 miles to spread his belief that civil rights should be brought to all regardless of a person’s creed or colour. After watching these videos
we walked to his grave where there is an everlasting flame burning and where he is resting with his wife and we also walked up to his birth house; it was all a very thought provoking experience.
We made our way to Danielle’s house; at first we could not find the property, and our spirits were sunken when we pulled up at a rundown bungalow…luckily however she lived next door in a great house with a huge pond, bordering on a lake, in her back garden with two lovely dogs. She was a nice girl and very heavily into S&M and Bondage, but she was very open and honest about her kinky interest and was prepared to answer all of our insightful questions…although we made it perfectly clear that it did not float our boat!!
We woke early and made our way to Memphis to meet up with Chris and his house mates again as they let us stay for 2 more nights. It was great to see them all again and we had a few beers and laughs. The next day we drove back into the city to pick up our police report for the accident…15 cents it
costs Tennessee citizens, but because I’m English, they charged me $15 for the privilege…cheers!
Anyhow, with that job done we returned to the house and sorted our bags out for the following day’s bus journey to Knoxville. That night we ended up making a few cocktails and staying up until the early hours chatting with Vance and Baker; a great night – we will miss these guys.
In the morning we said our farewells and took the car back to the rental garage. The manager I had been dealing with in dispute of them charging me an extra $160 for Mary to drive (I managed to get them to waiver this) he was not in, so I had a little argument over this which I think may have distracted them from the damage but they closed the contract and said nothing about the dint and scratched paintwork…so naturally I kept my mouth shut and we got away with it…woohoo. We caught the public bus to the station which was a laugh and got talking to a newlywed couple before arriving at the station for the 10 hour journey, which actually didn’t go so bad.
We arrived late on
MLK Cart
This is the original cart that carried his coffin and caught a taxi to our next hosts, a young married couple called Kayla and Luther who were really nice and welcomed us in. We had a brief chat but we were all so tired we turned in for the night.
The following day the two hosts had work, so Mary and I spent the day doing job related tasks on the internet and I had a phone interview back home that went well. After a good 6 hours spent on this we went for a walk into town and had a few beers that lead to a few more, and then a few more! During the walk back Mary and I were having a heated dispute about which fast food place to go to when Luther and Kayla pulled up in the car, a bit embarrassed, but argument solved, they took us to Sonic Burger to have a bit of super. We sat there laughing and talking and we really enjoyed their company and before we knew it, it was 2 am way past our bed time!
The next morning we had to meet Janice Musik – the owner of the Kentucky farm we are going to
work on. Before this though Kayla cooked up a lovely breakfast – toast, her specialty eggs, Sausage Pates and pineapple...mmm delicious. Luther ran off to work and Kayla kindly drove us to the farmers market where we had a stroll around before saying farewell, and introducing ourselves to Jan and Helen (another woofer). On first appearances they both seemed very chilled and relaxed…just what we need for the two weeks farm work that lay ahead.
Next installment in 2 weeks after our work is done on the farm…
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julie Waters-Barcomb
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the dented car
did we miss how you dented the car? What happened? Also, for some reason Joe is not receiving your blogs. Can you put him back on the list? Thanks