So for the last two weeks family and I have been in the good old US of A for the wedding of
jiggery_pokery and
dezzikitty. Much fun was had, but unfortunately for the whole 2 weeks, and no point were the 3 of us all of good health. I mean, to get gastroenteritis is unfortunate, but to then immediately follow that with influenza is surely just carelessness.
Anyway, off we fly to Atlanta airport, with Mark managing only to have one round of vomitting and diarrhea on the plane. It was a long flight, followed by a ridiculous three hours in the airport, in which time we queued, got our passports checked, queued, retrieved our baggage, queued, cleared customs, queued, gave our bags away again, queued, went through security again, queued, and then retrieved our baggage a second time. Why? Why did we have to re-check in our bags and clear security again? I'm told it's for very sensible reasons to do with a lack of separation between international and domestic parts of the airport, but I think it's just to discourage people from visiting Atlanta. Compare it to the London Gatwick when, 2 weeks later, we cleared the whole lot in under 15 minutes.
Advance warning if flying with a baby - you will have 3 persons luggage and only 1 person with free hands to shift it all. This makes for fun. On the second trip we had worked this out and carried Mark in his back carrier, giving us just about 2 people to shift the luggage, which we managed with much better.
So, having got to Atlanta we struggled our way to Avis to get our car, a behemoth of a tank to drive, but at least it had (just) enough room for all our stuff in the boot. From there to the least pleasant place I've ever stayed, the Days Inn Atlanta Airport South. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just there wasn't much right with it either. No remote for the TV, wallpaper not entirely attached to the walls, failure of the staff to actually replace the correct number of towels, that sort of thing. If you've ever seen My Name is Earl, you'll have the right mental picture. To top it off, there was the occasional noise of an aircraft about 20 feet overhead, which at least made a change from the constant noise of the I285 outside. In the morning it seemed ok really, but after our marathon journey there it really felt like it was the icing on a most unpleasant cake.
The following day we decided to take a trip to the middle of Atlanta. Here was our fatal flaw - assuming Atlanta had a middle to take a trip to. Atlanta, as a city, has lots of nice bits, but they are not especially connected to one another, and we had no useful guide telling us where they were. So, for the next couple of days we just drove around fairly randomly in Atlanta and surrounding environs. This was also because Sarah was feeling blergy, and I was getting the stomach trouble. Staying in our motel was not a particularly welcoming option, so sitting in a car looking at scenery was a reasonably pleasant way to spend the time. Also the car has air-conditioning and the weather is unseasonably hot. Had an exciting incident on the freeway when a pick-up truck in front of us shed its load of patio heaters over 2 lanes and we narrowly missed hitting one.
On Wednesday we picked up
gayparee at the airport. By a combination of us arriving an hour after he was due, the airport being slightly more efficient, and his flight being early, we only had to wait about 15-20 minutes for him. Then we squeezed him in the car with his suitcase on his lap and off to Athens we went.
Athens is a much nicer city than Atlanta, and the gameday condos where we were staying seems like the height of luxury to us after our dodgy motel experience. There's not much worth saying about this really, because anyone who might read this was probably there anyway, other than that it was a really nice wedding, and thanks to everyone we met for being so nice. We missed out on the evening fun after the wedding as Mark and Sarah now had got the 'flu. Ng. I head off at 5 in the morning to a 24-hour pharmacy to get Mark some medicine as he'd got a fever.
We had nothing planned for the night after leaving the condos. Everyone was recommending Savanah, but as we were feeling rough we decided to keep it a shorter drive and headed north into the moutains. We ended up spending the next 3 nights in a lodge room in Unicoi state park, which was a lovely place to stay in the woods. Illness abated enough for us to take a couple of hikes in the surrounding area and relax a bit. Sarah was chuffed because we saw a red cardinal close to.
The nearest town to Unicoi is Helen, which is nestled in the moutains by a river. For some reason the town decided that it would become a mock alpine village, complete with calling the streets things like 'Edelweiss Road'. It was a most bizarre place and fairly busy what with Spring break and all. They really had tried hard, but missed slightly by including a faux-windmill. I suppose from Georgia that the Alps and Holland do appear quite close, but it was still somewhat odd. The other problem was that we tried to have lunch in Helen, and all the places were serving a fusion cuisine of American and Bavarian, so it was the wurst place for us vegans. Ha ha.
In the end we found a little Mexican place. We were slightly apprehensive about getting suitable food, but our problems began earlier than that. We were asked if we'd like a drink. Sarah asked for an orange juice, and I said I'd just have water. It must be something with Mexican's learning English through Americans, but our waiter could not understand the word water, no matter how loudly and slowly I said it. "I'll just have water, thanks". "eh?" "Water". "Is it on the menu?" "Just water please". "Can you point to it on the menu". "It's not on the menu, I just want a glass of water". Anyway, he went away and returned with a small glass of clear liquid with ice in it. "Aha!" I thought, we worked it out. I took a swig, and realised he'd brought me vodka. That was a suprise. I called over the nearest waiter. "Hi, I asked for water but I've been brought vodka." "What did you want?" "Water". "Is it on the menu?" Arg. He takes my vodka away and the owner comes out. "Did you not like your vodka?" "I didn't want vodka, I wanted water". "What's that?" "You know, water". "Is it on the menu?". "Just a glass of water, you know, it comes out of a tap". "Could you point it out on the menu". At this point Sarah steps in, does her best American accent: "Wader, from a faucet". The owner looks like he's received divine inspiration. "Ah, wader!" He laughs, thinks the whole thing is hilarious, and returns with a glass of water. Phew.
After we depart Unicoi, we head roughly northwest, deciding to go to Rock City, Ruby Falls, and the Incline Railway, all 3 of which are next to each other by Chattanooga, and the leaflets look fun. About 2 hours driving to go, we start to see billboards for these places. All the time. I start to worry that this means they'll be crappy and expensive, rather than simple and nice. When we (eventually) get there and park, it turns out I was right. $15 per person per attraction. Gah. On top of that, I'm now coming down with the 'flu, so we decide to give it a miss, head south, and end up in Lafayette.
We find a Days Inn and decide to give them a second chance, and this one is lovely. Great room, friendly staff, quiet, comfy, 'fridge and microwave. To top it all off, the young guy in the office is wearing a
Kingdom of Loathing T-shirt, so we get chatting about that. Turns out he spends his time at work using the computer to play the game, making 'meat' (the in-game currency) and selling it for hard cash. He's apparently made over $8000 in 2 years doing this. Nice. The Days Inn is about 200 yards from a whacking great Walmart. There's no appreciable way to walk without getting run over, so I drive, and begin to understand why America has an obesity problem.
We spend the next couple of days with me feeling under the weather visiting a couple more state parks. A trip to Cloudland canyon is well worth it, and I reckon the view was probably better than that of Rock City, although I'm not in a position to judge. I doubt anyone at Rock City had a Red-Tailed Hawk fly past them at eye level less than 20 feet away though. By this time the weather has turned unseasonably cold, and it's only slightly above freezing with the wind chill. Brrr. The next day we go to Sloppy park and enjoy a pleasant hike to the old Marble mine. Sarah points out to me that there are lots of small chunks of marble along the path, and I feel silly for thinking they were mining small glass beads. It's a lovely place to go, and we hardly saw anyone else there at all.
On our last full day we decide, as we're all finally starting to feel better, to head to six flags over Georgia, the local big theme park. We queue to get into the queue to enter the car park, and find they have the cheek to charge for parking - $15 as well! We park, then join the queue for the restrooms (with no baby changing facilities, grr). We then see the 200-yard queue we need to join to queue to get to the queue to buy tickets, so that we can queue to enter. We figure that this means that we'd spend most of the day queuing inside the park too, so abandon the whole idea and leave, heading North to go and see some Indian mounds Sarah's interested in. After stopping for lunch in a mall foodcourt and getting sidetracked by looking at all the shops, then getting lost a bit, we arrive just in time to miss out on seeing the mounds, but have time for a quick tour and video in the attached museum which shuts 30 minutes later.
Final day, go to another shopping mall. This was the plan all along as a way of killing time before heading to the airport, but now that makes 2 in 2 days and this one's a little boring. Also, both of them made us feel queezy, so we guess they must do something funny with the air. Leave early and make a quick stop in a state park on the way for some nice air, before having a very painless check-in. The flight goes better going back, although Mark only sleeps for 3 hours. He spends the rest of the time flirting with everyone on board. Arrive back in England, and glad to be driving on the correct side of the road again, although it takes me all of 30 seconds to get used to the idea. Get home, knackered.
