Last Week -- Atlanta, Georgia

Last Sunday morning, my good friend and colleague Leslie Evans and I headed to Atlanta for the SE Regional AWHONN (Association of Womens Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses) Conference held from Sunday thru Wednesday of this past week. The Conference was held at the Westin Hotel in North Atlanta near the Perimeter Mall. Leslie and I shared a room on the 18th floor and had a wonderful view of the surrounding area. The conference was well attended (over 200) and was a great way to network and learn. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! In the afternoons/evenings we wandered around Atlanta and enjoyed meals at Cracker Barrel, Cheesecake Factory (Leslie's first time) and Applebees. On Tuesday they let us out a little earlier than usual so we headed into Atlanta to see some of the sites! A good time was had by both of us! Warning: This is a long post!

After a 4 hour drive to Atlanta, we were ready to learn (and play)

Our room was very nice. This is how Leslie looked every night as she tried to brave the frigid cold of the 64 degree room (set by me the "hot mama"). She actually had both her comforter and my comforter on her bed!

Tuesday we decided to go into Atlanta and catch one of the Trolley tours! It was great--we had the Trolley and the driver to ourselves. Here are some pictures:

This is a bad picture, but the best I could get--it's of the Olympic Torch (and one ring) from the Olympics that Atlanta hosted in 1996.

Turner Field - the home of the Atlanta Braves (Go Mariners!!!). This ball field reminded me of Safeco Field in Seattle

More of Turner Field - this stadium was named after (and largely funded by) billionaire Ted Turner, who we learned owns the most amount of real estate in the world---over a billion (or was that a million?! Either way, he owns a lot of land) acres!

This is the area that Hank Aaron hit his record homer (obviously the stadium here was not there at the time of Hank Aaron)

This is Emmanuel Baptist Church where Martin Luther King, Jr was pastor. He actually was the pastor of two churches--this one and one in North Carolina.

This house is Martin Luther King Jr.'s boyhood home. He was born into an affluent family and his family lived in the nicest African-American neighborhood in Atlanta. The homes of this neighborhood are still very beautiful!

There is a large complex in the vicinity of Emmanuel Baptist Church and near his boyhood home.

It's a bit hard to see from this picture, but both Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King are buried here in the middle of the complex.

This home here is what is known as a shotgun house. It was built in the early 20th century and is only the width of one room and is only 3 rooms long. Apparently large families lived in this tiny space. They were called shotgun homes because you could fire a shotgun from the front door and it would go straight out the back door.

The Atlanta Hard Rock Cafe---one of the smallest Hard Rock Cafes built

It literally is a hole in the wall (and on the corner)

These sculptures just caught my eye. They reminded me of the beautiful and colorful pigs that adorn downtown Seattle

This is one of the tallest buildings in Atlanta - the Bank of America building. The steel grating of the top (you'll see it better in the next picture) has more steel in it than the Eiffel Tower.

Imagine this top having more steel than the Eiffel Tower - amazing!

A cool mansion that is unique in its architecture to everything else surrounding it. It was close to ruin, but lovingly restored

The lower apartment on the corner belonged to writer Margaret Mitchell who wrote the novel "Gone With the Wind". Apparently she thought the apartment was a dump, but insisted on living on Peachtree Street (it was a status thing)~ a side note: There are 68 Peachtree streets/avenues/loops, etc in Atlanta....but back to Margaret Mitchell:

Did you know that she never intended to publish her novel?! Yup, she turned down a publishing offer and when she told a woman about the offer at a party, the person responded, "well that's good, Peg, because no one would have read it anyway." She was so angry by that remark that she called the Publisher back the next day and asked for it to be published. It is now the second most published book in the world (the Bible is the first).

Other tidbits on Margaret Mitchell: She was eclectic, opinionated, and outspoken. Every afternoon she had a fully dressed butler deliver her three martinis (that butler was our trolley driver's grand-father) that she enjoyed prior to her husband getting home. It was required that the glasses be cleared and gone before 6:30pm when her husband, John got home. Apparently, she was far from nice or generous according to our driver! She was hit and killed by a car outside her home. There is an entire complex dedicated to her and for touring, but we did not have time to check it out.

This is the world famous Varsity downtown. It began as a hot dog stand and bloomed into this huge restaurant. It has car hops on the outside. According to the driver, it sells more than 20,000 (yes that is 20 THOUSAND) hotdogs EACH day. Leslie and I came back later and enjoyed one!

There are more than 600 parking slots out back!

The car hop area.

The sign from our car in the car hop area

Here is the menu: Check out these prices!!! My cheese hotdog cost me less than 2 bucks! The most expensive thing on the menu was the chicken salad for $6.59

The new location of the World of Coca-Cola---Atlanta is the home of Coke. Right next door is the brand new Aquarium (I have a picture, but I'm not posting it---it isn't the best)

Across the street---the National Museum of Patriotism

This cylindrical building was hit by a recent tornado that tore through downtown Atlanta. The building is lined with rounded glass---all the holes are broken windows. Unfortunately, the company that manufactured the windows originally is now out of business and they haven't found another vendor to replace them.

The Capitol building nestled amidst the congested mess

Our snack visit at Johnny Rocket's. This restaurant is patterned after a 50's diner. Our soda jerk was a cutie---even though he had never heard the term "soda jerk" and at first was a little offended until I explained to him what it meant. Surprisingly, Leslie wasn't familiar with the term either.

Down near the Underground. I thought this statue was nice and encouraged Leslie to cuddle up to her "boyfriend" for this cute picture!

Outside the back of our hotel on our last day. It was a great conference and we had wonderful weather the whole time! And, even after me freezing out our room for 3 nights, we are still good friends! :-)

We got home Wednesday evening. It was a great trip! We learned a lot! Next year the conference will be held on one of the Florida beaches--you can bet we'll be there! :-)