Atlanta in a Day--First Half

Garsh. Monday finally arrived and I was ready to go first thing. Got the kids up and ready and I had my bags by the back door by 7:30 a.m. Then mom came upstairs. She hardly ever comes upstairs before lunch time. So we chatted for a bit and then she headed back down to her apartment. I headed for the back door. Then here she came again. I asked her if everything was ok and she said yes. But she was still kind of wandering around. I thought "Of all the days to do this!" I know, bad on my part, but garsh! Perhaps her TV wasn't working, so I took her down and turned it on for her. Another clue that things were askew. Her TV was not on. She turns her TV on as soon as she awakes and it is on until she goes to bed. Well, she seemed ok with that. And so, I went upstairs and high tailed it out of there about 8:30 a.m.

It was a beautiful drive through the Appalachian Mountains. You can see the ups and downs and winding roads are a bit to handle, especially for truckers. They build these stopping ramps in case a truck loses his breaks, I suppose. Ooooof, I'd hate to have to use one of those dirt ramps to come to a stop!

It was a perfect day for a short three-hour drive. But I was glad when I finally hit Atlanta. Of course, the GPS put me off course and landed me on Peachtree--only at the wrong end of the city! But no worries, I enjoyed the trip down memory lane. Not that anything looked the same. Geesh. Buckhead is going through growing pains (and I mean major development by that, which showed in all the work being done on the streets! Geesh, I thought it was pretty posh before!). I felt like I was in DC again! ha. The streets were narrow due to all the construction and I had to get used to that. It's been a while since I've driven in a large metropolitan city!

When I finally made it to downtown, I noticed windows missing from a lot of the taller buildings. I had completely forgot about the tornado that hit last month! Ooooof. How scary. I finally made it to my hotel, dropped my bags off because my room wasn't ready and took a bee line to Amy's hotel. She was waiting for me right out front and we just started cruising around the city. It was soooooooo good seeing her again. My bud Aim.

I had done a little research before leaving home for a couple of good Southern restaurants. I am my brother Jim's (food snob) sister, ya know. South City Kitchen came highly recommended. And that is just where we went for lunch. Yum.

First were their delicious corn bread muffins. I liked this one with the beak.

Aim ordered the chicken salad. "Dorothy's Chicken Salad Sandwich with melted Swiss cheese, house chips and horseradish slaw."

The waitress (who was sweet as pie) suggested the turkey sandwich for me since I was having a difficult time deciding. "House Roasted Turkey Sandwich--grilled vidalia onion, smoked bacon, bibb lettuce, horseradish honey mustard." It all was amazing, as you can well imagine. We unfortunately were too stuffed to have dessert which included an offering of banana pudding and pecan pie. Such a shame to miss out on those two any time!

After lunch, we just drove around the city catching up. Aim and I go way back to like 4th or 5th grade. She dated my brother (food snob) in jr. high school and practically lived with us. I feel she is more of a sister than a friend since we have been so close for so long. It was just the best being with her.