Atlanta, Georgia

Dr Pemberton invented Coca Cola

Coca Cola, CNN, Gone with the Wind and home of the 1996 Olympics.

(And travelling on the Greyhound bus with the newly released prisoners.)

We just couldn’t pass Atlanta by with these  attractions on our doorstep.

We usually don’t drink Coca Cola, but we couldn’t resist a visit to the international home of Coca Cola.

Jon sampling one of the 63 varieties from around the world.

The Coca Cola Museum was well worth a visit.  We saw some amazing displays and items from over a century of production.  One of the highlights was a compilation of TV ads from around the world since the advent of television.  And the tour ended in the dispensing room, where we could sample 60-odd varieties of drinks that Coca cola produces around the world!  Jenny loved the peach tea.

Inside CNN Headquarters

CNN was also great.  We did the official tour through all the levels of the CNN building.  They do an amazing job processing the news from around the world!  What I can’t understand is how they do such a lousy job of it!  With so much amazing news happening in all parts of the globe, they persist with their ridiculous practice of banging on and on and on about the same topic!

Hint: cover the topic and move on!

Since our arrival in the USA we have been subjected to countless hours of coverage on their ‘breaking news’ topics.  Examples: the Jodi Arias murder case, the Boston bombings and the Ohio kidnappings.

A personal highlight was being chosen to read the nightly news service behind the news desk, off the auto-script.

Margaret Mitchell’s house, where she wrote ‘Gone with the Wind’ was also on our itinerary.  This was a great insight into her life and the subsequent making of the movie.

A final couple of highlights from our Atlanta visit were the Olympic Park and the Botanical Gardens.

If you go to Atlanta I would highly recommend strolling through both.  The first park features every medallist from the Atlanta Olympic Games 1996, while the Botanical Gardens is a magnificent, serene place to wander through.  It’s a bit of a contrast to much of the rest of the city.

Had a bit of fun leaving Atlanta.

We arrived at the Greyhound Bus Station on the same day  that they had released 20 prisoners.

In the words of the lady in the line ahead of us… “There’s some heavy shit happenin’ man.”

The guys were all dressed the same and held paper bags with their belongings. There were a lot of undercover cops everywhere.

They must have thought that Jon was one of the guards from the jail and kept calling him BOSS. eg. “Excuse me Boss, but what time does our bus leave?”

One of them changed into his old track pants before we left. He had obviously lost a huge amount of weight in jail as he had to twist the top of his pants around to hold them up.