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Yoy, I didn't mean for it to be such a gap between posts. I mean, I read my circle and try to comment, but then it's another level of umph to think of something to say. Even if I see a Friday Five or a daily question meme, it takes me a ridiculous amount of time to compose an answer, which is the segue to the travel-related, semi-recent Friday Five
1) What's the furthest place you've traveled to in the last 12 months?
D & I drove down to Pensacola Beach in March to hang out with various members of his family, which took about 6 hours. I drove the kids over to Pawleys Island for the traditional (albeit, reduced) Beach Week, and then L & M & I hit Hilton Head for a long weekend, but those are all right around 5.5 hours, so I think PB wins. D & I are possibly going to Amelia Island in a few weeks (depending on health issues, etc) so that might give PB a run for its money, distance-wise.
2) What's the most interesting small town within driving distance?
Well. This is from a US-ian point of view, so anything under 10 hours is driving distance... Possibly somewhere up in the Great Smokies? Waynesville or Highlands in North Carolina? They're maybe a little too touristy/cutesie, but the mountain scenery is lovely and they're only a couple of hours away. Sea Island down on the southern coast of Georgia is a little too rich for my blood, but at least it's not like Hilton Head where there was nothing there until developers snapped up all the land and created a 'destination'. Serenbe, just south of the city, is a planned community (an 'urban village', I think they call it, ::rolls eyes::) that is headed in that direction.)
3) What's the coolest tourist attraction in your city?
I'm fond of wandering around old cemeteries, so Oakland Cemetery is always on my list. The Carter presidential library is another place I tend to send people to, as well as Ebenezer Baptist church, MLK's church before he was assassinated, and currently the home church of one of our miracle senators, Raphael Warnock (who was the pastor there until his election last January.) For non-historical related things, the aquarium is fun. From a pop culture standpoint, the Jackson Street bridge over Freedom Parkway gives you the iconic view of ATL from The Walking Dead. (From an uber-pop-culture standpoint, DragonCon happens the first weekend in September every year and is the best people-watching the city has to offer.) And from a very personal standpoint (ie, you have a chance of seeing my kid onstage), the Atlanta Shakespeare Company is one of 2(? ish?) performing arts groups outside of England to have staged the entire canon and are on-stage most weekends at their tavern, doing original practice performances (so if you're down close to the stage, they'll be interacting with you.)
4) What was your favorite road trip you took as a kid?
Between my paratrooper of a father (the journey was most certainly not the destination; the destination was the destination and the journey was the grueling slog it took to get there) and our relative lack of money once he left the service and started managing non-profit agencies, we did not go on many leisurely trips. (You got there as quickly as possible b/c you didn't have money to 'waste' on tourist traps along the way, much less an extra hotel night not at the target destination.) I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents, though, and my grandfather (who had played semi-pro baseball in his youth) scouted through the mountains and hollows (colloquially, 'hollers') of West Virginia for young baseball talent), so we spent a lot of spring and summer days driving through tiny towns and stopping to talk to kids and their families. My grandmother and I sang endlessly (b/c you generally couldn't even get a radio signal once we really got out there.)
As an adult, when we still lived in Washington, DC, D & I joined L & B (I can't remember if they were married at that point or not, but I don't guess it matters) in an actual, proper roadtrip, based around the fact that we wanted out of the city over the Independence Day weekend and since most people went east to the shore, we headed west to the mountains. No plans, no reservations, one barely adequate paper map between the four of us, and an open-top Jeep. It was pretty glorious. We got lost in the George Washington National Forest in the middle of the night (we found our way out, obvs, but it was in doubt there for an hour or two); hauled ourselves to the top of Spruce Knob (the highest point in West Virginia and several surrounding states); and parked in an open field while the volunteer fire department of Thomas, West Virginia shot off fireworks and walked around with boots from their turnout suits to collect donations.
And just this past year, in the hellscape of 2020, D & I got in the minivan on a random Tuesday in October and drove north to find the fall color. He googled for destinations as I drove and we wound up at Brasstown Bald, just because.
5) How often do you feel like you've got to get away?
I definitely need something every other month or so, just to break up the monotony. It doesn't have to be big or elaborate--we have those covered already. We have Beach Week in the summer (which sometimes stretches to Beach-Week-and-a-half or even Beach-Two-Weeks, depending on the timing of Independence Day relative to our base rental week) and we've been doing Disney World in October-ish for the Food & Wine festival, plus over NYE/L's birthday. Once the kids got old enough to more-or-less maneuver on their own, DragonCon takes care of the late summer/early fall, even if it's in the same city. The spring has been a wash for the last few decades as D coached spring ball, but we can sometimes get away in May. 2020 was a wash, but we've been edging out here in 2021 and I'm looking forward to all our established stuff so I guess that means it's all still working for me.
Have a good weekend, y'all!
1) What's the furthest place you've traveled to in the last 12 months?
D & I drove down to Pensacola Beach in March to hang out with various members of his family, which took about 6 hours. I drove the kids over to Pawleys Island for the traditional (albeit, reduced) Beach Week, and then L & M & I hit Hilton Head for a long weekend, but those are all right around 5.5 hours, so I think PB wins. D & I are possibly going to Amelia Island in a few weeks (depending on health issues, etc) so that might give PB a run for its money, distance-wise.
2) What's the most interesting small town within driving distance?
Well. This is from a US-ian point of view, so anything under 10 hours is driving distance... Possibly somewhere up in the Great Smokies? Waynesville or Highlands in North Carolina? They're maybe a little too touristy/cutesie, but the mountain scenery is lovely and they're only a couple of hours away. Sea Island down on the southern coast of Georgia is a little too rich for my blood, but at least it's not like Hilton Head where there was nothing there until developers snapped up all the land and created a 'destination'. Serenbe, just south of the city, is a planned community (an 'urban village', I think they call it, ::rolls eyes::) that is headed in that direction.)
3) What's the coolest tourist attraction in your city?
I'm fond of wandering around old cemeteries, so Oakland Cemetery is always on my list. The Carter presidential library is another place I tend to send people to, as well as Ebenezer Baptist church, MLK's church before he was assassinated, and currently the home church of one of our miracle senators, Raphael Warnock (who was the pastor there until his election last January.) For non-historical related things, the aquarium is fun. From a pop culture standpoint, the Jackson Street bridge over Freedom Parkway gives you the iconic view of ATL from The Walking Dead. (From an uber-pop-culture standpoint, DragonCon happens the first weekend in September every year and is the best people-watching the city has to offer.) And from a very personal standpoint (ie, you have a chance of seeing my kid onstage), the Atlanta Shakespeare Company is one of 2(? ish?) performing arts groups outside of England to have staged the entire canon and are on-stage most weekends at their tavern, doing original practice performances (so if you're down close to the stage, they'll be interacting with you.)
4) What was your favorite road trip you took as a kid?
Between my paratrooper of a father (the journey was most certainly not the destination; the destination was the destination and the journey was the grueling slog it took to get there) and our relative lack of money once he left the service and started managing non-profit agencies, we did not go on many leisurely trips. (You got there as quickly as possible b/c you didn't have money to 'waste' on tourist traps along the way, much less an extra hotel night not at the target destination.) I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents, though, and my grandfather (who had played semi-pro baseball in his youth) scouted through the mountains and hollows (colloquially, 'hollers') of West Virginia for young baseball talent), so we spent a lot of spring and summer days driving through tiny towns and stopping to talk to kids and their families. My grandmother and I sang endlessly (b/c you generally couldn't even get a radio signal once we really got out there.)
As an adult, when we still lived in Washington, DC, D & I joined L & B (I can't remember if they were married at that point or not, but I don't guess it matters) in an actual, proper roadtrip, based around the fact that we wanted out of the city over the Independence Day weekend and since most people went east to the shore, we headed west to the mountains. No plans, no reservations, one barely adequate paper map between the four of us, and an open-top Jeep. It was pretty glorious. We got lost in the George Washington National Forest in the middle of the night (we found our way out, obvs, but it was in doubt there for an hour or two); hauled ourselves to the top of Spruce Knob (the highest point in West Virginia and several surrounding states); and parked in an open field while the volunteer fire department of Thomas, West Virginia shot off fireworks and walked around with boots from their turnout suits to collect donations.
And just this past year, in the hellscape of 2020, D & I got in the minivan on a random Tuesday in October and drove north to find the fall color. He googled for destinations as I drove and we wound up at Brasstown Bald, just because.
5) How often do you feel like you've got to get away?
I definitely need something every other month or so, just to break up the monotony. It doesn't have to be big or elaborate--we have those covered already. We have Beach Week in the summer (which sometimes stretches to Beach-Week-and-a-half or even Beach-Two-Weeks, depending on the timing of Independence Day relative to our base rental week) and we've been doing Disney World in October-ish for the Food & Wine festival, plus over NYE/L's birthday. Once the kids got old enough to more-or-less maneuver on their own, DragonCon takes care of the late summer/early fall, even if it's in the same city. The spring has been a wash for the last few decades as D coached spring ball, but we can sometimes get away in May. 2020 was a wash, but we've been edging out here in 2021 and I'm looking forward to all our established stuff so I guess that means it's all still working for me.
Have a good weekend, y'all!
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I tried to meet a person once a month for a while just to go for a walk and have tea.
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I'm always amused at the differences in what's seen as driving distance here and the US. I think ten hours driving would have us getting close to driving off the end of the country. Not that we'd ever think about driving that long. Two hours seems a lot to me.
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