GREAT GREEN CITY (HALF-WAY POINT)

5-6 June 2013: Days 22 & 23 of 43 – Atlanta GEORGIA. 
Overnight in Atlanta GEORGIA. 
Period 587km, Total 8,528km. 

Day 22 on 5 June 2013 was declared “half-way” day for Root69. We decided to celebrate with Thelma’s friend Sam in Atlanta tonight. The day began at 6am, our earliest to date so that we could get the 5hr drive to Atlanta over with as early as possible to maximise time with Doran Lubinsky, Thelma’s brother-in-law, who took us to Stone Mountain. We greeted Doran at noon and after a tour of his home nestled in the woods, we were off in his car towards the huge granite monolith that is Stone Mountain, 16 miles (26km) from the centre of Atlanta.

The first thing you notice about Atlanta (pop 5 million) is the traffic and roads – they are the pits. Not only are there excessive cars but the roads are not planned (like Sydney’s) and they snake and spiral everywhere. The freeway “knots” (interchanges) are bigger than Los Angeles– Doran pointed out a famous one called “Spaghetti Junction”. The second thing you notice about Atlanta is just how green it is. It is so full of trees and woods and shrubbery that you cannot see the suburban houses from the 1683ft (513m) summit of Stone Mountain.

The homes are also very ornate, large (mostly two-storey) and actually cheap. The average 3-4 bedroom, two-storey home on half an acre is around $500,000. This is a result of the GFC and many people from New York, Boston and other eastern states are moving here as a result. Atlanta , founded in 1733 by Englishman James Edward Oglethorpe, is famous for many things: birthplace, home and grave of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, home of Coca Cola, home of CNN, home of UPS, home of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, home of author and film of “Gone With The Wind”.

Doran is a very engaging guy and reminded me immediately of Woody Allen. He is a professor of Mathematics at Georgia State and immigrated to Atlanta from South Africa, 12 years ago. His wife Jenny is a public defender (lawyer) and his daughter Shira is 16 and in high school. Doran is very comical in that he is able to make fun of himself and his family in a very entertaining way – for example, he described Jenny’s job as “putting the guilty back on the street”! He filled us in on life in Atlanta, his first impressions, the cost of living etc – very informative. Stone Mountain itself is the world’s second largest monolith (single stone) after our own Uluru. It is the largest granite monolith in the world measuring 1 mile (1,600m) by 0.5 mile (800m) at the base (with 70% of it underground) and 800ft (244m) to the top. Stone Mountain is the Confederate equivalent of Mount Rushmore since it has a huge carving on its side (half way up) of the three key Confederate players in the American Civil War: 1) Jefferson Davis (First President), 2) Robert E Lee (Head General) and 3) Thomas J "Stonewall" Jackson (Major General). Lee & Jackson were so revered in Virginia that the state has a separate public holiday just before Martin Luther King Jr day. The carvings took 12 professional quarrymen five years to complete over an extended period due to the depression and second world war. You can get to the top by cable car or 60min walk. The view from the top is terrific. You can see the city skyline and Buckhead (a second city centre like North Sydney or Chatswood) and a sea of green – Atlanta houses are not visible at all. It is a strange sight – the CBD skyline is like a sailing ship in a sea of green. The rest of Stone Mountain contains a huge complex of shops and attractions for kids. We watched an interesting film on how the carvings were made.

That evening was our first encounter with suburban dining. Atlanta is a bit like Sydney when it comes to eating – not much in the centre of town but lots in the suburbs. Sam Little met us in a huge Tapas Bar in an area known as Virginia Highlands (a bit like Stanley St Sydney but surrounded by green). The tables were perched on balconies surrounded by giant oaks. After some opening cocktails it was onto the red wine of conversation. Maureen has known Sam’s sister, Elizabeth for 23 years, hence the connection. Sam moved to Atlanta from Virginia 5 years ago. Sam has been to Australia twice. As it poured rain (so hard we had to shout to be heard) we talked politics, travel and most things in between. Great night with great food – the Sardines and Salmon were the best.

Today (6 June) was Atlanta day – CNN, Coke and Luther King. We decided to catch the MARTA metro to the city centre. For $9 you can ride all day. The CNN headquarters tour lasted 55min and was unsurprising but the building was spectacular. You enter into a huge open atrium with food court surrounded by offices and even a hotel. There are 1,000 people working (and eating) here with 30,000 world-wide. CNN (or Cable News Network) was started by Ted Turner on 1 June 1980 and sold to Time Warner in 1996. It now has 100 million viewers in the USA and 2 billion world-wide.

Fox and CNBC are ahead of CNN in the USA. CNN recently launched a Spanish speaking version of CNN. The tour explained how news is gathered, selected, edited and broadcast including explanations of equipment and who does what. Broadcasting is 24/7 and we even saw live broadcasts by one of CNNs key news anchors and weather man. The highlight for me was the opportunity to read the news off a teleprompter to demonstrate to others in the tour how it worked. Finally I got to read the news and at CNN thank you very much! If I had not studied engineering this is what I would have done!

Well done to Bubba for managing to film it in secret – stand by for the movie! Three people complimented me on the delivery and even our guide asked me if I had done this before – don’t call us, we will call you. The Coke Museum was only a 10min walk away. A huge complex built only one mile from the exact location that Dr John S Pemberton produced his first batch of the world’s most recognised brand in 1886. The Coke tour is for kids. We endured an animated 20min clip which was more like a giant ad for kids and then walked through an area around “The Vault” where supposedly the Coke formula (or recipe) is kept.

Amongst the screaming and shouting of the kids now on summer holidays we did manage to extract some interesting facts from the displays. In 1888 a merchant called Asa Griggs Candler tasted what Dr Pemberton had made and he was so impressed he decided to buy all rights to the formula and all the Coke trademarks for $2,500 ($62,908 In 2012 dollars). The Coca Cola Company was born in 1892 and sold 250ml bottles of Coke for only 5 cents until 1956 to get the world hooked on it – great move by Candler. He sold his shares in Coca Cola to banker Ernest Woodruff in 1919 for $25milllion ($328million In 2012 dollars).

Fanta was actually an acquisition in Italy in 1955. Now 2,200 bottles are made every minute and production has exceeded 15 billion cans/bottles since 1892. The tour ended with free tastings of Coke and related products from all over the world. It was now time to walk the streets of the CBD as we made our way to the preserved district where Martin Luther King was born, preached and buried. The Atlanta buildings are a mix of the glassy modern and grey windowless past. There is not much character or feeling as you walk the centre. Nothing old or classic.

Even the Martin Luther King district was run-down and quite poor. Our first stop was the 1886 Ebenezer Baptist Church where Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr was baptised and preached from 1960 until his assassination. It was also, sadly the place where his mother, Alberta Williams King was killed in a hail of bullets fired in 1974 by a man with mental problems. Martin Luther King Jrs’ father and maternal grandfather also preached here since 1894. We all sat inside the Ebenezer alone with the sound of an actual recording of King Jr echoing through the empty church and our minds sailed back in time picturing what it would have been like…

Just next to the church is a long 100m long and 5m wide pool with a walkway next to it called “Freedom Walk”. In the middle of the pool is an oval island with a tomb on it – Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr (1929-1968) and his wife Coretta Scott King (1927-2006). An eternal gas flame burns opposite the tomb. A further 5min walk down the road sits the 14 room, two storey home of King Jrs’ maternal grandmother in which King Jr was born and grew up until he married Coretta. The Martin Luther King MARTA station is very close and has commanding views of the city skyline.

The area around it however looks like a bomb hit it. After a great run through the green covered mansions of suburban Atlanta it was off to have dinner with Doran and his family in Sandy Springs. This was a large shopping precinct with lots of restaurants built in. “Fuego Mundo” is a South American Kosher restaurant serving lots of meat, fish and vego. The rib-eye was thin but very tasty. The place was packed and it was a shout-fest conversation between us. Shira and her boyfriend Matthew were very engaging and we all talked about travels accomplished and those being planned.

I also enjoyed listening to how Doran found pure mathematics and the many papers he has published on pure maths with a lean towards improving our understanding of physics. Jenny talked a lot about living in South Africa and how it contrasted with Atlanta. The time flew. Our impression of Atlanta had been enhanced by a great night of conversation and carnivorous.
  
INTERESTING USA OBSERVATIONS: 
Now that we have reached the half-way mark it is about time we gave you a run-down of some of our most interesting observations of the USA: 1) Car indicators are now “out of fashion” – very few people use them. 2) Most of the countryside around us was non-farming – this surprised us – we expected to see heaps of farmland but got lots of desert and rolling hills. 3) No one eats lamb – the big supermarkets we visited did not have it and you will be lucky to find a restaurant that serves it. 4) No litter on the highways or freeways – very clean. 5) The major cities are also clean. 6) There are many people now living in motels with kitchenettes since the GFC and because of high rents. A low-star motel in a run-down area typically costs $450/mth versus $800 apartment rents. 7) We have not seen any passenger buses or trains like Greyhound or Amtrak despite the extensive ground we have covered. 8) Gasoline prices are unregulated and vary significantly. On the whole they are still cheaper than Australia with most at around 75cents/litre. 9) Most ads on TV are food. Americans are big. There is a fast food store on every corner. 10) Southerners are right friendly folk. The best in the land. They greet you no matter what. A nice note to end half-way on…