The Great American Road Trip: Day 95

I've never spent any time in Georgia, but I did enjoy getting to stop and see a bit of Atlanta - it seems like a really neat place and I'd love the chance to come back some day and see a bit more of it. Lucky for me Laura had the day off and was willing to play tour guide. After driving all day yesterday I was tired so I slept in late before we finally headed out to see the city. We started out with a driving tour through downtown, past the Coca Cola visitor's center and the main CNN headquarters, around Olympic Park where Laura worked security at the 1996 Olympics, past the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and through the Oakland cemetery. We didn't have any plans in particular, but when Laura mentioned the Carter Presidential Library I was intrigued so we decided to stop and take a look.

I've never been to a presidential library before - I honestly didn't know about them until Bush Jr. finished his and I heard people talking about it on NPR. I wasn't sure what to expect but I really enjoyed the experience. I couldn't help but think that it must be weird to walk through your own presidential center, every detail of your life put on display (high chair he and his siblings used! childhood photos! 5th grade report card! marriage certificate! reproduction wedding day outfits!), but it was also interesting to see what was chosen to be included. It felt like the museum was building a story, following him from birth to present along a carefully crafted path to guide the viewer into an open and understanding frame of mind, to show where he was coming from on controversial topics, to emphasize him holding firm to his morals, to almost romanticize how a working class peanut farmer could go on to become President and then continue to have great influence internationally while still being seen as a small town neighborly kind of guy. I didn't have much of an opinion on Jimmy Carter one way or the other before visiting (all of it having taken place before I was born), and I will say that it did leave me with a pretty positive one, although the way it was presented did make me feel like it must have been glossing over some of the less wonderful or more stressful moments in his presidency. I think I would enjoy visiting other presidential libraries - another goal for the next road trip!

By this point it was getting late and I was very hungry so we stopped for 3pm breakfast at The Flying Biscuit in Little Five Points. It's a cute part of town, with a little neighborhood center of eclectic shops and restaurants, next to a park and streets of houses and small apartment buildings. The food was delicious - if you're in the area definitely stop in for a bite - the "creamy dreamy" grits are particularly tasty, and most of their breakfasts include a side of grits and one of their "flying biscuits" (I meant to take a photo but it was so good that I ate everything before I could).

We spent some time walking through Little Five Points, then took the train (metro? subway? I don't even know what public transit system I'm on anymore - this one is called MARTA) back downtown to avoid having to find parking and spent some time walking through Underground Atlanta. I'm admittedly curious why they decided to build an entire shopping district underground - just for the novelty of being able to have a second city underground? It wasn't terribly busy on a Friday afternoon/evening but it was neat to wander around for a bit before we took the train back and went home to have some pizza for dinner and watch The Croods (another hilarious little tidbit from DreamWorks).