Atlanta, Georgia

Brian signed up for the Fastest Mobile Networks testing again this year. PC Magazine sends out drivers through some of the larger cities throughout the U.S. to drive around with a bunch of cell phones in their back seat. The cell phones run a testing program that collects data which afterwards is crunched to see what mobile network is fastest. Lucky for us Brian works for them, and we get to go on a very cheap vacation. We put in our bid for the Georgia/Florida route and got it. Last year we went to Louisiana and Texas. 

We started our trip on May 15 when we flew to Atlanta, Georgia. The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has an interesting setup. All of the concourses are set up in a linear fashion, making it the longest airport I've ever been in. We walked FOREVER to get to baggage claim, before we realized that they have a shuttle bus system inside the airport. Whoops! We hopped on the shuttle about one concourse before baggage claim and were there in seconds. 

We met up with the previous driver who handed us the keys to the car and we loaded up our luggage and took off. The car we drove was a 2013 Ford Fusion and it was really nice. This year they even branded the car which was kind of cool.

Here's a picture of Brian checking out the phones in the backseat. We used the shower curtain to cover up the phones if we needed to leave the car for any reason. High-tech I tell you. 

In each city we test, we have to make 11 stops. At each stop we park the car for 15 minutes while the phone collects the data then move on to the next stop. It's fun because we get to really see the city. One of the first stops we made in Atlanta was at the Georgia State Capitol Building. It is a really cool building and was built in 1889. Apparently a couple of the floors have been converted into a museum of sorts. Brian sat in the car while I wandered around to get some pictures. I had to stand in front of a group of lounging homeless men to get this shot. Needless to say, I snapped a photo quickly and headed back to the car.

In the middle of downtown Atlanta, amidst all the towering buildings, is this house where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind. The house contained 10 apartments and she lived in Apartment #1 with her husband beginning in 1925. I snapped this photo through a fence. One of the cons of this trip is that you get to see the sights, without really seeing them. We didn't have time to go inside and tour anything, but that's okay.

We stopped by the Fernbank Museum of Natural History and their front display lured us out of the car to take pictures. They have very cool dinosaur sculptures in the center of a waterfall/water feature. There were giant planters overflowing with annual vines and flowers and a whole bed of bright pink and red roses in bloom. It was gorgeous. We poked our heads inside and caught a glimpse of dinosaur bones through the entryway. It looked like a nice place.

We were encouraged to find at least one stop in our testing city that had a chargepoint for the car, since it was a hybrid with both a gas and electric engine. We plugged our little car in and sat around for our allotted 15 minutes. It didn't really charge much in that time and it was kind of weird to plug your car into an outlet.

The outskirts of the town were beautiful and I loved the woodland areas that we got to drive through.

On one pass of Atlanta, we got a view of the Olympic Torch Tower that is from the 1996 Olympics.

After all our running around for the day, we stopped back at the hotel to plug in all the phones and send the data back to the servers in New York.

We ate at Five Guys for dinner where they were serving fries made from Blackfoot, ID potatoes. Yay Idaho! I miss you. The fries were tasty.

 

The next day we had some time before hitting the road to our next city so we stopped briefly at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site.

We got to see the house he was born in. This is about as close as we got because apparently it was field trip day. The streets were swarming with children.

We saw the tomb where he is buried with his wife.

The grave site is located on a dais in the water at the end of a long pond. There are speakers nearby broadcasting his speeches including the famous "I have a dream..." speech.

This is the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he and his father both were pastors.

We made a quick stop at this little business called the Frosty Caboose. It is an ice cream shop that also serves hot dogs housed in an old train caboose. You just walk up to the window and order what you want. The lady working there was very nice. I got a key lime pie sundae and Brian had a peach milkshake, both of which were amazing.

On our drive to Tallahassee, our GPS routed us through the countryside. We ended up driving 150 or so miles on a two lane highway. It was so cool because we passed cotton fields and I got to see the red Georgia clay soil.

We reached Tallahassee that evening and stayed the night before heading out again early the next morning. I don't have any pictures of Tallahassee because we were there so briefly. I did notice that the amount of moss hanging on the trees increased the closer we got to the Florida/Georgia border and also there were more palm trees. We had a lot of fun in Georgia.