We spent our last few days together squeezing in more fun in Atlanta. First, we took a tour of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It was so fascinating to see the history of all sorts of diseases and problems throughout our country and the world.
This was an evolution of water jugs in Africa.
It was a very "nerdy" exhibit with lots of reading to go through as we wandered through. Many of Tom's fellow interns asked him "why would you want to tour the CDC?" Our response was: who wouldn't want to tour it???
And, when given the option to do so, we obviously had to put on the big blue suit! This is the suit that they wear in the labs where they work with viruses and bacteria for which we don't have a cure.
I had a good time seeing how flexible the suits were. Normally they are a little more constrictive but the zippers were broken on these display models. I can't believe someone wears this for work on a daily basis!
It was great to learn about the "Wellbee" -- the cartoon Bee used in campaigns for getting people vaccinated.
The iron lung was also fascinating to see. I can't believe how many of these they had in one place and how people managed their experience with polio.
At the end of the museum there was a photography exhibit that I found really interesting as well. It was all photographs of children throughout the world.
On the 4th we went for a little drive and adventure. We had a plan to go to Helen, GA which is a little "German-town." On the way, we stopped at Jaemor Farms for some peaches and whatever other goodness we could find.
The peaches were gorgeous. Finally, we found Georgia peaches!
They were selling blackberries for so much money!!!
But, they were gorgeous and huge.
I wanted a slice of peach pie but I realized that down here there's no chance that I could get a regular old slice of pie--it's fried!
I was tempted to buy this bread because it looked so delicious!! But, I refrained.
We packed a dinner in the cooler so we decided to share a rack of ribs for lunch. Again, delicious!
The fried pie was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be to be honest.
But we enjoyed having a nice little lunch in the shade!
We didn't think that Helen would be a big attraction on the 4th but we learned as we drew closer that TONS of people go to Helen for the 4th and float down the river.
It took us 40 minutes to go less than 1 mile! But we finally entered the city limits.
It was a little Bavaria in the middle of Georgia.
We parked and it was HOT. So, clearly what other option was there but to have ice cream? Especially after just having had fried pie? I mean really...there was no other choice :)
We enjoyed our ice cream as we walked around the town.
There is one main attraction in town: tubing the river! Apparently everyone travels to Helen for this reason, and especially on the 4th.
It was a brown and muddy looking river and was PACKED with tubes from a river rafting rental company. It looked nothing like the wonderful clark fork river floating that we do back in Montana, but these folks were loving it.
We passed by the wedding chapel and smiled and then realized that despite planning to stay in Helen for most of the day, we had just walked through it in less than 20 minutes and saw all there was to see. So, we hopped back in the car and drove off to our next destination: Lake Lanier.
We wanted fireworks by the water since we've grown so accustomed to that in Tacoma. We heard there were fireworks at Lake Lanier and we pictured a city park with tons of grassy areas where we could all gather around with blankets and picnic baskets.
The lake was gorgeous and not brown like every other body of water I had seen in Atlanta. But, much to our surprise, the fireworks were going to be set on the campus of Lake Lanier Islands Resort. A huge resort that monopolizes the lake. They have a water park, horse stables, a golf course, spa, pools, etc. And this place is HUGE!
We had to pay $10 to park and found out that the fireworks were directly across from the water park and man-made beach. And, we would have to pay $26.99 per person to get onto that beach! We were a little down hearted and almost turned around to go home and not even watch fireworks but we decided to take a little drive around to the other side to discover a little cove opposite of the man-made beach. Much to our surprise and enjoyment, there was perfect venue for firework watching! It wasn't full of thousands of people and had a gorgeous view of the sunset.
There were just a few other people there when we arrived and we pulled out our cooler with pb&j's (yes, again) and settled in for a nice dinner with the sunset at our backs and the firework location in front of us.
Then, just as we were thinking that it was pretty darn perfect, it was made even more perfect by the southern hospitality we received. We had some neighbors next to us that invited us to join their BBQ and got to enjoy some burgers and good company while waiting for the big show.
This makes it look like a lame view, but it was a really great show and much better than this photo makes it seem.
Then of course, all the attendees had to exit the resort on the same single lane road -- 40 minutes just to get to the front gate (and then we had a 40 minute drive to get home after that). We didn't get home until 1 AM so it was a little early wake-up call at 6 AM for catching my 8 AM flight, but I made it.
Tomorrow is the big day -- I start my Internal Medicine rotation at Harborview. It's going to be a whilrwind of 6 weeks and I don't really know what to expect, so here we go!
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