She had never seen this flower, and we seemed to have arrived during its peak bloom in this area.
But even more exciting than mountain laurel, is our next visitor. Our son Blake has been working lots of over-time lately, so he got a couple days off of work. We were so excited to find out he wanted to spend those extra days with us. He bought a plane ticket, and we picked him up at Atlanta's airport. Since we are now in north Georgia, we had to drive all the way through Atlanta to get to the airport on the south side of the city. We had heard terrible things about the traffic in Atlanta, and it looks like everything we heard was true. Check out all the brake lights as we go from slow traffic to even slower traffic.
Even at 2:00 in the afternoon, traffic was bumper to bumper in the city. You can see the long line of cars stopped in traffic ahead as it curves to the right in front us. The overhead announcement board over the highway gives us the bad news, "Exit 247 - 5 miles ahead will take 14 minutes."
We were so excited to see Blake! We waited in the arrivals hall in the huge Atlanta airport, and Mark typed Blake's name on his phone screen so he would feel special having someone to pick him up after his flight. We were just hoping that he would choose to go home with us, instead of heading to the Chick-fil-a greeters. Chick-fil-a was founded in Atlanta, and the headquarters is just down the road from the airport.
Blake did claim us at the arrival hall, and we headed out from the busiest airport in the country. We wanted first to feed him, so we made the short trip from the airport to the home of the first ever Chick-fil-a restaurant just a few miles away. Opened in 1946, this is the first of the fast food chain that now has almost 2,000 restaurants.
Blake and Denisa made themselves comfortable on the bench out front with Chick-fil-a founder, Truett Cathy. We noticed the time on Mr. Cathy's watch was 3:23. He was obviously between the lunch and dinner rush, taking a break on the bench out front.
He opened his first restaurant here in Georgia with his brother Ben and $10,600. With ten stools and four tables, the small cafe was named "The Dwarf House." This location has been enlarged, housing a modern Chick-fil-a on the right, and the original sit-down-waitress-service restaurant on the left. We thought it was interesting to have hamburgers and steaks on the old menu. What would those chick-fil-a cows in the ads say about that? It was also interesting to learn that the Cathy's also owned "The Dwarf Burger" right next door. As we left the restaurant, we went through the dwarf door at the Dwarf House.
We headed north out of Atlanta, stuck in that traffic again. We did make a stop for gas, and bought some cajun boiled peanuts so Blake could try a southern classic on his first day in Georgia. I guess we should have told him to take the peanuts out of the shell before he tried them.
We planned Blake's vacation time with us on the trip back to Cherokee campground. We are in the middle of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with winding tree-canopied roads and waterfalls in every direction. We decided to explore west the first day, east the second day, and north the third day. But this first evening we would just get some exercise at our little campground. We played some frisbee and basketball, where Blake got some air dunking the ball.
Have we mentioned that it's just really good to spend time with our son? He was not quite as impressed with the mountain laurel as his mother, but he agreed to pose in front of a bush at the campground anyway. It's going to be a great few days, as we show Blake as much of north Georgia as possible.
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