Better Late Than Never...

I suppose halfway through a cross-country road trip is a little late in the game to begin a blog, but I've succumbed to the peer pressure. So here goes.


I'll recap until I get bored.

Friday -- Atlanta


The Ninny Brigade (shout-out to Mrs. Cooper's senior year English class and Allison's mom for the nickname) set out bright and early at 9:30am for Atlanta, GA. Well, we intended to leave at 8:00am, but as per ush, I was operating in Central Standard Time. 

Leaving the Home State!

Ground rules were soon laid:
1. If you fart, crack the windows.
2. While playing the Celebrity Game, cartoon characters and weird people from high school don't count.

And, most importantly,

3. DO NOT taunt the Law of Jinx. This rule would become ever more important as the trip progressed. There's your incentive to keep reading. (Cruel, I know. But I need to ensure I have an audience if I'm going to type all this up.)


Not to be deterred by pre-planning and/or timetables, we made excellent time and arrived in beautiful (read: hot and sticky) Atlanta in time for touring and tasting at Sweetwater Brewing Company in downtown ATL. Let me please take a moment here to comment on the clientele of said brewery... In a word(s): white, upper-middle class, and covered with Croakies. Somehow we were able to overlook the obnoxiously fratty crowd and get respectably tipsy on cheap local brew. A trio of martyrs we are. 

Mmm beer :)

The actual brewery TOUR was not to be, however. I've seen tens of thousands of beer commercials in my day, and I distinctly remember the phrases "frost-brewed" and "crafted at sub-zero temperatures" being thrown about with relatively high frequency. Apparently Sweetwater does not conform to these silly notions. The room in which our delicious beverages were crafted was maintained at a refreshing 103 degrees F. So we stood and listened to some hipster ramble on about the brewery's brief history for about 8 minutes before excusing ourselves to the well air-conditioned bar area. To be honest, I could care less how the beer is brewed. I just want it in my belly.


Post-brewery, we made our way to my grandma Mimi's house in Dunwoody. Always the gracious hostess, Mimi eagerly offered to take us to dinner and show us how Atlantians roll. I believe her exact words were, "Well, we've got the Chili's, and the O'Charley's up by Perimeter Mall is real good...". We chose instead a Mexican restaurant near Mimi's house. Halfway into our chips and salsa, we were hailed by the elderly couple who teaches Mimi's Sunday school class at Dunwoody Baptist ("Oh, I'm so glad I didn't get a margarita! What would John and Gladys have thought??"). After we finished our meals and my grandmother tried no less than 8 times (unsuccessfully) to get me to finish her enchilada, we headed back to the homestead.

The Ninnies with Mimi

Allison, Stacey and I had planned to visit the Starlite 6 Drive-In that night. It's the only drive-in theater in Georgia so of course it made the final itinerary. Mimi, however, was extremely anxious about our choice of activities. 


"But girls... That's the black part of town. You don't want to go there." 
"No, Mimi, I think we do." 
"There's a perfectly good theater up at Perimeter Point. Here, I'll get the paper... What did you want to see?" 
"Mimi. We have mace. Also, we'll be in our car, so we can easily drive away from any potential rapists."
"Girls, I'm begging you..."


Of course, my iron will prevailed and, with the promise that we would call her hourly to assure her that we hadn't been mugged and that our innocence hadn't been compromised, we headed out. Ah, the "Greatest Generation"... Also the "Most Blindly Bigoted Generation," God love 'em.

Yep, just as ghetto as anticipated.

The drive-in was as expected: fairly clean, populated by upstanding citizens with coolers of booze, and enough weed floating through the air to give us a contact buzz before the previews finished. Good times. As an aside, 30 Minutes or Less is a piece of shit. I want my $3.50 back. Step up your game, Danny McBride.


And with that piece of golden advice, I'm going to bed. Stay tuned, lovelies.