October 8-11, 2016    Atlanta, GA
(May 30 2020 added link to  photo Album Atlanta October 8-11 2016 at bottom of this post)

We went to Atlanta to visit our friends Hank & Helen who moved there in August.  We saw some of the sights in town. The first visit Sunday was to the High Museum of Art.  Where else would we go?  It didn’t have any of our 1001 paintings but it is a very nice museum.  We did see an installation of giant fruit by Claes Oldenburg, the same artist that made the Bowling Pins & Ball in Eindhoven, NL.  Then we were off to the Carter Presidential Center.  The Center wasn’t crowded, big surprise huh?  But it was nice as we could walk through and read the displays or not.  Monday we went with Hank  to the new Civil and Human Rights Center.  It is located in the center of downtown Atlanta.  The Center is an emotional experience, very similar to the experience at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.  There are many video displays that show how overt, viscous and hateful discrimination was in our lifetime.  It was personally shocking to realize how much of the violent reaction to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s we lived through, and how much we have forgotten.  If you get the chance you should visit the Center.  Then we were off to the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Martin Luther King Jr.’s grave, it wasn’t far from downtown.  The Church is not big and the worship space is on the second floor.  The Church is still in use.  The Church is included in the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site along with several other buildings.  The tomb of MLK and his wife Coretta Scott King are next door to the Church.  Tuesday before our flight home we visited the Atlanta Botanical Garden with Hank & Helen.  We had another gorgeous day to be outside.  There was an artistic display of glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly in the Garden.  Sue and I had seen work by Chihuly before, but being old we couldn’t remember where.  There were 20 sculptures located throughout the park.  So as Sue always says: don’t give us a list!  So we set off to find all of the sculptures, which of course we did.  The Atlanta Botanical Garden is different than the Chicago Botanical Garden in that much of the park located is in a hilly wooded area, so some of the paths are on elevated walkways, pretty neat.  Amazingly I didn’t take any photos.  After that success we were off to lunch before we went to the airport.  We had a great time visiting our friends in Atlanta, who are really happy in their new home, and enjoying Atlanta.

Another short note in my long running complaint about the Picasa photo management program.  Google has stopped supporting it, and they have eliminated the ability to post photo albums.  So I will have to add individual photos to the blog.  This will take up more space and I don’t know if my witty comments on the photos will be shown.  

"Balzac Petanque" by Claes Oldenburg at the High Museum in Atlanta.  Claes is the same guy who made the Bowling Pins & Ball we saw in Eindhoven, NL back in June.

We visited the Carter Presidential Library

Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta

There is a museum area across the street from the church

The church is a National Historic Site, and it is still used for services

I assume that this is where Dr. King preached when he was pastor of the church

The tomb for Dr. King and Coretta Scott King are next to the church

This isn't in Atlanta, but next door in Chicago.  The construction of the Wanda Towers just one building west of us.  These 9ft dia. x 80+ft long tubes are trucked into to the sight using Lower Wacker Dr!!!!  I had to go down and find out how they did it because if you've been on Lower Wacker you can't imagine how it could be done.  The short trailer section is steerable.  They had to block off sections of Lower Wacker to get it done.  I'm sure the truck had MANY escorts and closures on the highway just to get to Lower Wacker.

Atlanta October 8-11 2016