We woke up in Tampa and prepared ourselves for a long drive out to Joey’s aunt and uncle’s house in Atlanta, Georgia. The road was long but offered us a few fun pit stops, like the giant orange stand off the highway right across from a pretty delicious barbeque place and a quick jaunt down a famous section of highway 41, where two members of the Allman Brothers Band met their death by motorcycle accident about a year apart.
We didn’t spend a long time dilly-dallying though - we had Fourth of July burgers waiting for us at Joey’s Aunt Denise’s and then fireworks on top of the Coca-Cola parking deck courtesy of Joey’s uncle Mike (shown here), who is a lawyer for the company. You may recognize Mike from this YouTube video, it was a commercial put out by Coke where Coke Classic tried to sue Coke Zero for making the diet soda taste so similar to the real thing. Clever advertizing ploy, isn’t it? Mike also recently wrote a book about the first assassination attempt on Lincoln’s life called The Baltimore Plot. Tom and I, both being writers, were particularly interested in this and spent a few minutes talking to Mike about his process and how he got published. But that’s another story. This story is about Independence Day in Atlanta.
We pulled up to their beautiful Spanish-style house and were immediately greeted by Denise, Mike and their two children, Elizabeth, who is studying computer science in her third year of college, and Kevin, who is a junior in high school. We ate a delicious dinner of burgers, dogs, corn on the cob and Jell-o pretzel cake, then packed up some folding chairs and drove downtown.
The rooftop was full of people and little kids and while we waited for the sun to set, Denise and Mike pointed out different notable buildings like the stadium and the Coke building. A little girl toddled over and enjoyed some chips out of Elizabeth’s hand until something more interesting caught her attention. Her mother followed close behind her explaining that she was a very extroverted two-year-old and thanked Elizabeth again for sharing the chips.
The sun began to sink and my anticipation rose - I love fireworks. We watched the skyline unsure of where the first boom would explode from. One colorful blast erupted in the sky over to our left so we waited for another. The second exploded in a different spot than the first - this time coming from behind us with two fireworks going up in quick succession. Finally the show got going in a third spot over to our right and kept going so we happily watched all of the colorful light in the sky and ooh-ed and aah-ed to our hearts' content.
We headed back to the house and were treated to some of Elizabeth’s cobbler. I headed up to bed tired but happy and thoroughly impressed by the fireworks over Hotlanta.
Until next time America.
~Sarah
We headed back to the house and were treated to some of Elizabeth’s cobbler. I headed up to bed tired but happy and thoroughly impressed by the fireworks over Hotlanta.
Until next time America.
~Sarah
