Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: American Double 2014
Goodbye Tennessee
Breakfast was once again at the Read House Hotel's
own branch of Starbucks, which for the second time proved to be
extremely busy, even on a Saturday morning. The main order of
business this morning was a direct two-hour drive down Interstate 75
to Atlanta. We crossed the state line into Georgia after just
fifteen minutes on the road. Upon arrival in downtown Atlanta, we
dropped off my bags at the Hilton - it was too early to check in -
and continued towards the airport. Passing through a part of the
city centre that I immediately dubbed 'Homeless Central', followed
by a quite horrible-looking neighbourhood, we finally emerged into
the leafy suburbs. We came across a branch of Ruby Tuesday, where
Bloody Marys and burgers made for a suitable brunch. These were
preceded by some complimentary biscuits - at last, this particular
objective had been achieved!
It
was only a short distance from there to the excellent Delta Flight
Museum, which proved to be thoroughly interesting in an 'airline
geek' sort of way.
The exhibition was divided into two main sections, covering the
propeller age and the jet age. Although a number of smaller aircraft
were also present, the three 'big beasts' on display were a Douglas
DC-3, the prototype Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, and Delta's first-ever
Boeing 767, The Spirit of Delta. The 767's story was truly
remarkable: the aircraft was acquired in the aftermath of Delta's
first annual loss in 1982 when, in an unprecedented gesture of
support for the company, the purchase was funded by Delta's
employees and pensioners. A further point of interest, particularly
from a UK perspective, was the museum's treatment of the recent new chapter in Delta's history
dealing with its substantial investment in Virgin Atlantic.
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All
too soon, it was time to return the rental car and take the transit
to the stop serving both the domestic terminal and the MARTA
station, where once again it would be time for the parting of the
ways. In this instance, it would be for less than two weeks, as we
were shortly due to meet up again on the other side of the world for
a final instalment of 2014 travel madness!
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| ABOVE: Now where have I seen this sort of thing before? | ||
MARTA stands for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, and it is of course the city's subway system. I rode the train to Peachtree Center and had no trouble locating the Hilton from there. After checking in, I made a quick visit to the Executive Lounge, only to find that it was hideously overcrowded. Following a suggestion that Bruce had made earlier, I walked to the nearby Westin Peachtree Plaza and enjoyed a couple of drinks in impressive and strangely familiar surroundings. It turned out that it was designed by the same architect, and opened in the same year, as the Westin Bonaventure in Downtown Los Angeles, where we had clocked up a memorable short stay in the closing days of 2011. In a similar fashion to its Southern California sister, the Peachtree Plaza had originally featured a lobby lagoon, but this was removed in a subsequent refurbishment.
On arrival back at the Hilton, I bought an impressively healthy salad and yoghurt at the in-house Starbucks in the lobby. I ate them in my room as a light supper, while watching a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory on TV.