Georgia Trip, November 2011

Linna and I flew down to Atlanta to visit AJ Hudgins and Colleen Favinger, old friends of mine that moved to Hartwell, Georgia about six months ago. I use to work with AJ and Colleen back in Cozad, Nebraska at Tenneco Automotive in the eighties. This was only a three day trip, but…the drive from Atlanta to Hartwell was warm with beautiful fall colors.

We arrived Friday afternoon and later had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. After dinner AJ and I stayed up late getting caught up on gossip, life, and work. Linna and I slept in on Saturday and eventually woke up to AJ’s homemade breakfast. For dinner, AJ wanted to check out a new restaurant that was being featured in the “Food & Wine” magazine, “Five and Ten” located in Athens Georgia. Before we headed to Athens, we drove around Hartwell, AJ and Colleen’s new home for many years to come. It’s a quaint little town, but…bigger than Cozad, Nebraska where we all lived for many years. We stopped in at a local art gallery; you never know when you might find a piece of art that you might like. The owner and artist, Diane Geiger moved from Atlanta a few years ago to open her own studio “Hang it up Gallery and Studios”. I bought a small piece from Diane that I knew would be managable to travel back to Seattle with. It’s a small world, Diane’s sister lives in Bellevue, just a few miles from Linna and I.

After exploring Hartwell, we took the back highways to Athens. As we were getting close to our destination, we noticed it was college game day for the Georgia Bulldogs; our restaurant “five and ten” was walking distance from the stadium. After locating the restuarant, we decided to cruise the campus area which happened to be an eye opener. I haven’t been to a campus before that allowed open containers on campus, not only on campus…but walking on the street, sidewalks and all over. The campus reminded me of the movie “Animal House” with all the empty containers all over. After the campus fun, we headed to our dinner spot www.fiveandten.com, it was definitely a five star dinner. We got stuck in the football traffic after dinner, which was a total drag. Sunday was another sleep in, but eventually got on the road back to Atlanta after lunch; we wanted to stop at the Aquarium, but our departure was to close. It was a great to see AJ and Colleen again.