Pacific To Atlantic - Day 10 - Atlanta

Jan 1st 2009, Thursday (late night 1:33am)
RoadTrip Diary - Day 10. Atlanta downtown and Atlantic ocean touchdown

After the stressful previous day, of about 20hrs, we started around 11am today.. wafflehouse brunch was feeling.. Though we had late night dinner at Denny's 2am previous night, I was starving :)..

didn't have any feeling for new year.. just yet another roadtrip day..

Went to Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site.. but it was closed because of new year day.. totally frustrating.. still we roamed lil bit around it.. there are two statues near visitor center.. At front, there is an african statue called "Behold", sculptured in memory of MLK.. Behind visitor center, second statue of "Mahatma Gandhi" is hosted.. its donated by Govt of India... It seems like MLK was indeed a follower of Gandhi and truly believed in Civil disobedience / Satyagraha philosophy.. i knew very little abt this aspect of MLK.. felt good..

The statue reads: "Nonviolence to be a potent force must begin with the mind. Nonviolence of the mere body without the co-operation of the mind is nonviolence of weak or the cowardly, and has therefore no potency. If we hear malice and hatred in our bosoms and pretend not to retaliate, it must recoil upon us and lead to our destruction."
At the backyard, there is a pathway showcasing footprints of all those who believed/contributed in civil rights movement. e.g. Rosa Parks.. Was lil bit surprised to see Stevie wonder's footprints.. hmmm... On the other side, the old-renovated "Ebenezer Baptist" Church, where MLK was a preacher, is still active..

I wish NHS would have been open today.. I would have loved to see it from inside..

Went to coco-cola headquarters... aquarium and coca-cola museum are at the same location.. Completely lavish surroundings, exotic, & creative decorations.. easily managed with exorbitant entrance ticket prices.. The way history of coco-cola business is portrayed to public is indeed impressive.. it shows how great coca-cola inventors, businessmen are.. lot of memorabilia from older coke advts and older coke products.. they were impressive.. watched some animation video "happiness factory".. was too boring.. Went thru "Taste of coke".. it was impressive.. lot of real drinks from all countries can be tasted here, but not all drinks were mentioned.. Only Indian drink was Sprite.. i tasted lot of drinks, but india's sprite was the only strong one.. might be a bias opinion.. still.. I ended up drinking full glass from Sprite india only.. Most of african drinks were too fruity.. Asian flavors Japanese and chinese were indeed good.. and European flavors, e.g. ikacongla, were nice.. creamy flavor.. Also went to 4D movie.. the 4D effect experience was okay.. documentory/storyline was crappy.. Also most of the 4D effects were just added for sake of it.. Coca-cola tour consumed around 3hrs.. Overall, most of the western visitors knew almost each and every brand of coco-cola, but i wonder how many people knew abt MLK? felt lil bit disappointed, because I am also part of the same community..

We spent around 45mins in nearby Centennial Olympic Park.. It seemed like because of 1996 olympic games atlanta got developed heavily in infrastructure.. and most of it is still intact and is useful to locals.. the large scale replicas of the olympic torch, all around the park, were fabulous.. Sitaram and Meha also had some fun at musical olympic fountains..



Visited Stone mountain, 30 miles outside city of atlanta.. The monolith dome, white-gray in color, is really huge.. The carving on the dome, three generals from civil war, is well detailed and must be arduous work for craftsmen.. apart from the monolith, whole park is completely commercialized.. and it is at a extent where probably people just ignore this stone carvings and spent time in artificial snow or shopping places..

On the way back, Dinner at Sarvanna bhavan was fabulous.. Unexpectedly we ended up at this place, and we found lot of indian restaurants around.. Awesome food here, indeed made our night..

Drive towards Savannah wasn't much impressive..

When we reached Savannah, first thing everybody wanted to do is to touch Atlantic ocean.. so instead of looking for motels, we went to all the way to the End of the freeway (??).. and touched the waterbody.. roamed across riverwalk.. the name "rinverwalk" itself indicated that we are near a river and not ocean.. so we weren't sure where we were.. later found out that its Savannah river and not atlantic ocean..

Savannah being heavy tourist place, all motels were full and no vacancies, after 5/10 phone calls ended up at Best western all the way to the opposite end of Savannah !!

Most probably, will catch sunrise at Atlantic ocean, if I wake up tomorrow..

Total drive: ~300miles
State: GA.. Atlantic ocean (??)

Total Miles: ~3750 miles in ten days
Total States (13) : CA, NV, UT, AZ, CO, NM, TX, OK, AK, MS, TN, NC, GA