Dancing to Dylan in Asheville

We headed out of Atlanta with every intention of camping near Charlotte and heading towards the Democratic National Convention the following day. As we drove through South Carolina the weather turned and we were suddenly in an intense heavy rain that didn't seem to let up. We stopped in Greenville, SC to eat Indian food and discuss our plans. We didn't want to camp in heavy rain and the weather report said that it would continue to rain for the rest of the week. Also the storm was much more intense in the south and east of North Carolina than it was in the western hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We decided to get a hotel in Asheville and check out the town which had been highly recommended to us by one of our favorite North Carolina natives.

One of the first things we did in the morning after waking up in Asheville was to go out to a coffee shop on the other side of town that had a reputation for being intense about their coffee. Our kind of people! The place is called Waking Life Espresso. It turned out to be a charming place in a converted house. The whole place smells wonderfully of coffee, and the guy making the fabulous concoctions was not only very nice, but very competent.

They were playing Bob Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes. We have been playing Dylan the entire road trip so it was comforting and fun to hear something we hadn't been listening to from our current favorite. The kids were happy with it and danced around.

Then I gave the kids my phone to take pictures with.

If Asheville is anything like its coffee shops we are going to enjoy it very much!

Izzy's writing assignment for today: We went for a walk in Asheville in the rain.

Another Important Civil Rights Site

On our second full day in Atlanta Marisa took us to see the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. This is an impressive experience. Genuinely one of the most important sites to see in Atlanta.

The site is actually several blocks of buildings that include the museum but also MLK's church, his tomb and the house where he was born. Upon entering the entry walkway to the museum we were greeted with several long rows of squares with various civil rights figures names written on them. Among these names was Medgar Evers, which tide the beginnings of our families exploration of the civil rights sites together.

The museum section of the Historic Site is filled with interactive and multimedia displays.

The Room Where the Assassination Pictures Are Hung, and the Cart His Body Was Carried In For the Funeral

The Statue In the Center of the Museum Depicting People Marching for Freedom

SNCC Is One of the Organization Names Listed in the Statue Commemorating the Civil Rights Journey

I found myself tearing up or struck silent with intensity in almost every section. Other people were openly sobbing in the room displaying his assassination, or tense with rage watching video coverage of the various atrocities and histories of racism.

A Description of the Children's March in Birmingham Honored in Kelly Ingram Park

The church that had been party of MLK's family history was just across the street from the museum. It had been fully restored and was an interesting type of historical experience. I found it ironic that we were sitting in a church on Sunday, but that we were there to site see.

The Church Has Sermons and Speeches From MLK's Collection

Sitting Quietly In a Museum Church Is Just As Hard As Sitting Quietly In a Regular Church

The place where King and his wife Coretta are buried is a little bit weird.

It is the obvious location for their tomb, but the fountain that surrounds them is a strange design, somewhat too monumental and austere surrounded by so many other more intimate and personal monuments to his life.

The House Where Martin Luther King Jr. Was Born

We couldn't help ourselves we had to buy books and a CD of his speeches, and we also got t-shirts for the kids. We hadn't been compulsively shopping most of this road trip. It is hard to be sure whether it was because the information was so compelling we wished to bring a bit of it with us, or whether the shopping experience was a balm to normalize and calm us after so much intensity.

After the museum Marisa took us to a wonderful restaurant called Highland Bakery. The food was excellent nouveau-southern and our waitperson was so nice to the kids they didn't want to leave. Hannah. A good thing as we were all pretty wiped out when we arrived.

Tired Girl and Emotional Dada

Burial Mounds Are Kinda Like Pyramids But Smaller

Our drive from Savannah to Atlanta was going to be too long without some sort of stop in the middle. Elijah researched the route and discovered a cool national park called Ocmulgee National Monument just within the city limits of Macon, Georgia. It was the site of an ancient community of Mississippian peoples. They had built burial mounds and a ceremonial meeting room. Archeologists had discovered the floor of the room. It was 1000 years old. They rebuilt the structure above the floor as they thought it might have been constructed.

The One Image Was a Dais Shaped Like An Eagle In the Floor

The Floor Was Preserved Behind Glass In A Special Reconstructed Room

The Only Artifact They Had Found With the Floor Was This Pot. The Floor Was Almost Perfectly Circular and Had 47 Seats In Strict Hierarchy Around the Edge of the Room.

The National Park includes a nice easy walk to the ceremonial earth structure.

The Bridge That Goes Over the Railroad Tracks Looks Like It Might Have Been Part of the Same WPA Project That Created the Visitors Center

The Burial Mound In the Distance

We Could Climb Up To the Top of the Mound

A slightly longer trail to the burial mounds, and a really nice little museum at the visitors center.

Watching a Video About How to Make Arrowheads Out of Flint

Hannah Trying Out a Model of the Ceremonial Seating

Hannah and Izzy Looking At a Miniature of the Ceremonial Room We Had Already Seen

On the way too the burial mounds we ran in to a woman who was documenting nature for the facebook page of the park. She took the kids pictures with this box turtle.

It's on facebook if you want to see it:

Kids With a Turtle

On the way back from the burial mounds I insisted we go a different route. It turned out to be much longer than the original path. The kids got a little irritated with me.

When the Kids Realized the Way Back Was Going to Take Much Longer

Hannah Was Barefoot Because We Discovered On the Hike That Her Shoes Were Giving Her Blisters

"Can I Have Some of Your Purple Berries"

It Was A Very Hot Day