Well, I finally got behind on my blogging, but I did pretty well for a while, didn't I? And now, as is always the case with getting caught up on travel blogs, I have sooo much to tell - and, of course, so little time right now.

I last wrote from a lovely little table overlooking the pool at our NOLA hotel, but sadly, you're all going to have to wait a while longer for that New Orleans post. We left the next morning, bright and early, and headed to Atlanta. I'd been pretty excited for my drive along the Gulf Coast, but we hit rain early on. Soon enough, we stumbled upon a weather warning on the radio calling for storms, heavy rains, and flooding all the way from Lake Charles, LA to Mobile, AL - basically our route for the next few hundred miles. Slightly on edge, we decided not to stop until we turned north at Mobile and headed away from the water. It poured buckets all the way through Mississippi, to Mobile, and beyond, so I unfortunately didn't get to enjoy much of that leg of the trip. Instead, it was spent clutching the handle above my door and sporadically trying to record what was going on. (I'll try to edit a quick video to add to this post sometime in the next couple days.)

We finally drove out of the rain sometime north of Mobile, and happily stopped off at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery. It's a small museum with an audio/visual exhibit that guides you all the way through in about 30-40 minutes, taking you through the Montgomery Bus Boycott step-by-step. We finished around 3 pm and carried on our way to Atlanta, where we encountered the only major hiccup of our trip so far: the Atlanta freeway. What a nightmare. Tired, hungry, and indecisive, we made a poor dinner choice (mediocre Vietnamese food) and then headed out to the Fulton Inn in the west of the city, where we had a coupon for $30 accommodations. There was a reason it cost $30. We decided it was worth saving the cost of a tank of gas (rooms in Atlanta aren't cheap), and fell asleep to the sound of the motel owner outside threatening to call the cops on someone. To be honest, this was the sort of accommodation I'd been expecting more of along the way, so it was all good. The truck was still there in the morning.

Although we'd cursed it repeatedly, Atlanta redeemed itself the next morning when we stopped off at one of the best coffee shops I've ever set foot in. Octane is close to the MLK Center (our first destination of the day) and also houses the Little Tart Bakery. I watched them prepare slow-drip coffees by filtering the grounds over individual cups as I dug into the best ham and cheese croissant I've ever eaten - and I've eaten A LOT of ham and cheese croissants. The ambiance was fantastic, the latte was heavenly, and the croissant left a film of butter on my plate when I was done. We ordered up two more for the road, happy that we wouldn't have to stop for lunch.

After indulging ourselves, we hopped a couple blocks over to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change. The exhibit area inside was incredibly well done, with six themed enclaves featuring video, text, and photos that walk you through King's political beginnings as the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott up to his death and its aftermath. It was incredibly powerful and I choked back tears more than once. We went outside to see his tomb, huddled under the umbrella to take photos in the morning drizzle.

We left Atlanta determined to get back, as it seems like a city with some character, worthy of much more exploration. We had still yet to find a Georgia peach, however, as it was my mission to determine whether Georgia peaches were better than Okanagan peaches - a fact of which I was seriously in doubt. And I still am, since it seems the peaches are behind schedule this year and I never managed to sink my teeth into one. In pursuit of this goal, however, we stopped off at the Buford Highway Farmers' Market, which it turned out was not an outdoor market but was actually a giant grocery store that was well worth the stop. This place had the most amazing selection of produce I've ever seen! Eight different varieties of banana, every kind of pepper you've ever seen, nopal, mangosteens, guayaba - you name it. I was in vegetable heaven and Joe was equally impressed. We rounded the corner to find an enormous seafood counter, with people lined up for all kinds of catfish, prawns, snapper, shellfish. We sampled quesadillas in the large Mexican section and gyoza dumplings in the equally large Asian section before we forced ourselves to leave with nothing more than a six-pack of water, some OJ, and a bag of limon peanuts that I couldn't pass up.

One outlet mall and a couple of elusive Georgia postcards later, and we arrived in Durham, NC for a visit with Joe's friends Chris and Tanya. They took us to a great little place serving up southern food in Chapel Hill where I finally got my hands on some fried chicken, along with cornbread, string beans, baked apples and a basket of hush puppies. It did not disappoint. We followed up dinner with a trip to the local wine bar where we engaged in a lengthy discussion of dreams and their value, inspired by my set of Klosterman's insane question cards. Chris and Tanya are delightful and it was nice to be in good company for the evening.

Now we're headed out for breakfast before the last leg of our trip: Durham to Hershey, with a quick stop in DC. I can't believe it's almost over!