Atlanta Day 2

 I hadn't done a 5K in May which is quickly disappearing so I found one we could do while here.  It was at Peachtree Presbyterian Church (doesn't that just sound like a Georgia church?) in a gorgeous affluent suburb called Buckhead.  This church had a huge campus with I don't know how many chapels, a gym in a separate building, day care, counseling (which is what this run was raising funds for) and tons of classes offered on Sundays.  Again, church in the South is a different animal.
The race didn't start until 9am and it was already very hot and this course had some hills.  My goal to not walk hit the skids on the first big hill!  Still, had my best time yet @ 37:07 and Tom placed third in his age category.


Even though our plans for the day were in the same area of the race, we were soaking wet after our little jaunt so headed back to the hotel for showers then turned around to go back to the Atlanta History Museum.  Lots of interesting history from civil war to civil rights that sometimes showed them at their best and their not so best.

This just creeped me out.

Gorgeous quilt

 We headed outside for a couple of tours.  First was a farm that had been moved to the property.  As usual, I got swept up in the gardens.

 Next, was the Swan House.  A gorgeous mansion that was originally on the property and donated along with the grounds.  No photos inside but the matron of the home loved swans so there were a lot of motifs with all kinds of birds.  I loved it, Tom felt it was overdone.  But then again, I'm a sucker for flowered wall paper and there was a den/library I would KILL to have.

We also walked up the path to the Swan Coach House which is now a restaurant, gallery and gift shop.  It was full of women lunching and looked to be having bridal parties and such.  It seemed "very Southern" in it's menu and decor and gave the impression of being a tad hoity toity.  Very pricey retail as well.

Victorian Playhouse on the property

It turned out Atlanta was hosting it's annual Jazz Festival at Piedmont Park so we decided to head over there. It went all weekend and the park was full of tents and umbrellas.  Apparently they had music all day up until 11 pm.  We listened to several bands then headliner Kathleen Bertrand who, frankly as I'm not a big jazz gal I'm not sure who she is, but she was good.

We hadn't eaten since they'd fed us post race Chik-fil-A biscuits many hours earlier so we wandered the plethora of vendors and ended up with Italian Sausage for Tom and a foot long corn dog for me.  Yep, pretty health conscious.  Tall lemonade to fight the heat then Rita's Italian Ice Gelato for dessert!

There was another stage on the other side of the park so we headed there to check out another band and spent some time looking at other vendor's art, clothing, jewelry and other goodies.  Again, no purchases but lots of looking.  After all day in the sun, including 3 hours at the park people watching, Tom napping, and enjoying the tunes, we opted again for an early turn in so we weren't fighting the post-festival crowds.