Sister Trip '21: Part One

My favorite travel buddy is my sister, and if I'm not traveling alone, the person traveling with me is Jule for the heaping majority of the time. I honestly think we'd travel even more together if her schedule allowed it, but she works as an elementary school librarian, and the school schedule deeply limits when we can actually hit the road. There's some time around Christmas, spring break, and obviously much more opportunity in the summer, but Jule normally works in the summer, too, which cuts into our potential travel time even further.

Back in 2015 during my senior year of college, we had our inaugural Sister Trip over Julia's spring break from school (We spent a week at Disney and Universal in Florida with a quick trip to the Gulf Coast midweek, and we truly had the time of our lives). In the years since, other Sister Trips have included London/Ireland (during the year I was living in Spain), Savannah/Charleston, St. Louis/Chicago, and Miami/Key West, in addition to our random day trips and weekend getaways here and there.

Last year, I wasn't supposed to be here for Julia's spring break and it was right around the time that Covid struck, so we ended up waiting until June and doing a socially-distant Pennsylvania Wilds road trip out to Erie, with stops to see Kinzua Bridge, Penn's Cave, and much more along the way.

Before the pandemic, I had plans to move to China to teach English, and my big move was supposed to be in May of 2020. I went on a fabulous trip through Africa from mid-January to mid-March, and I was supposed to be home for about two months and then make the leap to China. It's May of 2021, and I'm still in the US. Best laid plans, right? But earlier this year, it seemed like I might be able to get to China, so I didn't think I'd be home for Julia's spring break. Without boring you with too much detail, it fell through again, so Jule and I decided to make the best of it and do a road trip through the Deep South, since we've both been vaccinated since early this year.

Julia largely lets me plan everything and make almost all the decisions and just shows up, ready to go when it's time to hit the road, and this trip was no different. I run everything by her but she rarely remembers everything I have planned so it's often a fun surprise for her when we actually get on the road.

We headed south from Jule's house in Occoquan, VA on March 27. We were doing the longest drive to South Carolina the first day, but we decided to break it up with a stop in Chapel Hill, NC (which was actually a suggestion of Julia's!). We drove through the picturesque town and parked the car to do a lap through a beautiful garden on UNC Chapel Hill's grounds.

At UNC Chapel Hill

We then continued on to Greenville, SC, where we were spending the night. We walked through town, visiting a few stores and looking for the Mice on Main, an art installation of little bronze mice statues scattered along Greenville's "celebrated Main Street." We also stopped for photos at Falls Park on the Reedy, arguably the most scenic area in town.

One of the Mice on Main

Falls Park on the Reedy

We had dinner at Bacon Bros. Public House, which lacked the ambiance I was hoping for because our "patio seating" was basically sitting in a shopping center parking lot, but the food was delicious, so no major complaints from me. We went back downtown to see the river lit up at night before we continued on to our Airbnb.

Downtown Greenville at night

In the morning, we had tickets for a boat tour on Jocassee Lake, a beautiful reservoir in northern South Carolina that is famous for its gorges and waterfalls, most (or maybe all?) of which can only be reached via boat. Unfortunately, the tour got canceled due to high winds and rain, but we decided to do a scenic drive through the South Carolina Upcountry anyway. So we had breakfast and hit the road, stopping at a waterfall and a state park on our way to Jocassee Lake.

Waterfall on SC route 11 that I cannot find the name of, so forgive me

Table Rock State Park

Jocassee Lake

Even in the rain, I'm very glad we took the scenic route. We then continued on to Atlanta, and since we got there earlier than expected due to the boat tour cancellation, we went to a Spanish tapas restaurant for lunch, which was more delicious than I can describe. We then visited Ponce City Market to explore the shops and visit the rooftop for beautiful views of the Atlanta skyline.

The rooftop at Ponce City Market

Skyline Park at the Ponce City Market has a bar, a restaurant, and multiple carnival games and rides for people of all ages to enjoy. We played a few games and had a drink while we took in the skyline, but you could easily spend much longer there than we did.

We then checked into our Airbnb and relaxed for awhile before we grabbed a late dinner of Pub Subs from Publix (a first for me, since we don't have Publix in Pennsylvania. Jule had already been to one in Virginia so she knew what to order).

Our first stop in the morning was the World of Coca-Cola, an interactive museum about the history of Coca-Cola (which is headquartered in Atlanta). I had read good things about the museum but I was still really impressed by the exhibits. I had never thought before about the impact that Coke has had on advertising, and learning about their supply chain was fascinating. I drank Coke products in Malawi, which is amazing when I stopped to think about it. It turns out Coke even invented the six pack, which I just assumed was a beer company's idea.

At the World of Coca-Cola

We then took an Atlanta city tour, and I would share the name of the company if I knew it. I had a tour booked with Roundabout Atlanta, but the tour operator called me the day before and explained that he didn't have enough people to run the tour. He was going to have a friend from a different company call me who was running a tour around the same time, and we ended up rebooking with him. I feel guilty that I didn't write down the name of the tour company because he did a great job. Stops included the Mercedes Benz stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons; the Georgia State Capitol; the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum and Library; Georgia State Stadium, which is the former site of the baseball field where Hank Aaron hit home run number 715; and a scenic drive through Buckhead, the Beverly Hills of the South, full of mansions worth millions.

Falcon sculpture outside Mercedes Benz stadium

Site of Hank Aaron's 715th home run

Georgia State Capitol

Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum and Library (closed at the time due to Covid)

Our tour guide stopped on this bridge so we could get photos with the Atlanta skyline, then cut off part of the skyline but kept the graffitied railing in the photo. Gotta love it.

We also stopped at the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which is part of a compound including the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Site, and the final resting place of Dr. King and his wife, Coretta. The King Center is also just down the street Dr. King's childhood home.

Eternal Flame at the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change

The King’s gravesite

Ebenezer Baptist Church

Dr. King's childhood home

The tour ended, and after a quick stop for some amazing tacos and ice cream, Jule and I then continued our sightseeing by visiting the Fox Theater and Margaret Mitchell's house, where she lived while writing most of Gone with the Wind. We finally parked our car near Centennial Olympic Park and walked around the exterior, as the park was closed and had been since May 2020 due to a combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and also because it was the site of a protest-turned-riot after the murder of George Floyd. (As of May 2021, parts of the park are now open to visitors but with limited hours.)

Fox Theater

Margaret Mitchell House

CNN headquarters

View across Centennial Olympic Park

Selfie with the Olympic rings

Julia requested that we go to the Georgia Aquarium, and although I don't actually like aquariums, I agreed because as I mentioned earlier, Jule lets me make nearly all the decisions when we travel together. The Georgia Aquarium has a really good reputation, and they had a special shark exhibit while we were there, so Julia was on cloud nine.

At the Georgia Aquarium

We finished off our day by getting takeout from the Varsity, an Atlanta institution and the largest drive-in fast food restaurant in the world. I had a slaw dog (a hot dog topped with cole slaw), onion rings, a deep fried peach pie, and a Frosted Orange (a milkshake of vanilla ice cream and the Varsity's signature orange drink). If you're drooling, it's with good reason; everything we got was delicious.

Dinnertime!

We packed a lot into our time in Atlanta, and the next day we were crossing the border into Alabama. First stop: Birmingham. We stopped at a fancy grilled cheese place for lunch before meeting our tour guide from Red Clay Tours at Railroad Park. Side note: Our tour guide said to meet him near The Red Cat coffee shop, which is what we put into the GPS. Turns out there's more than one Red Cat coffee shop in Birmingham, so we parked at the wrong one and walked around in circles for about 10 minutes before we realized our mistake. Always keeping it interesting!

Our tour guide, Clay, from Red Clay Tours was absolutely wonderful, and if you find yourself in the neighborhood, I highly recommend taking a tour with him. We did the Magic City tour (a general Birmingham history tour), but he also does a Civil Rights tour and I deeply wish we had time to do both. Our tour started at Railroad Park, with Clay telling us about Birmingham's industrial history as we looked downtown from the opposite side of the railroad tracks, Birmingham's lifeblood when it was a booming industrial town.

Railroad Park

Then he took us out to Sloss Iron Furnaces, a former pig-iron producing furnace and the only blast furnace designated as a National Historic Landmark in the country. Pig-iron is the beginning of an iron product, as it would leave the furnace to be turned into other products like cast iron pans. I really enjoyed touring the iron furnace, as a girl who grew up in an industrial town. Scranton is in the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region, "home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal found in the Americas, with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons" (source). I learned a lot about mining and coal itself in school, so it was really interesting to see one of the places the coal would end up, as the iron furnace was run on coke, a byproduct of coal.

Sloss Iron Furnaces

Clay then took us back into the city to visit Kelly Ingram Park, a park full of sculptures that show the fight for civil rights in Birmingham. The park was also a place to assemble for activities and demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement. Kelly Ingram Park is across the street from 16th Street Baptist Church, which was bombed in 1963 by the KKK, claiming the lives of four young girls. The park and the church are now part of the Birmingham Civil Rights District.

Memorial at Kelly Ingram park for the lives lost in the bombing of 1963

Civil Rights sculpture in Kelly Ingram Park

Civil Rights sculpture in Kelly Ingram Park

16th Street Baptist Church

We then stopped at Rickwood Field, the oldest professional baseball park in the country. Clay rattled off a bunch of baseball facts and big names while we were there, but the one that stood out to me was that Willie Mays got his start there as a 16-year-old center fielder.

Oldest professional baseball park in the country

Finally Clay took us to Vulcan Park, home of "the largest cast iron statue in the world, and is the city symbol of Birmingham, reflecting its roots in the iron and steel industry. The 56-foot tall statue depicts the Roman god Vulcan, god of the fire and forge. It was created as Birmingham's entry for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. While it is the world's largest made of iron-ore, it is also among the nation's tallest statues of any kind" (source). It had pretty views of the city so we got the only nice photo of the two of us from the entire trip that's not a selfie.

Vulcan statue

View from Vulcan park

After the tour, Jule and I did a lap through the Birmingham Botanical Gardens (which are free!), but we cut it short because we were pretty tired. For dinner, we went to Saw's BBQ to try world-famous Alabama white barbecue sauce. Julia and I both love barbecue and have tried to eat as many different regional types as we can, and Alabama-style was one of the last holdouts. Carolina-style barbecue is still my favorite, but the Alabama white sauce was sensational. We both loved it, and then enjoyed some homemade ice cream from the nearby Big Spoon Creamery, so Birmingham was a 10/10 for food.

Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Saw's BBQ Pork & Greens, deviled eggs, and Smoked Chicken with White BBQ Sauce (The photo doesn't do it justice. Truly, this food was heavenly.)

I thought I would be able to write about our trip in one post but I should have known that I write too much, so clearly that is not going to happen without this post being 20 pages long. I will finish writing about the remainder of the trip in my next post!