Month: December 2024

Bob and I spent a lovely few hours this afternoon walking to and then having a tour of Atlanta’s historic Fox Theatre. This on a day that almost hit a heat record at a high of 72 degrees Fahrenheit. A cool front comes in tonight and temps will soon be more seasonal.

The Fox Theatre was begun in 1928, originally conceived as a home for the Atlanta’s Shriners organization. They were focused on creating a structure that honored the great mosques/structures of the Far East. However, they soon ran out of money and ended up partnering with William Fox, a movie mogul wanting to create a large movie venue in Atlanta.

The now Fox Theatre opened on Christmas Day 1926 with a 4600 seat theatre for Fox and a couple of ballrooms and offices for the Shriners.

On the way back, Bob and I walked a different route back which took us by the current Shriners Temple.

On the way back, Bob and I stopped at a bar in a boutique hotel for a cocktail before heading back.

Just for giggles, Bob and I counted the number of different places we rested our head in 2024 and came up with 72. We still find that pretty exciting.

One of the attractions that came up in Googling what to do in Atlanta (that we hadn’t already done) was the Oakland Cemetery. Although some may find it morbid, I find cemeteries to be good places for quiet walks and sometimes architecturally interesting and always good for a bit of local history.

The Oakland Cemetery was established in 1850 when the city of Atlanta purchased 6 acres of plantation farmland on the edge of town for a municipal cemetery. By 1867, the 6 acres had grown to 48 acres. Today, it is the permanent home to more than 70,000 people of all distinctions.

The cemetery is located near the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic District and about 2.9 miles from where we are staying. It was about a 90 minute walk to the cemetery through a few new areas of town and on a lovely 60+ degree day.

Last night, we learned that former President Jimmy Carter, from Plains, Georgia, had passed away at age 100. The last time we housesat in Atlanta, we visited the Carter Center and Presidential Museum here in Atlanta. I thought I would walk by there on my way back to the house.

This is our 4th repeat housesit of 2024. The other three were in Canada. This is the 3rd time Bob has sat at this house and my second. It is a lovely home in the Midtown area of Atlanta, and we are completely taken with the cat, home, and the neighborhood.

Jax we enjoy because of his fun personality and occasional lap/leg sitting.

The home is super comfy with all the kitchen utensils you could want, and the neighborhood may be the best ever in terms of walkability. There are so many stores, grocery stores, and restaurants within a 5 to 30 minute walk. It is definitely something that we would love to have whenever we land again. Then, there is the nearby Beltline Trail for running, biking, etc., and the city is sufficiently sidewalked to make longer walks possible.

We have explored two neighborhood retail/restaurant areas, and today, we went back to checkout the vibrant Ponce Market, about 15 minutes from the house.

The building that now contains the Ponce City Market was built in 1926 as a retail store, warehouse, and regional offices for Sears, Roebuck, and Company. It was renovated in 2011 as a space for retail, restaurants, and pop-up shops as well as a rooftop deck with a mini golf course, carnival games, food and drinks. Due to the weather, we stayed inside today. There is also apartments and workspace in the building.

First, Jax the cat has finally shown himself and can be quite the talker. He typically stays on the upper level (family bedrooms), but does come down to the main level when he hears us go into the room where his food is kept and/or if he’s in the mood for some petting or a short lap sit. He’s a cutie.

After a chill couple of days for Christmas, Bob and I headed out today to visit the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Museum on its main campus on Emory University. It was about an hour walk from the house. A couple of highlights from the walk.

The CDC Museum is free and open to the public, although you must show a government-issued ID or a passport, if you are not from the US. You also go through security.

The museum has permanent exhibits on the history of the CDC, the different types of work it undertakes, and then a rotating exhibit. The current rotating exhibit was on Health as a Human Right and Health Disparities. The exhibits are on three levels.

According to the exhibits, federal public health programs in the US grew out of the Marine Hospital Service established in 1798 to provide healthcare to merchant seamen. The MHS responsibilities expanded in the 19th century to include the medical inspection of immigrants, the prevention of the interstate spread of disease, and prevention and control of diseases. It was renamed the Public Health Service in 1912.

The CDC itself was established after WWII and opened on July 1, 1946. It is currently on a 45 acre campus of Emory University and is one of 13 major operating components of the Department of Health and Human Services. It is one of the few government agencies with headquarters outside of Washington, DC. Besides this main campus, it has 10 other major locations in the US and Puerto Rico, and its over 15,000 employees work in over 50 countries around the world. We generally hear about the agency during pandemics (Covid, AIDS, Ebola), but they do a lot to assess and improve the physical and environmental health of people around the world.

Below are some samples from the various exhibits.

It was really impressive to see the variety of work that they do, and the number of emerging diseases and terrorism events they have had to respond to even since 1946 (polio, Zika, anthrax scares, 9/11, AIDS, Ebola, TB, etc.). They do not get nearly the recognition they deserve for helping address public health needs on an ongoing basis as well as these more major events.

The big assignment for the day was to drive from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Atlanta, Georgia, to start our new housesit. Mission accomplished. We had our relatively quick walk-through, as this is a repeat. We will be caring for a cat, Jax, who has not yet made his appearance, and a lovely home in midtown Atlanta. More to come on the new sit.

On the way, we stopped in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, to visit a former homeowner, neighbor/friend of home owner, and the adorable dog, Cooper. They all hold a special place in our hearts, and we had a great visit over some homemade goodies.

We also learned on the drive that our nephew and his wife will be having a daughter this June to make our great nephew a big brother.

After a couple of longish drives in a good amount of traffic, it feels great to have landed for a two week sit.

So our Delaware sit went a little differently than planned. Last Friday night, Cassie, the sweet 13 year old Golden Retriever that we were caring for, started really struggling to get herself up and get herself in a comfy position when she was lying down. Her back legs didn’t seem to have any strength.

Saturday morning, she wasn’t better, so we reached out to the homeowners. They felt that she had probably hurt herself getting on and off a bed or on their wood floors and thought it might resolve itself. By Sunday night, all were in agreement that she needed to see the vet. We got a 4 pm appointment on Monday, and they prescribed some anti inflammatory pills.

We were skeptical. At this point, Cassie’s back legs were not working, and we were having to lift her to get her to get up and change positions, go outside,or get up to eat. We had put extra floor coverings down in the house because she couldn’t get any traction on the wood flooring. The happy news is the pills worked. Starting some time Wednesday, she started getting stronger. Today, when we left her, she was back to “normal” except that she wasn’t hopping upon furniture, which is probably a good thing. Bob and I made sure one of us was always with her, so we became quite attached. She is a sweetie.

Today we left Cassie to drive what we thought would be a maybe 6.5 hour drive to Greensboro, NC. Holiday car travel made it over an hour longer. We drove through Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, and Virginia before stopping for the night.

The pics below are mostly from our drive through Maryland before everything slowed way down going around DC and then through Virginia.

Tomorrow, we are going to stop in Boiling Springs, NC, to visit a former home owner and neighbor that we got to know over a 4 month housesit early in 2023, before we head to a repeat housesit in Atlanta, Georgia.

Just a quick blog today (photos mostly) from our near freezing walk along the Isaac Branch Trail segment of the St. Jones River. It is a well maintained asphalt pathway which runs alongside the St. Jones River, and is part of the Capital City Trails Network.

This portion of the trail is 2.6 miles long. We walked 2 miles before turning around. Had we known the total length ahead of time, we would have likely went until the end. The signs along the route show greater distances, so it must connect to other trails.

Here’s the pics. It was a lovely walk. We saw one other walker and one well bundled up cyclist. We continue to be surprised by how marshy this area is, but we are less than 10 miles from the coast.

Note about St. Jones. The internet tells me that a John Jones (1530-1598) was a Franciscan monk, born in Wales, and executed in England. He is one of the 40 martyrs of England and Wales, lay and religious Catholics men and women who were executed between 1535 and 1679 for offenses under various laws enacted by Parliament during the English Reformation.

After a very rainy Wednesday, Bob and I headed to the Air Mobility Command Museum on a much cooler (high of 44 F but feels like temp 10 degrees cooler) but drier day. The museum is located South of Dover Air Force Base in and around an old WWII hangar. It’s free to the public, and is the only museum in the United States dedicated to the history of airlifts and air refueling. We learned a bit about that, but mostly, we ogled old and some current (in the sky) military planes.

Upon entering, there is a small theater that continuously runs 4 different films — one about the Air Force and 3 about different types of planes. We saw all of 2 films about the C-5 (biggest plane at the museum) and the KC-10, which does mid-air refueling. Crazy to watch and cannot imagine trying to make that happen. We then explored the inside of the museum and an old control tower before heading out to see the planes and other outdoor exhibits.

Bob and I had to get out and enjoy the unusually warm December weather today (high of 59 F!), so we headed out to a local park for a hike through the woods.

While we found the park online, it was not marked when we got to the site, so we think this is where we hiked but we’re not sure. If it was Hunn (and we think it was), it has 173 acres and contains a couple of tidal basins. There was also no trail signage except for the one below. Still, a pretty walk on a lovely day.

Bob and I headed out today to see some of the local sites. First, we headed to Fifer Orchards to peruse their farm market. Fifer Orchards is located in the nearby community of Wyoming, Delaware, about a 15 minute drive from the house. It has a population of about 1,700 and was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania.

On the way back from the orchard, we stopped at a couple of other places in Wyoming as well. First, was the Rider Country Store in an old rail depot building.

Finally, we wanted to get some photos of a couple of historical landmarks in Magnolia that we had read about.