A Perfect Day in Atlanta; Wanderlust Weekly Mar 16, 2024

Traveling with others can be uncertain, especially when it's family. Here's how my adventure with my mom turned out (if you couldn't guess from the subject, it was perfect).

Mar 16, 2024

During the weeks leading up to my trip to Atlanta, I grew increasingly excited and simultaneously anxious. How would the show go? I’ve never been to Atlanta. I have no audience there. No readers.

But, I’ve done these shows enough to know that I’d meet hundreds of people who love to travel. They’d want to enter to win my books and would grab a piece of candy (or a handful) before they continued exploring the show. I’d speak about road trips and, since I’m passionate about them, my enthusiasm would transfer.

I knew people would like me. I’m a likeable person. I smile and am joyful and I give them chocolate and sugar.

But, I was anxious because I would be traveling with my mom.

Mom and I get along great. She’s been my best friend since I was in elementary school and she’d drive me to my “academically talented” classes across town. Since my tween years when she’d wake me up at five in the morning to run with her. Since she got hired by a company in another city and she and I shared a small rental so I could attend band camp at my new school until we got a house and my brother and dad could join us. Since high school, when all my friends called her Mom, too. She still knows when something’s wrong and will call to check on me. Her mom-dar is infallible.

But we haven’t traveled together, just the two of us, in I have no idea how long. In the last few years, I’ve had cancer and she’s had multiple surgeries, including major back surgery.

I hoped, though. I hoped we’d be OK.

We were. We definitely were.

I arrived in Atlanta Wednesday night before the show. I woke up the next morning and visited a couple coffee shops that had been recommended to me by Cobb County tourism’s PR company. I got back to the room and Mom arrived at 12:05pm.

Perfect.

Mom’s got a lot of food allergies and intolerances, so dining can be problematic. However, I found a Mediterranean spot five minutes away. The tiny parking lot was so full we had to park in a pick-up spot. We took it to go and found a picnic table along the Chattahoochee River.

Perfect.

We drove into Atlanta. I found a parking spot across from the Georgia Aquarium for $10. We had timed entry for 2pm. We arrived at 1:50pm.

Mom had gotten the tickets and I’d secured a Behind the Seas Tour for 2:15. We met Elena, our tour guide, with enough time to use the bathrooms. Elena waited to make sure no one else was joining us–she told us there could be up to 18 people on the tour.

Nope. It was just the three of us.

It was delightful. After our tour, Mom and I explored the aquarium like a couple of kids. We took videos and photos. We giggled at jellyfish and stared in awe as fish swirled in the shape of a globe before being rudely interrupted by a hammerhead shark. In Ocean Voyager, whale sharks–absolutely massive creatures–swam leisurely above us, trailed by an entourage like Hollywood stars.

I went to get the car almost exactly when our three hours were up.

Perfect.

We left the aquarium and drove to Viking Alchemist Meadery. We meant to be there for maybe an hour, but Mom and I have this thing: people talk to us. A young man to her left talked to her, and a Mother-Daughter pair to my right talked to me.

On our way out, Wylie gave mom a jonquil.

Two hours later, we took our bottle of mead and a couple cups fitted with carabiners as handles and made our way to Heirloom Market BBQ.

Mom loves barbecue. Mention pulled pork and her eyes light up like one of those bioluminescent corals we’d seen. By this time, we were ready to be back in the room. She’d driven four hours from Asheville and I’d taken two days to make my way to Georgia. All we wanted was our jammies and some ‘que.

Fortunately, Heirloom is a carry-out kind of place. I placed the order on my phone before we left the meadery. We found the last spot in the itsy-bitsy parking lot and entered an open-air room, admiring the painted walls covered with artists and rock and country stars. There was a mural of the owners, Jody and Jiyeon, and a South Korean flag with hummingbirds and their dogs.

Soon, our order was ready. We took it back to the room, put on our jammies, and dug into pulled pork, brisket, coleslaw, and baked beans.

To top off our day, Mom called Dad. She put him on speaker phone so I could talk to him, too. Then Jim called, so I put him on speaker phone and we all talked together.

Perfect.

Mark Twain said:

“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”

I like my mom. I love her, and I like her.

The rest of the weekend was wonderful. I had little time for anything but the show (which is why I didn’t send an email last week), but I got to spend all of it with Mom. She proved to be a fantastic booth babe. If you’ve met her, you know. Fun, feisty, proud, and joyful.

I wasn’t sure I was going to do the Atlanta show. I knew, with the rental car and hotels and all the other costs it would be expensive. But seeing Mom and spending that time with her? Having a girls getaway? Having her see me speak for the first time? It was totally worth it.

It was perfect.