Today is the final day of the Simply Southern Contest. Make sure you are following along with us on Twitter.
Yesterday our morning started at Highland Bakery, another favorite spot of the locals which I have never been to. Our server started us off with a sampling of Sweet Potato Pancakes, Blueberry Pancakes and Grits. I was not so sure about Sweet Potato pancakes at first, but as stated on Twitter
Magic Crutcher
For my breakfast I opted for something more traditional, the French toast.
We had an opportunity to look through the portfolio of cake designs at Highland Bakery. The one that I think impressed us all was travel trunk, complete with a little gold lock. The Highland bakery can seat about 70 people inside and on a nice day 40 people outside. Apparently on Sundays they keep the house packed serving over 700 customers throughout the day.
From the bakery we headed over to StudioPlex where we picked up our bikes and met our guides from Bicycle Tours of Atlanta. We learned some critical rules of the road and headed off to Inman Park. We learned the history of Inman park as being Atlanta's first planned suburb. It was developed by Joel Hurt. Some of Atlanta's famous entrepreneurs lived in Inman Park. We saw the house of the founder of Coca Cola, Asa Griggs Candler which is currently undergoing some renovations.
We then road over to the birth home of Martin Luther King, Jr and took a brief opportunity to stroll through The King Center which is another Atlanta Destination I had never taken the opportunity to visit. The King Center is filled with inspiration; from quotes on the walls, to stories told through text, movies, and pictures to life sized statues of people marching for freedom.
After that brief stop we road over to Oakland Cemetery where we were greeted with true Southern Hospitality. The Oakland Cemetery stretches across 48 acres and is the resting place of more than 70,000 people. The "residents" include 26 mayors, thousands of confederate soldiers, both known and unknown and 16 Union soldiers. It is the resting place of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind. And, it is still and active cemetery, meaning there are still several thousand plots available.
From there we road through Cabbagetown, a neighborhood that got it's name because of a perpetual small of Cabbage, a name that I believe they are still proud of...
We finished our tour by riding our bikes up Peachtree street back to the Georgia Terrace to enjoy lunch at the Livingston. I highly recommend their 3 martini lunch. You get to choose 3 lite and tasty items which are served in 3 martini glass. I figured you have to have a martini with a lunch called 3 Martini lunch, so I enjoyed a nice southern lemon drop. YUM!
You can imagine that we were all exhausted and needed some freshing up by this time. We took a nice two-hour break and then met again to head down to Stone Mountain Park. Now not only have I been to Stone Mountain Park many times, it was actually one of the destinations that lured me into wanting to live in Atlanta. However it seems every year there is something new to do in Stone Mountain. We explored their new ropes course, and in fact one of the journalist in the group jumped into a harness to try them out. We enjoyed a southern style dinner at Ms Katie's restaurant where they literally toss rolls to you. From there we explored the shops and then headed over to the field to settle in for the laser light show. The laser light show is a celebration of everything Georgia, everything southern and everything American through laser lights, pictures, fireworks, and of course music, mostly country music.
When we returned to the hotel I went to the rooftop pool to enjoy a nightcap as I looked around the city. A city of lights and noise. A city that seems so very young and vibrant but which actually rests on top of a lot of history. A city where we entreprenuers, writers, activists, and dreamers are truly standing on the shoulders of some pretty significant giants.
