More List Updates: Our Trip to the Falls

Good weekend.  Aimee and I took advantage of a beautiful spring day to head up into Northern Georgia to the Chattahoochee National Forest – home to the Amicalola Falls and the start of the Appalachian Trail.  It’s plainly beautiful up there and a good place to do some hiking.  We did the Appalachian Approach trail which takes you up to the top of the falls through a strenuous incline and then up 600 steps (the first picture below was just for the first part).  In addition to the pictures below, check out our Picasa Album for Atlanta.

 

After taking the pictures above, we took the East Ridge Trail back down which was a lovely wooded descent back to the lodge.  The photo above is a portion of the falls during the ascent.  The photo below is on our way back down.  You can’t quite see it in the picture but the Atlanta skyline was barely visible from the top, way off in the distance.

Taking advantage of being in the suburbs, we decided to have a dinner of Italian comfort food at the Olive Garden in Roswell, GA.  We had soup, salad, and breadsticks (obviously) and split the cappellini di mare which was pretty decent.  Only at Olive Garden though, can you order Lasagna Fritta (we did not):

For Sunday brunch we found ourselves at Wahoo!  a Decatur Grill.  I was thoroughly impressed.  It’s a little out of the way in Decatur but the setting was lovely: quaint but not old-fashioned, sophisticated just enough without feeling like the trendiness would overshadow the food.  Aimee had French Toast brioche with vanilla-lemon cream cheese and seasonal fresh fruit and I had the goat cheese-chive polenta topped with black beans, two fried eggs, and pico de gallo.

For Our List of things to do in Atlanta before we depart, we’ve added Braves Game and also checked off the Fox and the Falls.  Updated list below:

1. Aquarium
2. CNN Studio Tour – check.
3. High Museum of Art
4. Something at the Fox Theatre – check.
5. Spend the day at Stone Mountain
6. Spend a weekend in Savannah at a B&B
7. Visit Amicalola  Falls / Appalachian Trail, bring camera – check!
8. Take in a concert at the ASO (planned for May)
9. Continue to meet more friends
10. NEW - Attend a Braves game in the spring

Finally, on the music front… piano lessons have been going well.  My repertoire so far this year is:

• Nocturne in F minor, op. 55, no. 1 – Chopin
• Excursions No. 1 – Samuel Barber
• Prelude No. 2, “Voiles” – Debussy
• Piano Sonata in F major, op. 10, no. 6, I, II, and III – Beethoven
• Prelude in G-sharp minor, op. 32, no. 12 – Rachmaninoff
• Etude in A-flat, op. 25, no. 1 – Chopin
• Intermezzo, op. 116, no. 4 – Brahms

I also wrote new psalm this week for Psalm 62.  I’ve utilized the new translation of the Grail Psalter to make sure it is compatible with future edition of the English Lectionary for Mass.  Also many of you know that I’ve been working on a mass setting to be used with the upcoming Third Edition of the Roman Missal, due to “Go Live” Advent 2011.   I hope to send these both in to GIA or OCP or World Library in the next couple weeks!

Off to Austin in a few hours…

Just a couple of love birds

We tend to do something different each year about this time in February, and what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by staying in and cooking up a couple of Cornish Hens?  I marinated them in a tasty white wine-soy sauce-herb mixture with chopped garlic cloves. 

Aimee aptly prepared for our dinner by taking a picture and promptly posting it on Facebook.  Can’t blame her though, the meat was perfect and, served alongside some broccoli and homemade biscuits, it was a fun way to spend Valentine’s Day. 

And did I make some baby chicken stock with the carcasses?  You bet.  The night after Valentine’s Day we went to a Wells Fargo-sponsored evening at the Fox Theatre (checking another item off our list!!).  It was an evening for clients of their financial advisory group, of which we are not.  The evening featured a presentation of “Second Half Champions”, for folks who made a dramatic shift in their life after 50.  So on many fronts, we felt like a good pair of imposters, but we got the tickets from someone not using them so figured we’d enjoy some food and a show by Mike Rayburn:  “the world’s funniest guitar virtuoso”.  In some respects he was simply a motivational speaker, though he didn’t ascribe that term to himself.  He was however, a bona fide musician, classically training and well performed.  The following video is a compilation of his show.

Mike Rayburn

I love his finger tapping technique and ability to adapt and mesh different styles of playing and genres of music.  In all, something for everyone.  Except tenderloin sandwiches.  They ran out before we got there.

A couple updates…

February 12th was President Lincoln’s birthday.  Had it not been for his untimely death, he would have turned 202 on Saturday.  Aimee and I thought it would be a good day to visit the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead. Here’s a quick snippet from their website:

In 1926, fourteen civic-minded Atlantans chartered the Atlanta Historical Society to help preserve the city’s history.  These founding members met at each other’s homes, collected early manuscripts and photographs, and published research bulletins – all “to arouse in the citizens and friends of Atlanta an interest in its history.”  Over the past 82 years, the organization has grown substantially  in both scope and size, and in 1990, the Atlanta Historical Society and all of its holdings officially became the Atlanta History Center.  Now located on 33 acres in historic Buckhead, the Atlanta History Center strives to connect people, history, and culture through one of the country’s premier History Centers.

So we got to cross this one off our list of things to do in Atlanta and enjoy a beautiful day, marking the early warm up of spring in Georgia.

The Swan House Mansion

U.S Army Medicine Kit

A pretty fascinating artillery display

An antique piano, pre-dating the modern instrument

The museum stepped us through the various turning points and pivotal battles in the Civil War.  They did a phenomenal job showcasing this glorified and romanticized event in our history while candidly presenting the horror and destruction it brought about. Naturally there was a section devoted to Sherman’s March.  The quote below was good reminder of how Atlanta was utterly destroyed by the Union army and has made, by all accounts, a fine reconstruction of its own.

February 5th through 10th was the annual North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society (NANOS) Conference.  This year Aimee traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia for the meeting and stayed in the lovely Fairmont Hotel downtown on Georgia.  Vancouver is such a beautiful city, I’m so glad Aimee finally got a chance to visit!  She went with her current and future colleagues and had the opportunity to present her research (along with enjoying some good restaurants). Below is a picture of her poster on Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension (IIH) followed by the group of past and current Emory neuro-ophthalmologists, and he co-fellow Daniela:

 

Let’s see, what else…

Crowley’s doing well and making a few more friends around here, including “Piper”, her best friend (in Atlanta).  We’re also finally expanding her freedom in the apartment when we’re gone and she’s doing great.  In fact, the other day I came home and she was watching a DVD – Christmas Vacation.  The strange thing is that she managed to turn the DVD player on by herself!  Evidently she had nosed the player (which automatically turns on the TV).  This means two things: 1)  Crowley seems to enjoy Chevy Chase and, 2) we haven’t watched an actual DVD since before Christmas.

We ate at Antico Pizza on Friday night which is just amazing for Neapolitan pizza, and then at Perla Taqueria which was slightly less amazing.

Five months to go, let’s get our act together

It’s February 1st, which means we have 5 months, more or less, in Atlanta.  As the weather starts to warm up, it’s occurred to us both that we have a lot planned for the spring, between visitors, trips, and just activities around Atlanta.  So we made a list of goals.  For those who know Atlanta or the southeast, I’d love to hear more.

1. Aquarium
2. CNN Studio Tour – check.
3. High Museum of Art
4. Something at the Fox Theatre
5. Spend the day at Stone Mountain
6. Spend a weekend in Savannah at a B&B
7. Visit Amicalola  Falls / Appalachian Trail, bring camera
8. Take in a concert at the ASO (planned for May)
9. Continue to meet more friends

Meeting friends here has been a good experience and while we want to keep it up, it’s been great to have the impromptu dinners and evenings with friends we’ve already made.  On Saturday our friend Tommy hosted us and 20 others for a pot luck Mexican Fiesta.   Aimee made chicken enchiladas (that turned out a bit spicier than anticipated) but incredibly flavorful:

And I made my guacamole which, despite some avocados that were a touch too “young”, turned out nicely.  It’s not secret recipe but the ingredients I like to use are below:

Avocados, lots of chopped fresh cilantro, coarse salt, diced jalapenos, lightly roasted garlic, plenty of lime juice, coarsely diced tomato, freshly ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, ground cumin, and diced onion.    It was a great time, we enjoyed hanging out, eating some good food and finishing the evening with a fine sipping tequila.

Lest we forget the old friends…  Wes is in town for work and stopped by last night for visit.  He flew in late, checked in at the hotel, and still made time to come see us before having to prep for an 8am client meeting this morning.  It was a quick trip for him but I have a sneaking suspicion it may be made longer by the impending apocalyptic precipitation up there.

Lastly, for the second time in only 18 months, Squeaker has undergone surgery at the hands of Dr. Aimee.  This particularly nasty item came home from the breeder with Crowley and it’s been her far and away favorite toy so we do what we can to persist the obsession.  Crowley watched intently as the operation was underway to becoming a great success.

 

Off to Austin tonight for me and Aimee is off to Vancouver on Saturday for the Neuro-ophthalmology conference.  I’m only a little bitter that I’m not going, but I’ll enjoy the time at home for sure.