Roswell, Georgia

Since I’m in a no-travel time of year  — (can you believe the school system frowns on pulling our kids out of class to travel with Mom and Dad?  It sure cramps my year from August to May!) — I thought I’d write a little about Roswell, Georgia.

Roswell is a suburb of Atlanta, but when I moved here 22 (!) years ago it was a sleepy Southern town, complete with a gazebo-crowned square and haunted buildings.  As it’s grown to something like 85,000 inhabitants, it’s kept the old square and even the ghosts.  Back in the 80s, the old part of town was largely vacant, but now there are antique shops, art galleries, restaurants, and boutiques to browse, mostly along Canton Street, north of the square.

The Fickle Pickle is one of my favorite lunch spots.  It’s in a renovated house, at 1085 Canton Street.  Its specialty is fried pickles, but the green tomato sandwich is great, too. 

Heaven Blue Rose art gallery features ever-changing exhibits by local artists. 

Go With the Flow offers everything you need for canoeing or kayaking on nearby Chattahoochee River.  One of these days I’m going to rent a kayak and spend a peaceful day meandering through the shallows of the river along the Chattahoochee Nature Center.

And if you’re a cyclist, bike paths and trails abound.  The mayor even leads a ride every Thursday afternoon.

The Chattahoochee, north of Highway 400, was rated a few years ago as one of the top fly-fishing rivers in the Southeast.  (That’s another thing I’ve got to try one day.)

Two useful items for travelers

1.  A folding cooler from REI.

2.  Men’s swim trunks in navy from Target.

The REI cooler folds flat to go inside a suitcase or can be used as a carry-on bag (with purse, book, snacks, and camera inside, in my case). 

At the destination it works great for keeping a lunch from the farmer’s market cool (with a couple of cold bottles of water) during the drive to the picnic spot.  But it leaks if you put lots of ice in it.  When we’re traveling and really need ice, I just set the cooler on a plastic bag or two to catch the drips. 

At home, I throw the cooler into the car whenever I’m off to shop at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or Super H here in Atlanta — all involve a 20 – 30 minute drive.  The cooler keeps those frozen dumplings frozen.

Early this summer I arrived at the beach to find I’d forgotten to pack a swim suit.  As any woman can tell you, buying a new swim suit is like undergoing a root canal.  It’s painful and expensive.  So instead of shelling out $60+ for a skimpy suit that didn’t really fit and showed every bit of middle-age flab, I bought men’s swim trunks ($9.99) and an exercise top ($5.99 on clearance).  They sufficed for swimming in the Gulf on that trip.

For our California trip, the swim trunks worked as regular shorts on hot days (baggy, with pockets — can you tell I’m not worried about fashion?), as workout clothing for the rare sprint on a hotel treadmill, and as bathing suit bottoms (now paired with a tankini top from my old swim suits) at hotel pools.  It seems that on any trip you need a pair of shorts and a bathing suit, just in case.  These men’s trunks fit the bill.

Time Travel

In an episode of “The Twilight Zone” a car is driving through the dark and somehow passes into the past.  I always feel that way when we’re driving to the beach, especially when we leave late in the day, like we did yesterday.

 We hustle to leave home and get on the road — to “beat” the traffic.  (If you live in Atlanta or any other big city, you know what a joke that idea is!  Traffic is always snarled.) 

Within minutes of pulling out of the driveway, we’re in stop-and-go, 8-lane highway traffic.  The radio’s on, the day’s events fill the car with sound.  My teenage daughter’s cellphone rings “Singing in the Rain” — her chosen ringtone — with her friends checking to see if she’s free for the evening.

After about an hour, maybe two if traffic’s heavy, the highway calms down.  From 8 lanes to 6, from 6 lanes to 4.  Grass gone to seed waves from the shoulder.  Barbeque restaurant signs flash by.  We open the thermos of coffee, continue listening to news on the radio, crunch on pretzels.

Nearing the Georgia-Alabama border, exits grow sparse.

Beyond Montgomery, the landscape starts to look like my childhood memories.  Fields float by.  Now and then a farmhouse beckons with warm, yellow-lit windows.  An old gas station, a barn, a fruit stand used to be here.  They’re only kudzu-covered bumps in the dark now.  Stars grow numerous overhead.

The darkness deepens as we turn onto 2-lane roads south of Troy, Alabama.  My teens fall asleep as we drive.  Outside the car there are no streetlights, few houses, cats on porches.  Sometimes a concrete-block church breaks the darkness, its white paint  glowing as the moon rises.

Finally we reach the Florida line, and the road turns south.  We delve further back in time.  Forests of spindly pines line the road nearly all the last hour.  Wispy fog-ghosts hover over the rain-damp streets. 

It could be 2007 or it could be 1967.  Everything looks the same.  I start to remember the beach when I was a kid — miles of white sand backed with dunes instead of condos.  Pulling blue crab and huge flounder out of the Inlet. 

Icy-cold Cokes made with real sugar instead of corn syrup.  Doughnuts for breakfast (and no one worrying about the fat or sugar!) 

Spending the mornings and late afternoons sprawled on an air raft in the Gulf.  Waiting out the mid-day heat curled up with a book in a palm tree’s shade. 

Someone else buying the groceries, cooking the meals, and doing the driving.

Sigh.

And then it’s back to 2007.  We reach the beach.  A narrow ribbon of about 3 blocks lines the Gulf with house upon house upon hotel upon restaurant upon strip center.  Lights, action, and thousands of cars with Atlanta tags. 

Oh well.  At least I can float on the Gulf’s gentle waves, close my eyes, and pretend.