Flying Home

If all goes smoothly, I am on board an AirTran flight to Atlanta at 1 p.m. PDT and will arrive around 9 p.m. in Atlanta. My brother is also flying today, but out of Portland with a change of planes in Houston (hope he brings a passport, just in case Texas declares independence while he's in the air). I wonder who will get to Atlanta first. Hopefully we'll arrive around the same time so that our parents will only have to make one trip to the airport.

Here's the old homestead. We moved into this house in Stone Mountain in October 1988. Twenty years later and my dad is free of mortgage payments (yee ha!). Though he talks of moving, actually owning a home is a huge incentive to stay. Since I lived my last two years of high school here (plus the two years between the Navy and college, and one year post-college), I'm not really sentimental about the house, should my parents decide to move one day. My sister, however, lived in this house from second grade through college graduation, so she might be more sentimental about the house. Since she is marrying a guy who owns a house (a major fixer-upper in a borderline gentrified neighbourhood near Inman Park-Reynoldstown), my family will most likely remain in the metro Atlanta area. Had I owned a car and knew that quitting my job and moving to Portland would not have resulted in a better paid and better office environment job, I would have most likely stayed in Atlanta and found a place to work in either Buckhead or Decatur (my two favourite places in Atlanta). Ah, choices! We just never know if the choices we make improve or worsen our lives.

The Cable Car at Stone Mountain Park. Hopefully when I'm home these couple weeks, I'll make a visit to Stone Mountain, one of my favourite places to go. I've never hiked on a trail around the mountain and am itching to do that this time.

There is an actual town of Stone Mountain that is more like a tourist thing. The mayor's office is in an old train depot. The stores that line the street cater to the tourist crowd. Quaint and Southern. I don't think I ever bought anything there, though I did go a few times when we had out of state company visit.

Though my parents live in Stone Mountain, the way the city limits are set up, they cannot vote for the mayor of Stone Mountain. The house is actually closer to Stone Mountain High School, but I had to go to Clarkston High School (no complaints, though, because of the friends I've made and the teachers I knew. Plus Clarkston was international while Stone Mountain High was black and white American).

It'll be good to be home again. The humidity never bothered me. I actually kind of miss it sometimes, even though I much prefer the dry heat of the west.