One bit at a time...

I guess I'll tell our Atlanta story in pieces. I can't find enough time to sit and write it all out... so here's day 1 and 2.
We landed late, around 1 am and arrived at the hotel at 2.
This is our hotel - it was a fun old building that used to be apartments.
The hallway reminded me of "The Shining" scary
That time change is a killer! We got about 4 hours sleep the first night and the competition weekends are so busy there's no time to catch up but they're a ton of fun. The MARTA is the subway system there and it closes at 1 am but we were able to get rides in shuttle vans - ours was the coolest. We rocked out to Michael Jackson videos the whole way, Thriller, Beat-it, it was awesome.

Thursday Kurt and Matthew spent the day working on the robot, testing and whatnot so I knew I wanted to do something fun. Cherie Collins is the wife of the teacher in charge of the robotics club and she also works with the Beehives with me. She was there as well and we spent the day exploring together. I did research ahead of time and knew we needed to head to Marietta where there were fun old buildings from the civil war and a confederate cemetery. I love it there. It was a beautiful, warm day.
This is us trying to find our rental car, we were delirious from sleep deprivation.

This is the park in the middle of Marietta - I loved it there!
There was a red cardinal hanging out with us in the park and I'd never seen one in real life before so I had to capture the moment.
So Cherie and I visited the Kennesaw house - it was built in 1845 and used as a cotton warehouse. It survived when Sherman burned Marietta and he used it as his headquarters. I just eat this stuff up - I think it's so cool. It's now a museum.
This is a concert harpsichord I thought was really cool.
These are bullets from the Civil War.
A Confederate flag flown in the Civil War.
So after visiting the museum and having a yummy lunch we were trying to find the national cemetery. I was in the middle turn lane with 2 lanes on each side of me. On my right there were cars waiting for the light ahead to turn green, but I was in the turn lane, going to turn left soon. Then a car trying to turn left from a road to our right pulled out in front of us, I swerved trying to get around them, they gunned it and plowed into the back passenger door, spinning us around. It is difficult to explain so I created this illustration so you can all grasp exactly what happened :)
This was a ton of fun. I was freaking out, this is my first accident ever, in a rental car, in a strange state. My first thought was I was doing something wrong and they hit us on purpose since they shot straight for us. As it turns out it was a young man of 16 and his older sister who hit us. I felt so bad for him. We got a police report and turning the rental car was a little scary, but nobody was hurt which was a relief.
I was pretty shaken up but I was determined to finish our day.
We found the National Cemetery -
But my favorite was the Confederate Cemetery.
All the small headstones are unmarked which I thought was so sad.

The Captains are marked and the large markers say what state the section came from.

The rest of the cemetery was old and crumbly and I loved walking through it. I know it's weird, but I love it!
We got back to the hotel around 9 and went straight to bed so we'd be ready for the competition to begin! Can you believe this is only the first 2 days? I'll fill you in on the rest later... :)