German Orange Flavored Coke and Deep Fried Oreos

My first full day in Georgia started lazily. I slept in until 9am and took my time taking my tent down before leaving the KOA at Cartersville.

Drove to Atlanta,  which was less than an hour from Cartersville, and took in the Coke factory, which has been on my "to do" list for quite some time.

Apparently they had a Coke bottle designing contest for the olympics which took place in Atlanta 15 years ago, so they had some cool designs. The tour started with a series of videos about the history of Coke and some silly cartoon about buying happiness. At one point, the tour guide asked everyone where they were from, and except from one guy who was from Germany, I had travelled a greater distance than anyone else on the tour.

After the videos were over and I had purchased all the happiness money could buy (insert eye-rolling here), I explored the rest of the factory, which consisted of a slowed down production of the coke bottling process so we could view it, a bunch of old Coke artifacts from the earliest years of Coke, and best of all a tasting area where we were able to taste dozens of different Coke flavors from all over the world. I tasted some stuff from Uganda, some flavour from Italy which had an aftertaste which was more like a foreverafter taste, and some really good German orange flavored coke.

Of course, the tour ended by them forcing me to exit through the gift shop, which must be where all the promised happiness is bought - and I bought over sixty dollars worth of Coke merchandise. In America, sixty dollars would be enough for me to buy enough gas to drive through three states! I didn't feel any happier either, just foolish. Guess I should have taken a lesson from Christian and Faithful and not spent so much at the Vanity Fair.

Okay, this is going to be a pretty long entry, but I hope your attention span will prove to be long enough to get you through it.

After leaving the Coke factory, I drove to Toccoa, which is a small town located in the Northeastern corner of the state of Georgia, not far from the border with South Carolina. This was my destination in the sense that it was the farthest from home that I got on this trip - and indeed the farthest from home that I have ever been, having never been overseas.

Basically I went to Toccoa to visit my cousin Karen who lives out there with her family. I figured that since this will likely be my last road trip of this kind, and since I only see Karen and her family about once every four years or so, I might as well drive to Georgia, and see a great deal of the United States in the process.

Arrived at the Freemans at about 4 and had dinner with them. We had lasagna and garlic bread and salad.

There was a thunderstorm along with a half-hour deluge which caused one of my cousin's kids to repeatedly check the weather network to see when the storm would pass.

Karen and her husband Nick have a large family which includes five kids.

There's Madison who's eleven and reads Ted Dekker novels
There's Landon who's eight and plays soccer whenever he can
There's Alexa who's five and

     Okay, this is simply remarkable. About five months ago, Karen came to Canada to visit us. This was about the time my sister was diagnosed with cancer. My sisters and I showed Alexa and Natalie some random childhood pictures of us and Alexa asked if she could keep a picture of Jillian, my sister. Alexa still has the picture and has been praying for Jillian ever since. Simply incredible.

There's Natalie who's three and loves looking at photo albums
And finally there's Autumn who's eleven months and is a baby

On Saturday, we all went to a town called Helen, which is known as a tourist attraction and contains many German style establishments. It definately had a Bavarain feel to it. We went on a tube ride down a river that was similar to the Penticton channel, but with more rapids and shallower water. They charged five dollars per person, and they also were selling, I kid you not, sticks that can be used to push off if we ever get stuck on rocks. It was fun. I lost my sandal at one point, but luckily one of the Freeman kids retrieved it for me. I fell backwards over a little waterfall, which provided entertainment for those who saw me.

We went to a park for a little while and had lunch before going to a store that sold funnel cakes. I had deep fried oreos smothered in icing sugar.

We talked about missions at various intervals throughout the weekend. Both Karen and Nick were the children of missionaries, and I myself am considering entering the missions field in some way.

Went to Toccoa Falls College, which contains a rather large waterfall and a pond that is used by locals for swimming. Not by us though, as the pond was closed for repairs.

Karen and Nick introduced me to a neat show called Monk, about a detective who has some very wierd and comical mannerisms.

Went to church on Sunday with the Freemans. Nick's uncle Stan leads a house church that does outreach towards people who are intimidated by traditional church settings. We studied I Timothy 5:1-8 and shared some ways in which God has been working in each of our lives. There were about two dozen people there, so it was pretty crowded.

They taught me how to play a game called wiffle ball, which is like baseball only it can be played in a front yard. One person throws a wiffle ball at a chair and the batter tries to hit the ball. If the ball hits the chair it is considered a strike.

A very fun weekend that ended with me leaving their house and driving towards the Gulf coast.

The Freemans

Highest temperature: Atlanta, Georgia: 37C / 99F

Until next time...