Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

A hotel breakfast buffet is typically not a place one might find cosmetic supplies; however, Susan was delighted to discover the facial cleanser she neglected to pack:  honey.  It was even packaged in single-serving containers!  After filling their bellies and getting their 3-day supply of honey, the cousins set out for their short drive to Jonesboro.

They arrived early for their first tour, so they had plenty of time to browse the Road to Tara Museum, take photos and purchase souvenirs.  (http://visitscarlett.com/roadtotaramuseum.html)  The museum is housed in a granite building that was built after the original wooden train depot burned during the Civil War.  It contains a lot of book and movie memorabilia.

Jack was their charming tour guide/bus driver.  The “Gone with the Wind Tour” was a mixture of pre-recorded information and Jack’s live commentary.  Civil War sites and places associated with Gone with the Wind were visited.  One of the most interesting places was the Warren House—site where the majority of the Battle of Jonesboro occurred.  The house was used as a field hospital for both Confederate and Union troops, and signatures of soldiers remain on the walls of the parlor.  Numerous former occupants have claimed that the place is haunted.

It is currently being renovated and will be used as a special events center.  The tourists walked the grounds and took photos of the yard, and the inside of the ground floor through the windows.  (They visited the same house on the later tour.  The new owner was on site at that time.  Susan asked him if he’d let the bus occupants enter the house, and he declined saying that he didn’t have the keys with him that day.  Susan told Natalie that they would have gained entrance had Uncle David accompanied them.)

Since it was a peaceful, beautiful spring day, it was hard to imagine that such a bloody battle had unfolded on the hilled Warren house grounds in the quaint town of Jonesboro.

They visited the cemetery which holds the remains of nearly 1,000 unidentified Confederate soldiers who died during the Battle of Jonesboro, the old jail/history center (where the cousins were briefly incarcerated and photographed in prison attire), and several homes that had ties to the Civil War and some which provided inspiration for Margaret Mitchell in writing GWTW.

After completing their first tour, Susan and Natalie briefly returned to their hotel room and then stopped at a fast food-type burger place, Martin’s, for lunch.  Susan was delighted to see the onion rings she ordered be hand-battered and deep-fried before her very eyes. 

The ladies returned to the Road to Tara Museum/Train Depot to begin their second tour with Jack at the wheel.  The bus was more crowded that time.  While on this tour, the ladies hatched a plan to play a practical joke on Susan’s husband and son, Joe and Daniel.

Being big-time basketball fans, Joe and Daniel had hoped to accompany the ladies to Atlanta where the Final Four games were being played, but Susan denied their many requests.  Wouldn’t it be fun, thought the gals, to find ticket-carrying game attendees, photograph their tickets, and post the photo on Facebook with the caption:  “Look what we got!”  So Susan and Natalie began their quest for tickets by talking to nearly everyone they encountered.  They received a few wary looks, but most of the dozens of people with whom they chatted were very pleasant.  However, it seemed that no one had actual tickets (most tickets were electronic), and if they did, the tickets were secured in their hotel rooms.

While talking with fellow tour attendees, one man said that he lived in Alpharetta, home of Food Network celebrity host, Alton Brown, and shops at the same Kroger grocery store Mr. Brown frequents.  Making a mental note, the girls decided to visit that very store that very evening in hopes that Alton Brown would time his shopping trip to coincide with theirs.

Following the tours in Jonesboro, the cousins traveled to Marietta to visit another museum.  The Gone with the Wind Museum is housed in a brick 1880s warehouse and contains a large collection of memorabilia and a gift shop.  The ladies looked at and photographed almost everything.  Susan was dismayed to discover that her Ipad battery power was dwindling, so she found a spot in the museum to recharge it. 

Next stop:  Alpharetta, where they were treated to dinner by Susan’s former co-worker and family at an Indian restaurant.  There was a cute, but fussy baby involved.  They then made a quick stop at Kroger.  Natalie’s nephew, Lloyd, worships Alton Brown, and Natalie would have scored many points with Lloyd had she been able to see and photograph the celebrity.  Sadly, Alton wasn’t shopping in that Kroger that night, but they did photograph the store exterior and the produce section.

With night approaching, the cousins returned to the hotel in Morrow and flopped onto their beds.