Djupt nere i hålet

Efter tre dagar av motell, museum och bilkörning genom platta jordbrukslandskap och människor med ganska roliga dialekter väntade nu en annan slags utmaning. Vi utgick från staden Flagstaff i Arizona för att besöka en av världens naturliga underverk och en av USA:s största sevärdheter; Grand Canyon. Vägen dit var ödslig men blev efterhand mer trafikerad av andra turister. Vädret var lite molnigt, det duggade bitvis men temperaturen var ändå mellan 35 och 40 grader varmt. Vi hade inte pluggat på så mycket innan, området var såvitt vi förstod stort, så vi tog hjälp av guiderna på besökscentrat som visade oss en ambitiös rutt från den södra kanten till en viss Skeleton Point. Sen sa guiden något om vatten som vi inte lyssnade så mycket på. Vi tog den angivna bussen och kom fram till den mest häpnadsväckande syn jag sett i mitt liv.

Grand Canyon är alltså ett ökenområde där diverse omständigheter gjorde att Coloradofloden grävde sig ner i jorden och skapade ett 446 km långt, 0,4-29 km brett och upp till 1,8 km djupt hål i marken. Geologer älskar stället då de har hur mycket material som helst att kartlägga jordens historia. Men framför allt är det en av de mest häpnadsväckande och vackra naturformationerna i världen.

Till stor del beror upplevelsen på att man har två kanter i samma nivå rätt över varandra, hos oss var den andra kanten någon mil bort, vilket ger ett pampigt intryck, däremellan en ravin man inte ser botten på (man kan dock se botten längst uppifrån från andra ställen).

I allmänhet annars ett varierat landskap, ibland brant sluttande men oftast knivskarpa stup där miljön bestod av röd ökensand, vita klippor, buskage och ibland rentav några trädliknande växter. Längre iväg var konstiga blåa klippor som såg ut som de kunde komma från en annan planet. Lägg därtill svindelkänslan hela tiden, två steg bort från var man än stod låg en ravin man inte såg botten på, något som fick även de av oss som inte var höjdrädda att rygga tillbaka mer än en gång.

Inga foton kan göra detta ställe rättvisa, men vi gjorde vårt bästa. Dock när vi blev rastlösa begav vi oss iväg ner mot Skeleton Point, en så kallad moderat svår väg ett par kilometer ner i ravinen. Den bestod av serpentinvägar som var någon meter bred, backe ibland varvat med trappsteg. Det var enkel gång att gå neråt, tyckte vi alla och när solen kom fram åkte tröjorna av.

Vi hade nått halvvägspunkten där det fanns ett par platser för skugga samt toalett. Där mötte vi en guide som såg ut ungefär som John Locke från tv-serien Lost, som starkt rekommenderade att inte gå längre ned, det hade blivit för varmt och vi hade för lite vatten med oss. Mina reskompisar tyckte det var struntprat och gick vidare. Själv har jag alltid gillat John Locke, kände mig lite mindre som elitidrottsmän än de andra, var förkyld, gillade utsikten som det var och blev således kvar.

Där under trädet roade jag mig att sola och studera de blåa ekorrarna (såg troligtvis också de så kallade flygande ekorrar). Fick ännu ett exempel på amerikanska vänligheten då jag mötte en kalifornisk familj som också körde coast to coast, en ännu mer imponerande prestation än vad vi försöker oss på, tyckte jag då de hade fyra barn med sig.

Mina stålmänniskor till medresenärer kom naturligtvis tillbaka upp ganska snabbt, en och en halv timme innan John Locke trodde till och med. Lite stukade pga knäskada och vätskebrist, men vid hyfsat gott mod. Sedan började resten av uppstigningen och det visade sig knappast vara en dans på rosor. Snarare vill jag nog säga att om Grand Canyon var bland de vackraste ställen jag sett var nog denna uppstigning bland de vidrigaste upplevelser jag haft. Det var omkring 40 grader, ingen skugga fanns, vattnet var begränsat, vi var på ett par tusen meters höjd och gick snabbt ännu högre upp. Tror i efterhand det var det sista som satte åt mig hårdast, det var som om luftröret snörptes åt så fort man ansträngde sig. Dock efter mycket långsamt vacklande uppåt hallucinerande om att trilla nerför ravinen gick solen i moln och jag kom på att allt gick fortare med många pauser så kom jag upp en bit efter de andra. Troligtvis den dagen vi bråkat minst på hemresan och inte ens Dan orkade träna när vi kom hem. Definitivt en oförglömlig dag.

Något som gjorde dagen extra minnesvärd var hur allting slutade, med ett väldigt nära möte med en älg. En älg lunkade fram till bussen som skulle ta oss till besökscentrat. Han lät oss ta några bilder av honom innnan bussen började rulla.

  

Trötta men imponerade av våra prestationer så gick vi till sängs, Jacob glad att han klarade av den jobbiga vandringen, men orolig över hans knäs tillstånd, med en enda tanke i  våra sinnen....efter en välförtjänt natts sömn kör vi till Las Vegas!

Going deep down in a hole

After three days of motels, museums and driving through flat farmers country and people with pretty funny accents, another kind of challenge awaited us. We left the small city Flagstaff in Arizona to visit one of the natural wonders of the world, and one of America's greatest sights; The Grand Canyon. The road was desolate, but eventually became crowded with other tourists. There were patches of clouds in the sky,  with the occasional  shower  here and  there, but the temperature was still between 35 and 40 degrees warm. We hadn't done any homework prior to arriving, the place was simply big, that much we understood. So we used  the guides at the visitor's center, that showed us an ambitious trail from the south rim of the grand canyon down to something called "Skeleton Point". After that, the guide said something about water that we didn't pay any attention to. We got on the bus that the guide had pointed out and reached the most amazing view I have ever seen in my life!
So the Grand Canyon is a desert area where various circumstances caused the Colorado river to carve a 446km long, 0.4-29km wide and up to 1,8km deep gorge in the ground. Geologists love this place since it contains material for them to study earth's  history going back even billions of years. But most of all, it's one of the most amazing and beautiful natural formations in the world.

The main reason why the view is so spectacular is that you have two rims somewhat in the same level across from each other, at the point we were, the other rim was about 10km away from us, which makes for a very magnificent impression. Inbetween the two rims you have a gorge that you can't see the bottom of (you can see the bottom from the rim at other places, just not where our hike would start).

Generally a varied landscape, sometimes just simply steep, but mostly deadly vertical drops where the environment consisted of red desert sand, white cliffs, shrubbery and sometimes actual tree-looking vegetation. Further away you'd find strange blue cliffs that seemed to be from another world. Add  to that the constant sense  of vertigo, two steps from where you were walking was a ravine that you couldn't see the bottom of, something that made even those without vertigo to gasp and step back from the ledge, more than once even.

No photos can make this place justice, but we did our best. Eventually however, we became tired of snapping off photos all the time and seriously started our downwards hike toward Skeleton Point, a so called "moderate" trail descending a couple of km down the ravine. It consisted of 1m wide dwindling roads with hairpin turns; sometimes hillpaths with a gentle slope, sometimes so steep that steps needed to be cut out from the mountainface. It  was relatively easy to walk down, a sentiment shared by everyone, and when the sun showed itself, our tshirts flew off.
We had reached halfway when we came upon an area with restrooms and some shade. We met a guide there that looked somewhat like John Locke from the tv-show Lost, who strongly recommended us not to hike any further down, it had become too hot and we didn't have enough water with is. My travelbuddies thought that that was nonsense and went on. I've always liked John Locke, felt a bit less of an elite athlete than the others, was nursing a cold, enjoyed the sights and so I stayed put.

There under my tree I entertained myself by basking in the sun and studied the blue squirrels (might also have seen some flying squirrels). Encountered another instance of american kindness when I met a family from California that were also driving coast to coast, an even more impressive feat than what we're doing, since they were doing it with 4 kids on the trip.

My supermen travel companions of course made it back fairly quickly, an hour and a half before John Locke's expectations even. Somewhat deterred by a previously injured knee and dehydration, but otherwise in good spirits. After the reunion, the rest of the ascent started and I quickly realized that it was not a small thing. If anything, I'd like to say that if Grand Canyon is among the most beautiful places I've ever seen, that climb was one of the outrageously worst experiences I have ever had! We had about 40degree heat, no shade, limited water, walking at a couple thousand meters altitude and climbing quickly into thinner air. In hindsight I think it was the latter that got to me the hardest, it was as if someone tied a rope around my windpipe as soon as I used a bit of effort in my walk. However, after stumbling up very slowly and hallucinating about falling down the ravine, the sun hid behind a couple of clouds and I realized that I could manage it if I took a lot of breaks, so I reached the rim a while after the other guys. That was probably the day we fought the least during the trip back and not even Dan had enough effort in him to hit the gym when we returned to our hotel. Definitely a day I won't forget easily!

What made it extra memorable after all that was how it ended, with a very close elk-sighting. An elk sauntered up to the bus that were to take us back to the visitor center. He let us snap a couple of photos of him before the bus started rolling.


Tired but impressed with our own feats we went to bed (Jacob glad over having pulled off the troublesome hike but worried about the state of his knee) with one singular thought in our minds...after  a well deserved night's sleep, we're driving to Las Vegas !

3 museums in 3 days

Once more we were about to leave one of our overnight stays with me thinking "can we experience anything like this ever again?". It felt like we had had a once-in-a-lifetime visit to New Orleans and similarly to Louisville, Kentucky, I didn't want the stay to end. But the itinerary called out to me, we had 6 hours to get to Houston and the museum we were going to check out, The Lyndon B Johnson Space Center, closed at 19:00. We just simply had to get moving.

The drive to Texas was uneventful. We entered Lake Charles in Louisiana to eat lunch and found a small diner in the center of historic down town. They had the best burger I've sampled during this trip! The jalapeño sourdough bread they made themselves was wonderful. The Chipotle mayonaise was just the right amount of spicy and the patty was seasoned and well done. I tried to get Dan and Tomasz to throw away the "healthy" salads they had chosen so that they could  enjoy the fantastic meal that was overloading my senses, but they wouldn't have any of it. Apparently the amount of fat and sugar lately scared them into whatever it was that they chose to eat. At least Pontus agreed that it was the best hamburger so far!

Sadly, reaching Houston "on time" was more difficult than I expected because of a number of unplanned bathroom breaks as well as a very late departure from NOLA. Finding breakfast might have had something to do with it. We reached the Johnson Space Center (or JSC for short) after 16:00, which meant we had less than 3 hours to check out the JSC, which according to their website, would take anywhere between 3 and 5 hours to see.

The first exhibit we chose was a tour tram that brought us around the whole area. The most interesting part to me happened to be the fact that their equipment seems really really old. It got me to thinking what kind of budget NASA has, since their computers are from the last millenium! I took a couple of more shots of various things, but I'll let the pictures speak themselves since we have more events to cover in this post

The JSC was very impressive,  but we still had another 4 hours before we could check into our hotel in Dallas. For some reason I thought that they distance between the two large texan cities was far shorter, but Louisville-friend Stu had informed me just how far it was. Since we were so late from our previous very fancy hotel, the information didn't really help me. We still arrived around midnight, crazy tired from the drive but glad that everything worked out alright.

Waking up in Dallas was pleasant thanks to their breakfastspread. We had checked into a pretty cheap hotel since it would just be a quick stop on our way. We took our time, enjoyed everything (including fresh strawberries!) and then packed up The Fish. Our car, remember? If not, go back and read the second post! Do it, DO IT NAAAUUUOOOWW!! Erh, right...so we had packed up the Fish and drove on to check out our second hotel in as many days. 

The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas is a very special kind of "Museum". I'll try to explain why it exists for those not familiar with a certain popular conspiracy theory. You see, in 1963 American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. He was riding in an open top limousine and a sniper managed to squeeze off a number of shots toward JFK. The president was pronounced dead 30 min later. There have been two investigations by the United States government into what happened on that day, the first in 1964 claimed that the apprehended shooter Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed the sole shooter, the second investigation (done in 1978, 14 years later!) claimed that JFK was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy". These two investigations, the differences between them, various unnecessary cover ups has led to a number of conspiracy theories regarding Who killed JFK. That in turn means that there is now a museum in an old book depository in Dallas, Texas catering to the notion that if you get as much of the "facts" as possible, you can make your own mind up. I put the word facts in quotationmarks because if you are to believe in conspiracy theories, then they include falsified reports and evidence. 

The museum was definitely very fascinating to check out and led to firey discussions between myself and  Pontus about what actually happened. I wont go into detail about the actual theories, or events of it all, but I will say that if you're ever in Dallas, then this place is something you should most certainly check out, regardless what you know (or think you know ;) ) about the assassination!

After a wonderful visit to that famous (it has spawned 2 tvshows just by its name, so I'd say it's quite famous) city in Texas with its crazy museum, another long roadtrip waited. We were going to drive from Dallas to Roswell, New Mexico. It would be a 7 hour drive, and if our previous stretches on the road had been uneventful, they would seem like wild parties in comparison to what we encountered between Dallas and Roswell. We drove through barren dusty lands that housed nothing but oil pumps, proving clearly why a lot of foreigners view Texas as a big rich state, thanks to their massive oil reserves (almost twice as much as the next state on the list, alaska). We tried to see something entertaining on the road, but really _nothing_ happened. It was mostly a straight road, that let us drive right through Texas, into New Mexico.

                    Dust...                               Hot air = optical illusion             Loong straight road

Checking into our cheap(est) hotel in Roswell was the first snag that we hit on this trip. For some reason we had only gotten a bedroom with a single bed. It was late, the hotel receptionist didn't speak english very well and I just wanted to go to bed. Tensions were running high and I felt sick to my stomach that we wouldn't be able to get any proper sleep that night. Luckily, I managed to cool down and realized that in this particular town, I had actually reserved two separate hotel rooms instead of the usual two queensized beds in one hotel room. I ran back to the pakistani receptionist and asked for a hotel room in any of the other travellers name and breathed out a deep sigh of relief when a reservation in Dan's name was discovered. 

After a hot near sleepless night in Roswell's blistering desert heat, we slowly made our way "downtown". Roswell is a very small area, with two major roads (and lots of smaller ones of course), Main Street and 2nd Street. Right in the center (meaning at the crossroads between Main and 2nd, you'll find the one singular reason for our visit - The Alien "Museum". Another day, another museum, yet another set of qutotation  marks. This was so far the cheesiest, most ridiculous museum we visited. Another place based on conspiracy theories regarding government coverups and if Aliens  live among us. That's the reason why we drove to Roswell, that's why we were in that little dump! We were there to find aliens. Sadly, nothing was on offer, we took a couple of pics and then went on our way.

A cultural couple of days that just meant stops along the way to a long awaited stop - The Grand Canyon! More on that tomorrow.

Long time, no blog

I would like to begin this post by apologizing to all readers of this attempt at chronicling our adventures. There hasn't been an update in over a weeks time now! That's what happens when you arrive late to hotels and feel too tired to start typing. Because of a lack of ability to charge the laptop in the car, I was not able to scribe when not driving. In the end, Pontus became tired of not seeing any updates, so he went into walmart and bought a Nexus 7!! For those not in the know, it's a tablet =). Now we can truly blog on the road =D.

This post is just to inform you all that the creative side of this team hasn't died but rather just gone on hiatus. As we're in three brink of to the final week in this impressive country, the blogging will now go into hyper drive. The goal is to publish a new post every day, starting today Saturday 20th.

I hope we still have an audience interested in what we do over here in the west, that will come back every day to see what has happened during our travels. Until then, enjoy whatever updates we post on Facebook =).

Born in the Bayou

New Orleans, Louisiana (or NOLA for short)! We have arrived to one of the more anticipated stops during our #C2C trip. I can still remember dad talking about how much he wanted to go to NOLA when they made their US trip back in -05. Sadly, that was the year when hurricane Katrina struck, so they had no way of going there and ended up visiting me in Santa Monica instead. He has wanted to go there ever since (and probably before then) and because of his enthusiasm over the place, I've wanted to go as well.

The trip to NOLA was fun and easy, with beautifil scenery a long the long and spaceous highways. We managed to hit 4 more states on the way, which was a lot of fun. It just kills me that I didn't take photos of "welcome to <state>" before this stretch of our travels, since we entered 14 states but have no photos to prove it =(.

   

Arriving in the famous french-inspired city was pleasant, but parking in front of the main entrance of the hotel was amazing! Boy were we shocked when we entered the hotel. Talk about being at a loss for words. High ceilings, chandeliers in every hallway as well as the lobby and marble floors. We even allowed ourselves the luxury of using their valet service at the high price of $40 per night. It's a lot of money, but in the end we were all very glad that we did use valet, more on that later though.
We opened up the door to our room and the surprises kept coming! Another chandelier, two huge beds and a 50" plasma tv! The bathroom was splendid, with the floor, sink and shower all in marble. When one of us threw himself on the bed, nothing but a guttural noise of approval escaped his lips..it was that great!
The room inspection led to an interest in checking out one of the other services on offer - the pool. We practically ran up the stairs to the top (10th) floor and the sight of the rooftop pool was just simply pure bliss! What.a.hotel!!!
We took to the streets to see what new Orleans had to offer, but we were all too tired to do anything besides eat a real good burger at The City Diner near the French district. Satisfied and tired we said goodnight to this apparently swamp ridden part of Louisiana.

Our day in NOLA started off very relaxed and slow. I hadn't planned anything, but knew I wanted to check out the swamps, so my morning consisted of me in a familiar pose, hunched over a laptop, inquiring google for knowledge. 30 min fervent tapping on the keyboard and two phone calls later saw us booked on a 2h excursion with Airboat Adventures.


I'm not sure how I'm going to describe the ride. Try to imagine a very small barge, filled with rows of seats holding up to 15 people, and a huge fan tacked on to the back end of said barge. It felt ridiculously dangerous, considering the speed those things reach, the lack of belts and only one way of controlling the boat's movement, whether that would be forwards or backwards.
Those two hours flew by, the anxiety regarding safety disappeared long before we saw our first alligator and "overwhelmed" doesn't cover how we felt afterwards. Holding a live gator and feeling it try to wrestle out of your hands so that it can feed on whatever it can clamp it's jaws on was a definite highlight. Seeing a 2 1/2m long alligator charge up on our frail flotation device to chomp down on a shredded chicken was another. I've never held a positive attitude toward the idea of owning a boat, but if I had to, I would want to do so here! The tour guide was very helpful and seemed incredibly proud to have been bourn "right here, in the bayou". We sure appreciated his tidbits of info and the fact that his accent made us all laugh.

Sunburned but in awe, we drove back to the hotel, only to accidentally drive right into the middle of a movie shoot. Unbeknownst to us, the crew for Hot Tub TimeMachine 2 (yes, a sequel to a movie called "Hot Tub TimeMachine"..don't expect greatness -_- ) had commandeered the entrance to our hotel and when we parked as expected for the valet to pick up our car, we interrupted a scene. It was a surreal experience and we were hurried away by people from the movie crew carrying clipboards, wearing headsets and far too much clothing considering the heat.

We kept a close watch on the movie set up from our hotel room, but didn't want the night to end, so we decided to check out New Orleans famous Bourbon Street. We walked from the hotel (we no longer had easy access to our car because of the movie shoot) and checked out the Mercedes-Benz Superdome (which was really cool on the outside, but closed =/ ) on the way over to The Street. 

Reaching the corner of Bourbon and Canal street, we thought something was up. The intersection had a police officer waiting on a motorcycle, sort of like a guard. We looked at him, but he remained frozen in his stance, looking into the distance. We scurried past him and heard lots of noise coming from the alley. We were about to be shocked for the umpteenth time this incredible day. We got to witness a staple of New Orleans, a  parade going down along bourbon street, into canal street. It started right when we showed up, so we just stood and watched the debacle as it unfolded. I can't understand why people would want to dress up in such garish costumes/bodypaint and show off themselves, but I guess that's what we refer to as exhibitionists. While it is always fascinating to experience other cultures, this was a big sickening. We moved on from the parade and walked down along bourbon st. It is just simply a barrage of noise and lights, people trying to lure you into bars with promises of cheap alcohol and other venues.

We tried to find a souvenir shop to buy something fitting, but came  up emptyhanded, so we headed back to the hotel and noticed that the movie crew was still working hard. We asked if we could hang around, and they allowed it. That meant that we actually got to experience  a movie shoot, up close and  personal (without ruining it this time). It was a perfect finish to the most exciting day so far during this amazing journey!

Down in the South

This post was written by Pontus, but sadly he is unable to log on to his own account, so it needs to be posted using my account. It is still however written by Pontus, to get a different perspective on our trip. This is the english translation of his post which was recently posted in Swedish.

After church service, we said a heartfelt goodbye to our remarkably nice host families and began the 675 km long trip south east toward Atlanta. It  felt like quite a change of cultural scenery, going from a borderstate between the midwest and the south, down to the heart of the south.

Besides lunch from the reliable hamburger restaurant Wendy's, we only  planned one detour, to the natural water slide called "Sliding Rocks". A  known waterfall, approximately 30m in length that ends in a 2½m deep river.  Sadly there had been too much rain lately, the water level had risen quite  a lot,  so we couldn't put on our swimming trunks and slide down the rocks  uncontrollably for hours on end, much like we'd planned. Despite that, the  surroundings were very beautiful and other impressive waterfalls were close  by as well.

The car ride there had taken us off the main road and consisted of  dwindling roads with hairpin turns leading up forestcovered mountains that  gave this blogger a nasty case of carsickness.
The road back was however not an easy journey. The first path suggested by  the GPS was lined with large ROAD CLOSED-signs and we had to find some kind  of alternative route.
Darkness came quick and our usually fired up discussions suddenly became a  bit more stifled. We stopped to fuel up the car on a remote gas station  around 2130, we were feeling tired from the drive, no 3g coverage in our  cellphones and the Master card wouldn't work at the gas pump. I've gathered  most of my knowledge regarding the american south from thrillers like  Deliverance (which happened to be recorded in close proximity to where we  were), Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Duel, something I stupidly brought  up in the car and appearantly my travelpartners were thinking the same  thing. When the payment issue had been sorted (we paid by cash to a  longhaired gangly dude with scarily strange mannerisms), a large chevy  pickup truck with tinted windows parked at the pump across from where we  were fueling and the driver's door opened up slightly, but no one exited  the truck. The lid for the gas tank opened up, but no human being appeared.  Four large swedish men seemed paler and paler, finished the fueling as fast  as possible and eventually managed to drive away. We looked behind us with  worry to see if the pickup truck would take up pursuit.
It was pretty quiet in the car, but the discussion all of a sudden became  quite fired up again, albeit not a nice or reasonable one, when all of a  sudden we discovered that the alternative route we managed to find several  miles away was also decorated with a large ROAD CLOSED-sign. We decided to  turn around, seeking anxiously for a pickup that would block the road for us. We  eventually found a third alternative down from the narrow roads with those  hairpin bends, decorated with trees, toward Atlanta. But then panic struck  in the car. We met yet another ROAD CLOSED-sign. All of a sudden the  conversations went silent a bit and we didn't know what to do. Mostly by  general planlessness we just kept driving on the road that we shouldn't  have kept driving on and we met even more ROAD CLOSED-signs, but after a  while we could breathe a sigh of relief since the signs stopped appearing  and we reached the large road to Atlanta; or rather to Buford, a smaller  suburb 40 minutes from Atlanta.

You see, my old friends Greg and Abigail Morgan lived there in Buford,  friends that I for some lucky chance happen to visit whenever I visit a new  continent (Long story...). We were going to stay with them a couple of  days. We were two and a half hours late (arrived 23:30 instead of 21:00).  We were tired and pretty spent, but received a wonderfully friendly  american welcome by the Morgans and their wonderful dog Tippett. So it was  a lovely feeling to crawl to bed this sunday night.

Yes, I realize that Tippett has his head in an awkward place...but it makes the photo that much more fun!

The next day, we were going to do the main attractions of Atlanta; the CNN -tour, the Georgia Aquarium and the CocaCola Museum. We started off with  the aquarium and it seemed to be a lively museum, with beautiful lights,  informative and funny texts about the animals with friendly glass aquariums  that the animals seemed to enjoy. My favorites however were the two square  decimeter large frog (that impressed me by far compared to the more  colorful species), the impressive whaleshark and the lovely passive  agressive piranhas. Afterwards we attended one of the main highlights of  our trip, Dolphin Tales, built as a gigantic theaterstage, with a large  pool and a stage above. The dolphins were just simply fantastic, jumped  synchronized, bounced high up above the water, helped the caretakers to  glide over the water at an insane pace, all perfectly timed with an  otherwise slightly "clowny" poor mans version of a disney story and  musical. But the dolphins were so fantastic anyway, so it didn't really  matter.

Next stop was the CNN-tour, held in a tall building around the corner in  central Atlanta. We don't have a common connection to this news station,  yet it was fascinating to see how news reports happen in today's  digital  reality. Everything was guided by a sarcastic guide who may have done said  tour one too many times and would rather do flat jokes about Swedes.
The  last stop might be the most famous, the CocaCola museum that was not held  in the tall CocaCola building that we had seen before many times, but  rather a pretty flat building. Maybe the attraction that carried the  highest expectations, but conclusively felt pretty commercial and flaccid.  Maybe we weren't the target audience, it felt pretty kiddie-focused. Very  old CocaCola-commercial, a lot of talk about the beverage and it's  significance for world history, a lot of commercial regarding characters  we've never seen before or music we've never previously heard, if anything  we had different tunes synonymous with CocaCola in our minds. Finally there  was a very nice part of the tour, we were allowed not only an unlimited  amount of CocaCola, but also were offered a large selection from all the  various drinks sold around the world under the CocaCola  brand and  considering the +30°C heat, it was quite a reinvigorating thing.


However, the downside to the last activity showed its ugly head when we  were on our way home. We however managed to solve the situation pretty well  anyway. Jacob was going to be driving us home, exited the parking lot and  then realized that we had ended up in Atlantas famous traffic jams. After  managing to travel 20meters in 30minutes, Jacob and Dan felt a desperate  need to relieve themselves, who just jumped out of the car to head back to  the museum to tend to their bodily needs, and actually let the car running  in the line, forcing me to jump into the driver's seat. When mr Nileskog  and mr Lantz returned, we had moved a couple of meters further and the  emergency was resolved.

So even this day ended especially nice at the Morgans who generously showed  the more beautful sides of The South, where the debate regarding especially  high and low things regarding swedishness, americanism and everything  inbetween went on all night long.