October 2012. This was a quick weekend trip, fly to Atlanta and look around then drive to Montgomery and look around. And mostly spend the night in Alabama. In September I thought I had completed my goal of spending one night in all 48 states. After returning from the September trip to the Dakotas, I reviewed my travel logs (going back to 1978) to list the cities per state where I had spent the night. Despite visiting Alabama three different times, zero nights were spent there. So, this trip got booked immediately.

GEORGIA: Atlanta was only a couple of hours from Montgomery. And, since in 2008 I stated photographing the state capitols, it was a chance to get Georgia's. Another thing I like to do is visit Presidential Homes or Museums. Jimmy Carter's is in Atlanta.

ALABAMA: Montgomery was my Alabama destination of choice and was an easy one. For one, I had not been there. Two, it has the state capitol there. And three, it was close to Atlanta. From driving around in the lively but small river market area I found the Hank Williams Music Museum and the Rosa Park Museum.

MISSED VISITING:
Atlanta Stadiums: it is always interesting to drive by and see the professional ball parks
Auburn University: as a life-long SEC fan, I went past the exit to the town of Auburn where the university is located.

IMPRESSIONS: Nothing major but believe that Montgomery's traffic signals are worse than New England. Also, the GPS was often confused and telling me to turn the wrong way on one-way streets.

OBSERVATIONS: Some observations made while traveling in this area:

The Bests:

  1. Despite it being one of the busiest airports in the country, once you spend a bit of time at Hartsfield-Jackson it is designed to be fairly easy to navigate. The free trains around the terminals and from other places were easy to use and frequent.


The Worsts:

  1. Montgomery traffic signals

The Totals: