Since I was already heading to Florida, I decided to fly into Atlanta and visit three of the sixteen cities that are on my list of possile retirement places. Athens is one as are nearby Rome and Chattanooga. They are middle tier choices of the sixteen but have to check them out anyway because one never knows. I studied the town ahead of time to determine what places I wanted to be sure to visit/see. Plus, the University of Georgia is here and I try to visit all of the major U.S. universities.

The downtown area reminded me of Lawrence Kansas, another relatively small town that is home to a major university. Lots of shops, no tall buildings, narrow streets with lots of people walking around.

I lucked out and got to take some photos of the stadium. And of course I found the big sign with the college name on it. The Memorial Park is really nice -- very peaceful feeling, good for the psyche. The east part of town seems older than the west side and the houses were very small in the east half. The town has a nice highway loop around it to get to most anywhere in just a few minutes. When heading to one of my destinations, I purposefully took side streets (off the path dictated by my GPS) so that I could see neighborhoods. Some very nice ones just west of the center of town. Apartments were nice but none have carports and certainly not garages.

Many streets have a bike lane. And, near a huge sports complex is a very nice walking trail that parallels the railroad tracks.

The scenery highlight of this trip is something that I had not originally planned to visit -- the Georgia State Botanical Gardens. Since there was some sunshine when I visited, the gardens were beautiful. And, F I N A L L Y, I captured a cardinal on camera!