Jumped on Delta 7 at the beginning of April and flew back to the mother country for a week of Spring Break with the kids. Weather was beautiful when we touched down in ATL early in the morning--and continued nice thru the weekend. Then it started to play havoc with our plans.
One of the first things I did upon arrival (after the requisite breakfast at Cracker Barrel) was to visit ATL Tower. It was nice to see alot of familiar faces, especially on a Friday. Guess they were all working OT. It was interesting to note the differences between ATL and DXB. First of all, aircraft taxi alot faster at ATL. I squirm when I have to cross a plane in a 4 mile gap at Dubai. It takes forever for these pilots to get spooled up and move--it seems they don't anticipate anything. I was always impressed with the clean, simplicity of the tower workspace in ATL (though they still have alot of misplaced equipment). At DXB, we just refurbished our tower and it was redesigned from scratch. Well, let's just say I don't think they took a step forward. It's full of contraptions (mechnical desk and strip boards raise and lower, touch screens for stopbars, lighting and communications, matchbox race tracks for sliding strips to different positions, and a small family of mice on each desk for 3-4 other displays). Being the new kid on the block, it's hard to pass judgement not knowing all the issues involved, but I did visit the tower before it was refurbished and I just don't see much difference. I think we missed an opportunity (as did ATL in some ways, despite a better overall result).
I picked up my kids the next morning and we were off for a weekend of socializing, first with their grandparents and aunt in Milledgeville, GA and then their Aunt, uncle and cousins in Charlotte, NC. A bonus was also seeing my sister-in-laws parents visiting from England.
Got a good deal on Priceline.com ($47/night at Crown Plaza Asheville, NC). Unfortunately, you can't cancel after you make a purchase on priceline, so despite a wintery forecast, we headed off to Asheville up in the Appalachian Mountains. We planned on visiting the Biltmore House, doing some hiking, checking out the galleries in AVL, and if the weather was nice, maybe go rafting. Well, the wind howled and it snowed off and on for 2 days. We did manage to do some exploring downtown and we spent a good part of one day at the Biltmore. The wind stilled and the sun came out for our nice hike on the Appalachian Trail on our last day.
Friday night was the Braves Home Opener. Showed up early to meet some friends for ribs across the street. (Bullpen has pretty good ribs). Game was going well, until the 3rd inning when the bottom fell out...rain, lightening, hail. We waited for about an hour and then retreated to our hotel room next door to the stadium. The game resumed around 11, finished just after 1am. I watched from a cozy bed with 2 snoozing kids.
I dropped the kids off the next day and then it was off to the airport. Stopped in London on the way home. I plan to do more of that in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment