Oh, Atlanta
by GABRIELLA DUPONT
I may be a sassy son of a gun, but I ain��t tangling with no hurricane, if you��ll excuse the expression. Let��s face it, when nature��s intent on blowing harder and meaner than anything you��ve got in your arsenal, it��s time to hold on to your hat and vacate the old Popsicle stand. Problem is; nature can be a real nasty witch when it comes to timing. I mean, why wait until my husband, Thierry, is in Atlanta on business before announcing your intention to blow New Orleans a new one?
Well, what are you going to do? Simple �C pile the kids and the photographs into the GMC Envoy Denali and hot dog it out of Louisiana. Where to? Obviously, Atlanta��a city with more reasonable wind speeds and an expensed hotel suite. Not to mention that any city with a peach obsession verging on the pathological seemed like a good proposition for an unscheduled vacation.
After nailing the shutters and the tip of my thumb, I stuffed Eric, Donelle, and Nanette in the getaway Envoy Denali and crawled out of New Orleans along with 121,569 other panicked citizens (Figures courtesy of CNN). Six hours and 17 bags of Flaming Hot Cheetos later, we were still in Louisiana and I was running out of ways to keep Eric from committing sororicide. It was somewhat my fault, as I��d forgotten to pack any DVDs to play on the GMC Envoy��s convenient DVD entertainment system. Somehow, the Complete Genesis Box Set was not cutting the mustard. Go figure.
A Blockbuster in Tupelo, Mississippi saved Eric from a life in juvi hall, and sometime in the middle of the night, we pulled into Atlanta. Of course, we could have simply turned around and headed back to New Orleans, because that old hurricane was just kidding. No way that was going to happen! After reuniting with Thierry and giving him a bit of a hard time, we turned in for the night.
We woke up at the crack of noon, ate lunch for breakfast, and were soon back in the Envoy bound for paradise �C the Coca Cola Museum. Maybe it��s just me, but I find that there��s no better way to get the family dynamic working optimally than with a drink-all-you-can soda fountain featuring drinks from every country on the face of the planet. Try this at home folks; give each of your children the equivalent of 3 bags of sugar and sit down to a game of Scrabble.
After the museum, I talked the kids out flying off of CNN Center, and we decided to take the tour instead. This included a behind-the-scenes visit to the Control Room Theater, Special Effects studio, and Interactive News Desk section. When I saw the CNN weather guy, it took all three of my kids to hold me down. Thank goodness they were hopped up on sugar.
We spent the next few days in and out of the Envoy Denali visiting Atlanta��s wide range of tourist attractions, including Stone Mountain, where Eric almost threw Nanette out the cable car, and Underground Atlanta, which is what they should do with New Orleans if we��re to avoid further evacuations. It really was wonderful to spend time with our dear Thierry as well, and the experience turned out to be a positive one for all of us. The drive back to lovely Louisiana and the city of New Orleans was uneventful other than that we forgot to return the DVDs in Tupelo. I just hate when that happens!
Author Bio: Gabriella DuPont is a part time writer and overtime mom in New Orleans, Louisiana, a city that she loves with every fiber of her Cajun being. Recently, Gabriella fulfilled her dream of trying out at an open-mike stand-up comedy night but she fell down. For information on the Envoy Denali, visit nolagmc.com.
