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Crack City
|| Separated || Crack|| Latitudes || Orleans || Cherokee || Roswell || Cave || Sands ||
|| Rio || Canyon || Hoover|| Hot || Crime || Trees|| Pacifica || Links ||
About 2:30 AM on what was technically day two, we coasted into Atlanta. While Atlantais a truly modern city, if you travel twenty miles in any direction, you will findyourself mysteriously transported into 1950's Mississippi. It's not pretty, it smells likea chemical weapon test site, and there are no gas stations open past sunset. When wecrossed the invisible plane marking the city limits of "Lana", the fuel warninglight had already been on for an hour. The car was unhappy, sputtering, and clearly indire need of sustenance. We found ourselves dumped off of the freeway directly into theheart of the capital of the South, downtown Atlanta. Instead of gas stations, we foundhundreds of Atlanta residents pedalling their goods, taking a particular interest in thetwo obviously lost individuals in the white Toyota.
Atlanta posseses an impressive system of sky bridges, connecting officetowers, commerce centers, parking garages and shopping malls. It literally allows anindividual to, within limits, conduct all of the days' business without actually steppingout onto a sidewalk. The effect is rather disconcerting, particularly when you findyourself at street level.
For the first time in my life, I found myself pursuing a police car wehad spotted. After several minutes of ignoring the car which had been tailgating them,oblivious to the honking and the women hanging out of the passenger side window shoutingat them, they stopped. They allowed us to follow them to the closest gas station. As thatthe station seemed to be the headquarters of a social club consisting of between twentyand thirty rather unhappy young men, the police--without any prompting on our part--stayedparked beside us until we had filled the tank and driven off.
We decided to not attempt to find lodging there for the evening, andsuddenly felt more than capable of driving the remainder of the way to Mobile without anyfurther stops. I also felt I had made the right decision in turning down the position Ihad been offered with the corporate office in Atlanta.
NEXT: Latitudes