Maybe the snow slowed down the zombies

I traveled to Atlanta this week for work, the week after their Snowpocalypse that shut down the city for 3 days. This is shocking when you think that ATL is the busiest airport in the world, and when you know this disaster was caused by all of 6" of snow. There were still HUGE piles of snow a week later.  Well, huge for them, rather modest in more northern eyes. Thankfully there was no snow or bad weather while I was down there to delay things.


Do you like zombie films? I love them! My favorite has long been 28 Days Later, which introduced the modern fast-twitch zombies (as opposed to slow plodding Land of the Dead type), and the idea that zombification starts from a highly contagious virus. And if you like silly zombie movies I highly recommend Dead Alive, a Peter Jackson film from New Zealand, where the main character tries to hide the fact that his mum is a zombie with hilarious results.

But my new favorite is the series The Walking Dead which recently aired on AMC. It had great zombie effects and did a really good job creating the zombie storyline without any holes. It also had several shocking twists that kept us guessing. And by this point I'm sure you're wondering how this ties in to my trip. Well, it's filmed in Atlanta and in the previews they head down an empty highway into the city, and it turns out it's the highway we were driving on. I also drove past the CDC to see if I could get a pic from the same view as an episode, but the front entrance is kind of behind another building.

We went to a variety of hospitals in the city, including the famous Northside Hospital, where every Atlanta native is born. I was shocked to see a McDonald's in the main hospital. Not only is it there, but the overhead directions signs to find places like radiology and cardiology always included the McDonald's too, and you knew you were nearby when you could smell the fries in the waiting rooms. We stopped in to get a bottle of water and kill some time, and there were signs up indicating the Weight Watcher's meetings take place in the McD's dining room.  Here I am at one of the entrances:

The insane first snow of the season

Well, I guess all the posts this week will be published from drafts I saved weeks ago and never hit the "publish post" button.

No way was the snow going to be bad. Picture it, Sicily 1925...

Friday morning all the schools are closed because 8 to 10 to 12 to 24 inches of snow is going to start falling sometime around 3-4 pm! I went out at lunch and it neither smelled nor looked like snow. Then at 1:55 someone says it's snowing - no preliminary flakes, just a switch from nothing to a downpour. Our boss (bless him) walked around telling us to wrap things up and go home. After 25 min. on the road (my normal commute time) I was only 2 miles away from work. The road was incredibly slippery and all the cars and trucks in ditches made it look almost like a movie set. The snow was so heavy that I couldn't even call anyone or get a text through. Hey! How dare you think I'm a text-while-driving person? We were as such a dead stop people were playing in the snow on the interstate banks. I finally got a text through to D, tersely insisting he leave work ASAP. My shoulders and neck were painfully tight from keeping control of my car and the fear someone was going to slide into me. After 3 hours I was approaching the turnoff for my street when D called and warned me there were 5 cars skidded out on our street and I should park at the church on the corner a mile from our house. I looked down at my skirt and dress shoes, and out at the ankle-deep snow and knew it was going to be a rough trip...uphill...in the blinding snow...with no pants or real shoes. I bundled up as best I could and headed towards our street. A guy straightened up from putting chains on his tires and asked where I was headed. I vaguely told him up the main street through our neighborhood. He nodded, told me he lived there too, and asked if I wanted a ride. I told him the road was blocked and saw him hesitate. I asked if he wanted to try the back route and he agreed. On the way he commented that he was glad I knew about the back way, since if I was unfamiliar with it I might have worried where this strange guy was taking me. He's not kidding, it's a winding road up a ridge, with all these old scary homes down in hollows. He dropped me off at my door and I was so thankful to still be relatively warm and dry. Tire chains are freakin amazing!