The Atlanta Beach

Well, as nice as it was to be confined to the property for 5 days it was very nice when I was able to get in the car and venture off the property.  First trip... Walmart... go figure :)  The side streets became melted enough for vehicles to get down to my end of the street and that was good enough for me.  The mail man came through on Friday... first time since the previous Saturday.  His truck got stuck for just a bit but he made it up over the hill to get out and when I saw that I figured I could as well.  So I got in the car and carefully got out of the neighborhood.  Once on the 'busy' street things were in good shape.  One needed to be careful but it was all right and it was just so nice to be out. 

Today, the 8th day after the snow hit, was my first one to the office in downtown Atlanta.  The drive was nothing special and it was just a plain old day until I went out for a bit of a walk at lunch time.  Then I got to see what the news people meant when they said that "contractors have been brought in to put down sand on the roads and sidewalks in the downtown area" in the middle of last week.  Unbelievable!  Welcome to the Atlanta Beach !!

This is the sidewalk that surrounds the building I work in.  In places there are inches of sand!  I mean it's not like someone just sort of spread some sand around on the sidewalks and streets -- they dumped it.  Now anyone that's dealt with ice before knows that sand doesn't do a damn thing to make it go away... it just makes it dirty.  Now they're going to have to clean up this mess sometime.

See?  I meant it... inches thick!

And just so you don't think I got some kind of special attention, this is a shot about 2 blocks over and a block down.  It's everywhere!  It's everywhere!  Based on what I saw and walked on, the better part of the entire downtown Atlanta area is now covered in sand.  Welcome to the Atlanta Beach :)