Saturday, 14th April, has not been regarded as the most thrilling day of this trip anyway. Travelling from the very West of my trip to the very East with an expected net travelling time of some 4 1/2 hours plus whatever Atlanta traffic will top up on it did not feel to be too thrilling.

Starting with a train

After I updated the website , I headed back into city center, as I did not have the time to have a look at the likely most famous Chattanooga attraction, the Choo-Choo. The Choo-Choo is an old steam train, which has been used in the golden Chattanooga rail ages. Now it serves as a hotel (I thought about checking in there initially, but the ratio of rating vs. price does not meet my expectations…)

A long, long trip

The next hours have majorly been what is called “Kilometer fressen” in German – which literally means “eating miles”… Just driving on, counting down the miles on a not-that-thrilling trip.

My GPS at least liked to give me some thrill by suggesting the route through Atlanta. So I did a short detour to some Olympic sites… Will tell you in a later blogpost about the ruin I visited.

THIS is Augusta?

My first experience of Atlanta has been: Instant Photo Printing machines are all out of order. Wanted to print my Weird Al pic of the night before but they all could not do it. Other people were smarter and ordered it online for collection… Nice move 😉

I have to say, I did not like the city of Augusta at all. Hard to imagine that there is the most prestigous golf tournament each year. The green jacket does not give its magic to the city for the rest of the year. The Riverwalk is really nice, but apart from that, many run-down stores, more tattoo shops than restaurants… I really had trouble to find a reasonable eat.

The town’s most prominent son is James Brown by the way. Al told a funny story about when he has been invited to play Celebrity Wheel of Fortune with him – with James Brown “obviously never having seen the show before nor even played Hangman”. Don’t tell you too many details 🙂

The concert

Miller Theatre is a much larger venue than the Chattanooga old. Sold out with some 1,300 people inside. Thus, the pre-show Jeopardy and the post-concert Meet & Greet has been quite crowded. Met Jerry Tomlin, the master of costumes, and Jeremy doing his 301st show (after his 300th one in Chattanooga) as well as a German South Carolina resident with her daughter (or vice versa… Daughter with mother…). Quite cool setlist this time, many songs I haven’t heard on stages for ages (or not at all…).

Though it has been more or less the same programme, I have to say that I more and more love Emo Philips. Apart from that, the show has been interrupted by a false fire alarm with the lights going on (and could not be turned off for two songs…). JW took some really cool pics with me and Al as well 🙂

The full concert picture gallery can be found here: 2018-04-14 Augusta

Holiday Inn Express Augusta East

I checked in at the Holiday Inn Express Augusta East that night due to its comfortable proximity to the venue. Nice one… Having the possibility to lock the car in the backyard feels a bit frightening to me though 😉

Here are links to the remaining posts of this trip reports :

• Trip Report Preview / Overview
• Day 1, 12th April 2018, Flight from Cologne to Atlanta, sleepover in Lawrenceville
• Day 2, 13th April 2018, Chattanooga, TN: concert and city sightseeing
• Day 3, 14th April 2018, Augusta, GA: concert and city sightseeing
• Day 4, 15th April 2018: Atlanta, GA: concert and city sightseeing
• Day 5/6, 16th/17th April 2018: Sightseeing in Atlanta, flight back to Cologne.