Thanksgiving in Acworth

On Wednesday Thomas and I left Asheville kind of early. Our original plans were to drive part of the Blue Ridge Parkway from Balsam to Cherokee (the southern entrance of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park) and visit the park for a little while before heading to my brother's house in Acworth, GA. But as we left the hotel and started our drive there was so much fog it was hard to see very far and we figured we probably couldn't enjoy the parkway or the park so we scratched those plans and headed for Georgia. The drive was pretty good and we stopped a couple of time to take a picture or two and before we knew it we were in Acworth. We pulled in to the driveway and were greeted by my brother, Brent; his wife Heather; my dad, Dale; his wife, Janel; my sister, Mona; and her daughter, Madison. We sat and visited for a while and then everyone decided they were hungry so we all piled into the car and went for an early dinner. After dinner we just returned home and visited. My other sister, Donna; her husband, Mark; and their children, Tori, Ryan and Hali all showed up around 10pm and we ended up talking until around midnight.

On Thursday I had kind of a bad day. My dad has lots of opinions and he tends to bait me when it comes to political issues. All my life we have been democrat, my grandfather was involved in local politics and we were democrats. Now most, if not all of my family are republicans. My dad doesn't want the government telling him what to do - his examples are things like making him wear a seat belt and making him have insurance. But when I try and explain that the very people he is voting for are also telling people what they can do with their lives, he doesn't care - he just doesn't want to be told he has to wear a seat belt. I try to tell him that they are affecting Thomas and my's relationship but it doesn't matter. Do you have any idea how it feels to have your father tell you that your life isn't as important as whether he has to wear a seat belt or not? It just devastated me. I can't even count on my family to help promote my relationship. Of course, they tell me they support me and Thomas and that they support gay marriage but then they vote for the very people who are adding constitutional amendments to state constitutions taking away that very right from me. And don't throw in anything religious or moral - I don't want to hear it - this isn't a religious issue, it is a civil rights issue. My dad is constantly bringing up how democrats aren't honoring the constitution, but when people are trying to impose their religious beliefs on me by adding laws telling me what to do isn't that not honoring the constitution. I thought we were all guaranteed the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - I guess it only applies to certain people. All my life I could never do anything right in my dad's eyes. Once when I tried out for baseball and didn't make the team it took me over an hour to go home and I was right in my feelings about not wanting to go home - when I got home and told them I didn't make the team all he could say was that I probably didn't want to make the team and didn't even try and then he walked away. My feelings didn't matter. I was constantly told I was stupid, lazy and worthless. Added to this I was confused about my sexuality and I had no one I could talk to about this and was frequently beaten up in the locker room because some of the guys at school assumed I was gay. I have had so much counseling about this but I still have tons of issues. My self confidence and self esteem are pretty low. No matter how many good things I hear I always fall to very low depths at one negative comment. It takes me a while to work out of it but eventually I start feeling better and then something else comes along. I have to say it takes more to get me down now than it used to but I still have lots of problems to work through. I could go on about things that happened as a child but I think you got the jist of things. So I had a hard time being in the Thanksgiving mood and really wanted the day to end. My brother's wife had her children and grandchildren and her mother there but I just couldn't bring myself to mingle. I found a spot on the couch and just sat and watched whatever was on TV. I was in bed for 8:00pm (which is highly unusual for me) and found it hard to get up the next day and face everybody.

On Friday I was still not feeling all the great but everyone wanted to go into Atlanta and visit the World of Coca-Cola. So we piled into four cars (Thomas and I alone in ours) and drove to Atlanta. The World of Coca-Cola has exhibits that talk about the start of Coke and its history. We say a 4D movie about how Coke is made and we saw a lot of the old commercials. They also have tons of memorabilia on display. At the end of the tour they have a tasting room where you can taste Coca-Cola products from all over the world - Thomas and I found that we like the ones from Africa. Then on your way out they give you a bottle of Coke. It was a nice tour and gave me something to do to take my mind off of things. Once we left the World of Coca-Cola we stopped at The Varsity for some dinner. This place was good, kind of a greasy spoon hamburger joint. After dinner we all returned to Acworth and a quiet night of watching TV.

Saturday morning it was decided that we would all go to Stone Mountain. Except for my dad and his wife - they left for home because they wanted to have Sunday to rest before returning to work on Monday. They were gone before I woke up - never said bye or anything. Anyway, we all got ready and then drove to Stone Mountain. We entered the park and then walked around and did a few things and then a group of eight of us wanted to walk up to the top. Before we headed up we tried to find one letterbox but it didn't materialize - we really didn't spend that much time looking for it since we needed the time to walk to the top. So we followed the Cherokee Trail until it met up with the Walk-up Trail and then we made our ascent. It was a little work at some points but the views were worth it. We could see the skyline of Atlanta and we were there at dusk so we got to see the sun starting to set. It was also really cold up on top of the mountain. The wind was pretty strong and with nothing to block the wind it cut right through you. So the eight of us made our way down and about half way down it was dark and we had to really take our time to make sure we stepped correctly. Once at the bottom we followed a paved path that took us to a sidewalk and back to the entrance of the park. We met up with the rest of the group and did a couple of more things before leaving for home. At home we ate and watched the Georgia vs Georgia Tech game (my sister-in-law is a BIG Georgia fan and was really having a hard time as the game stayed close all the way to the end. Thankfully for her sake Georgia won and it all ended well. Off to bed so that we could do a few things in the morning before heading back to Birmingham.

Unfortunately I didn't get to do much letterboxing, there just wasn't much time especially at Stone Mountain. I will have to make another trip out here just to get in some letterboxing at the mountain.