Atlanta

First thing's first, traveling from DC to Raleigh takes approximately four hours. I'm not sure if the planets were simply not in line for us, but it took a grueling eight hours to finally arrive at our hotel in NC. We hit three of the worst traffic jams I have ever experienced, literally hours of bumper to bumper traffic. I will never complain about the occasional 295 rush hour blip again. It was nearly 9pm when we arrived so the squeeze and I went straight to bed after gobbling some food down. 

The next morning I was dead set on seeing at least some of Raleigh while we were here, it seemed like a wasted trip if we didn't. So we headed downtown and snagged some delicious brunch at a local spot called Joule. It was super Portland-esque, we loved the vibe and it made us think of home. This was the only photo I managed to take of the city, shame on me, it was beautiful here!

Arriving in Atlanta was no joke either. Half-way through the eight hour drive my eyes started to get heavy so the squeeze and I swapped seats. Once we reached the city it was total chaos, cars weaved in and out of lanes blindly while doing 20 over the speed limit, it was a huge relief when we reached our hotel. **Note to selves, avoid major city driving during weekend nights at all costs**

Our hotel, the Marriott Marquis, had 42 floors. It's the biggest hotel I've ever stayed in, not to mention the most motion sickness inducing. Our room was on the 37th floor which gave us the most epic view! Staring up from the lobby was like looking at an optical illusion, and forget the elevators, I had to face the door every time we used them.

Our first full day we visited the Georgia Aquarium, it was glorious! There is such a huge variety of animals here, everything from Whale Sharks to Asian Otters. And the best part is that you can squish your face right up to the glass so the only thing separating you from three adorable Beluga Whales is a layer of heavy duty acrylic.

The most majestic of the views is the monstrous 6 million gallon tank that holds their four Whale Sharks, four Manta Rays, several sharks, and hundreds of fish. The squeeze and I could stand there for hours, it was so relaxing to watch all the sea creatures swim.

Remember when I said you could press your face up to the glass? That's what I did with this poor penguin, he or she was clearly trying to take a nap and I was trying everything in my power to get it to look over at me. Success!

Every time I've gone to the Boston Aquarium their lone octopus is squished in the corner of his dark and dismal tank, I've never seen him move in the several times I've been there. But low and behold, our first visit to the Georgia Aquarium and this guy was was energetically suction-cupping his way across the tank back and forth. There was a gentleman with his son who were both wearing 'member' lanyards, he said that in all the times he's visited he'd never seen the octopus out once, I guess we lucked out on this one!

The aquarium is organized so that the tropical sea life is one section, the other salt water creatures are in another, the whales have their own location etc, etc. They had a smaller closed in space with fresh water/river wild life, there they had a tank that housed not one, but two albino alligators. They had a spooky marble-like appearance with glassy pinkish eyes. They were patient for a while so I managed to snap a view photos, but slowly they made their way to the back and hid behind some artificial trees when a bunch of rambunctious kids arrived.

We ended the night with a hike up to the Sundial Restaurant on the 72nd floor of the Westin hotel. See those blurry red words in the bottom right corner? That's our hotel. I thought we were up high, but this place has almost twice as many floors. It was also a rotating restaurant so we got quite the 360 degree view.

This morning we left Atlanta and headed for Savannah, the big city was great; bold, bright, and beautiful. And also slightly scary at times. Being from Portland you feel like you can walk just about anywhere at any time, it's always a fresh reminder when you're in a new city that you're not in Kansas anymore.