Month: May 2023

My Takeaways from a Graduation at Georgia Tech. in Atlanta

May 26,2023

We drove from Ottawa to Atlanta, a distance of close to 2000 kilometers, to see our granddaughter, Susanna, graduate in architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology.

How could we miss our granddaughter’s graduation? We did not but made me think we have a grandson graduating next year in Oregon; a granddaughter graduating, I think, in Colorado in two years, and another grandson graduating in Virginia the year after. Should we follow this precedent, that would be quite a travel plan for the next few years! Unfortunately, we missed the graduation of our eldest granddaughter who graduated from the University of North Carolina during the Covid shutdown.

Arriving in Atlanta during rush hour, exciting enough, was made even more challenging when we missed our destination, despite using Google Maps on my cell phone. The Google Map showing arrival in seconds just before my wrong turn, suddenly turned into seventeen minutes and a fifteen-mile drive. My four-letter word vocabulary quickly expanded, but it did not help. We had to get back on the interstate and circle back.

In the meantime, my son, Tony, was messaging us inquiring about our whereabouts. By the time we arrived back to where we should have turned left, Tony was standing on the street corner waving to us to be sure to make the left turn to arrive at our hotel, the Midtown Garden Hilton. 

The hotel was within walking distance of the Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, where the 2023 commencement exercises took place, and we walked to the stadium early in the morning.

The closer we got to the stadium, the more people joined us, forming a veritable migration by the time we stopped at the entrance to the stadium where a metal detector gate let people through, one by one. The only items allowed to be taken in were cameras, cell phones, and wallets, and I noticed that some people sported a new and useful product to enter metal detector gates: a plastic see-through purse carried by women.

The wall-to-wall crowd at the entrance gate exuded enthusiasm, I heard people talking proudly about their offspring getting a university degree from one of the elite institutions in the United States. Many of them were formally dressed while others donned jeans. We wore casual, informal clothing matching the early summer weather.

Once inside, we saw the graduating class sitting in rows of chairs in the middle of the stadium floor, facing the end of the football field, where a covered podium was constructed, above which a huge TV screen showed the action on stage. By the time we walked around the stands to the front, close to the podium, the stadium was a third full of its 55,000 capacity. The buzz in the air was loud and palpable, and we had to shout to communicate.

All the best seats were taken, especially those with a backrest. So, we rushed forward, up a few levels, and then down, trying to find seats from where we could take the best pictures of the President shaking hands with the graduates one by one, congratulating them on their achievement. We even found private boxes which had a good view of the ongoing events, but these rooms were glassed in, and we could not hear clearly what went on downstairs. After investigating the layout of the stadium and searching for good seats, we took seats close to the front of the football field.

Although it was not pronounced, I detected a slight accent listening to university president, Angel Cabrera’s introductory speech. He hails from Spain and received his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 1995, a nice elevation from student to president in twenty-four years. The Glee Club sang the national anthem following Dr. Cabrera’s speech.

Harrison Butker, the commencement speaker, surprised or perhaps shocked the audience with his recommendation on what the graduating students should do with their lives: he said they should get married and have a family. Now Harrison is not only an NFL hero, a football player with the Kansas City Chiefs, who wears two Super Bowl Rings, but also a Georgia Tech graduate who played football for the university. But his advice on how to conduct your future life created a stir in the audience; my other two granddaughters, college-age, immediately reacted with: “Who is he to tell me to get married? And you do not have to be married to have a family!”

Harrison’s argument centered on what he called the loneliness experienced by today’s youth, despite the connectedness people think they have through social media. He said you will not be happy with whatever you accomplish unless you share it with someone. To him, the sharing was with his wife and family that motivated him today and made him happy.

I thought Harrison was entertaining when he talked about teamwork and perseverance but disappointed when he brought religion into the commencement address, by recommending marriage. But his comments were no surprise, Harrison is a devout catholic and belongs to a conservative group that promotes the practice of an older version of Catholicism, including the belief that sermons should be in Latin.

Dr. Cabrera thanked Harrison for his speech and wondered aloud, with understated humor, how many marriage proposals would take place today.

The graduates were called onto the stage, to shake hands with the president, and proceed to pose before the “Rambling Wreck”, for an official photo. (The Rambling Wreck is a fully renovated Model T Ford, the school’s mascot that is driven around the stadium before each football game.)

The activity on the stage was projected onto the large screen above it for us to see each graduate walk by with their name on the screen.

I was dumbfounded in the beginning, seeing all the Asian and South Asian names following one after the other; of the first fifty graduates called to the podium, I counted twenty-nine Asian names. What is the ethnic composition of the student body here, I asked myself. According to recent statistics, twenty percent of the students are Asian or South Asian. Then I realized that the first to be called were the computer science graduates.

Much as I tried to get ready to take pictures of Susanna when she came by the Rambling Wreck, I had both my camera and cell phone ready, I missed the perfect shot. The pictures I took are out of focus. No matter. We joined up with her after the ceremonies at the architecture building, and took some pictures of her in her gown, along with family.

To celebrate her life milestone, the family went for dinner at NoMas! Cantina. The Cantina served Mexican fare in a space furnished with artifacts from Mexican artists, all of which are available for purchase. A unique place. I thought it was funky with umbrellas hanging from the ceiling, and masks and artifacts decorating the walls. Consistent with the Mexican theme, we started with a margarita, served in a two-foot-tall glass bottle, bulging at the bottom. It was sufficient for eight people.

The dinner punctuated a successful four years of study. So what is next Susanna? I asked. Following a stint with a large architectural firm in Atlanta this summer, she said she will attend Clemson University in South Carolina to study for a master’s degree in architecture. 

Riding the Virginia Creeper

May 20, 2023

Our arrival in Damascus, to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail was exciting. We struggled with the lock on the Vacation Rental by Owner’s (VRBO) door with no success until we turned the knob counterclockwise. With the door open, we faced a large, young woman, staring at us along with two crawling babies on the floor. I am not sure who was more surprised; us or the woman. When we got our breath back, we tried to explain that we had reserved this house and showed the documentation. She was speechless and yelled for her husband who appeared in shorts. He was a huge specimen and we got worried about guns in the house, having read recently people being shot just by driving onto a driveway. The husband explained that he rented this unit for six months and provided us with the name of his contact.  We concluded that we had no choice but to leave and find another place to stay. It was seven o’clock by that time, but fortunately, still light.

My daughter Megan, who had made the reservation through VRBO for a “premier” host called VRBO on the phone to find answers. After an hour and a half, VRBO offered money to rent accommodation in the vicinity because they were unable to find accommodations in Damascus for us; we were also told that the unit we had rented had been sold six months earlier, We drove and called around Damascus, searching for vacant units and found the River Trail Cabins had a couple of vacant units which we immediately occupied. These log cabins were exceptionally well appointed with a small kitchen where we cooked our supper and ate it on the verandah, overlooking the trail and the river. A large hot tub was next to the bed, but it was way too late to fill it up to use it.

We had come to Damascus to meet up with our daughter and husband who were on their way to Blacksburg, Virginia to pick up their youngest son from Virginia Tech where he finished his first year of college, and to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail. The Trail starts in Abington, VA, and stretches to Whitetop Mountain in the Rogers National Recreation Area, close to the North Carolina border. It is thirty-four miles long. Damascus is halfway along the trail, from where it climbs 2000 feet.

The right-of-way for the trail goes back to the 1880s when a railroad line was built to haul iron and coal. When the mines were depleted and it became uneconomic, the line was shut down. In 1977, the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, owner of the rail line, asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to allow the abandonment of the rail line. Soon after the ICC’s approval, the removal of the tracks began, and the right-of-way was turned into a recreation area by the US National Forest Service and the National Park Service. A caboose at the center of Damascus commemorates, and reminds people of, the original purpose of the trail. The trail now accommodates hikers, cyclists, and equestrians, crosses a National Park and the Appalachian trail, as well as many rebuilt trestle bridges.  

On our first morning, we walked our bikes down the steep embankment on which the log cabins were built, to find the trail, eager to try it out.  We found the trail surface smooth, often with small gravel that was easy to ride. The trail wound its way through Damascus, passing by the SunDog Shuttle service where we inquired about their $25 shuttle service to the end of the line on Whitetop Mountain. We told them we’d be back the next day to experience the 17-mile downhill ride from Whitetop Mountain to Damascus.  In the meantime, we decided to cycle up the trail to experience the ride.

Once we left the town, we rode in a bushy, leafy valley, next to the Laurel River that was maybe fifty feet across, and which looked like whitewater kayaking territory although too shallow for my taste. The river flowed fast over large rocks creating a crashing but relaxing sound. We met some cyclists coming down the trail; it looked like easy riding with the low gradient.

The sun was up creating a dapple effect on the trail that bothered my vision, but also made me sweat although I had only a t-shirt on. We rode for a couple of hours, covered maybe ten miles, and decided to stop and have our lunch on a bench. There was also an outdoor toilet and a parking lot behind us.  We realized that it was possible to drive to several points along the trail, park the car and start riding from there.

Turning back towards Damascus, we cranked the pedal of our bikes a few times and rode for considerable distances, coasting much of the way with a slight downhill gradient; the going was easy and provided an opportunity for observing the forest around us. The return trip was fast, we arrived back at our home in less than an hour.

The next day we drove to SunDog Shuttle service and got on the bus with a dozen other passengers with a trailer behind us loaded with our bikes. The friendly driver related stories of cyclists along the trail; one story was funny in that some wild pigs chased one of the cyclists for a quarter of a mile before going back into the forest. The story did not give us a comfortable feeling, hoping we would not meet a wild pig on our ride down the Creeper Trail.

The driver also said that during the once-a-year Appalachian Trail days, up to a hundred thousand people converge in Damascus. The people attending these days are current and past hikers of the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail days this year are from May 19 to 21; it was a good thing that we did not come at that time; it would have been overly crowded.

On the forty-minute ride to our starting point on Whitetop Mountain we, of course, conversed with our fellow riders, who came from Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina. One cyclist shared his experience in doing the Trail this last winter that he described as a somewhat freezy trail with icy spots that he had to navigate.

And we were all white-haired! I expected more young people, but I found our fellow cyclists close to our age, and that made me feel very good; this was a mature, recreational cycling crowd. Many people rented bikes at SunDog indicating that they may not have been serious cyclists but came for the experience.

After the requisite photo at the trailhead, in front of the billboard identifying the Trail and distances along the trail, we jumped on our bikes, and we were flying down the slope that had a gradient of five percent. There were some rocky spots and I had to grab tightly the handlebar that almost jumped out of my hands a few times. The first few miles went fast and after half an hour we stopped for a break to catch our breath.

Eleven miles down the trail we found the Creeper’s Trail Café and enjoyed a morning coffee where we met with a group of cyclists from Tennessee; they were part of a walking club in Knoxville and came for a different experience. I engaged with one of the riders who surprised me by showing me his electric bike. I asked him why he would need an e-bike when this trail was all sloping down, would his bike start rolling down too fast? He agreed that he did not need such a bike but back home he rode on hilly terrain.

Further down we stopped for our lunch sitting on a bench and watched the other cyclists go by, waving to them. When passing a cyclist, the typical protocol was to call out “on your left”, when approaching from behind. Everybody followed this routine. We arrived back at the shuttle place in three hours, a seventeen-mile ride with stops. I was not tired, since we rode downhill almost all the time, but my butt was sore from all the bouncing on some rocky parts, and where we crossed the numerous trestle bridges where their beginning and end was a jump up and then down, with our bikes.

SunDog shuttle service has a well-equipped store for cycle equipment and clothing, and I could not resist buying a t-shirt with the Creeper Trail logo, and with text on the back: “You do not stop riding because you get old, you get old because you stop riding”. That was apropos. Good advice!

I would recommend the Virginia Creeper Trail for cyclists of all kinds with a stay at the River Trail Cabins. And have a chat with the people at the SunDog Shuttle service for local color.