Atlanta serendipity

Our trip to Atlanta for a graduation turned out to be more fun than I anticipated. While Atlanta may not offer much of a destination for tourists, it appears to have a relatively high quality of life that we benefited from as visitors.

More by luck than anything else, we landed in a hotel within walking distance of the High Museum. We were surprised to see long lines and found out it was the final days of a big exhibit of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. So we braved the line -- which, as much else in Atlanta, was handled with great efficiency -- and went through the exhibit. I had seen the big Frida Kahlo exhibit here in Washington and actually visited the Casa Azul in Mexico City, but this exhibit had a number of her self-portraits as well as the less well-known still lifes. Other highlights were some early paintings by Rivera, showing how he cut his teeth as a painter by mimicking the cubist lights in Paris, and several photographs of the two of them which were works of art in themselves. We dashed through some of the standing collection and were impressed by the number of well-known contemporary artists.

On Sunday, we walked up Peachtree Street from our brunch and wandered into Piedmont Park, a wonderful urban playground that was being put to good use. Our goal was the Botanical Garden, simply because it was a beautiful spring day. To our surprise, we once again stumbled into a rare exhibit -- the first ever in this country of some monumental plant sculptures -- mosaiculture -- that were truly phenomenal. There were two large butterflies made up of various plants as we entered the grounds, which we thought was just some ornamentation. But then we ran into two monstrous cobras, and an ogre, and some bunny rabbits, and dancing berries and realized this was not an everyday occurrence. So we sought out the fabulous Earth Mother and the shaggy dog.

The garden itself was quite nice, with spring blooms. The hothouse was too crowded and, well, too hot to enjoy and the edible garden was in the very early stages after spring planting, but the canopy walk, the fountains and the well-placed benches made it a very enjoyable visit.

We also had great luck with the food and saw much in the department to explore if we ever do go back. You never know.