This summer was the biannual Abbott family reunion. Back in 1999, we all got together for my grandfather’s funeral in Minnesota. We realized that the last time we had all been together was for a wedding in 1987, 12 years earlier, and we decided that we should get together for more than just weddings and funerals. We had the first Abbott reunion in 2000, and we’ve been meeting every other summer in various places around the country for a week-long gathering.

This year we went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We stayed at the Drummer Boy Campground, a lovely, wooded, 95-acre property. The campground has over 450 overnight sites including RV sites, tent sites, and cabins. The property also has a general store, two swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, mini-golf, and a playground, and there are laundry facilities for those who are staying longer term. In fact, I was quite surprised to discover that there are RV people who come here year after year and who stay long enough to build structures such as wooden stairs up to their camper doors, wooden platforms and shelters for outdoor eating, and even fences to keep their little dogs corralled. It was quite a lovely place to stay.

Abbott folks arrived on Saturday and Sunday, so our first group activity was Monday. We hired a private tour bus which picked us up at the campground and headed over to Gettysburg National Military Park.

Our first stop was at the visitor center to watch a 15-minute introductory film about the park and the civil war. When we arrived at the visitor center at 8:45, Don said, “Guys, I thought the movie started at 9:00, but it actually starts at 8:45 so hurry into the theater so we can watch the movie.” As we were rushing in, Dean said to me, “These poor people who are already sitting here waiting for the movie to begin were thinking that they were going to have a nice quiet movie, and then our whole group runs in…”

After the movie, we were all ushered into the cyclorama which is a 360-degree painting of the agricultural land and the fighting scene outside of the town of Gettysburg in 1863. A voice-over narration described the day of fighting as spotlights around the room illuminated different parts of the painting that related to the narration. I will admit that it was cooler than I expected. And now I want to go visit the cyclorama in Atlanta that shows the fighting around the city in 1864.

After the cyclorama, we hopped back on the bus with our own private tour guide for a 3-hour tour around the national park. Our guide spouted off so many facts and figures about the battle that I can’t remember any of it, but you can always look it up on Wikipedia if you’re curious to learn more. What I will say is that the park is huge, and we drove around for 3 hours. We stopped a few times to get out and get an up-close look at something with the guide. One thing that surprised me was the vast number of monuments scattered around the park. It seems like every regiment from every state had a monument commemorating their part in the battle. There were statues of various soldiers and generals. There were cannons staged in various locations. 

In the decades after the war, observation towers were built in different areas so people could observe the battleground from above and evaluate and learn from the military strategies that took place below. In fact, students from West Point still come to the park to climb the towers and learn military lessons.

As we toured around the park, I saw lots of wildflowers.

The tour bus drove through Gettysburg itself, so we learned a little about the town along the way. Historic buildings have plaques indicating that they were around during the civil war. Abraham Lincoln visited on the occasion of his historic Gettysburg Address, and the house he stayed in has a plaque. Of course, there are also numerous tourist shops and restaurants that cater to the large volume of visitors that come through the area every year.

After the bus tour, we headed back to the visitor center to look at the exhibits. There were so many items from the war – guns, uniforms, flags, and other exhibits.

There were World Cup soccer games during the week of the reunion, and one afternoon 20 of us went to the Blue and Gray Grille and Pub to watch France play Spain. We took over 5 tables in one area of the restaurant, and people rotated between the tables to socialize during the game. Jennifer brought yellow card and red card bean-bag characters. Scott and Steph had a rivalry going on, and at one point, Scott gave Steph a yellow card, and she gave him a red card in return with her red iced tea glass. We all had a great time, and we made sure to leave our servers huge tips.

I was only at the reunion for part of the week, and there were other activities during the week where I didn’t participate – Blueberry Festival, Yuengling brewery tour, Hershey’s Chocolate World, the group dinner at Dobbin House Tavern, Abbott Olympics.

However, my favorite part of the reunions is always the evening dinners. Each day, a different group of families is in charge of providing dinner for everyone, and we all eat together. It’s a wonderful way to end the day, and it provides an opportunity to sit next to different people each time to catch up on each others’ lives. The daily activities are certainly an opportunity to catch up with people, but there is always the distraction of the activity itself. At dinner, you have each other’s undivided attention, and the time together deepens your relationships.

All in all, it was a wonderful week. It was so great to catch up with everyone after not seeing a lot of those folks since before the pandemic. (I had missed a couple of reunions in the meantime.) As I get older, I better appreciate time with family and the associated memories. 

I’ve reached a point of reflection in my life – amplified by our impending move to Italy – that makes me realize that time can be short, and things are changing. Since my last reunion in 2018, Terri has died and Dan has moved into a care facility. Some members of my generation have gotten busy with jobs and kids and other things going on in their lives, and they no longer come to reunions. I’m guilty of that as well. I considered not going to the reunion this year because I had already spent weeks away from work due to my arm injury. However, I decided that I needed to go and that my company could just deal with it. In the end, I am immensely grateful that I decided to spend a week with family this summer. Deep down I needed that.

I’ve now been going into the office for the last 3 weeks. It’s been interesting to see what has changed in downtown Atlanta.

First of all, there are police officers on every street corner when there is a game being played in Atlanta. I’ve never seen such a police presence in the city, and there haven’t been any issues with the crowds downtown. Good on them.  Of course, there is a lot of representation from law enforcement, the fire department, and EMS around the Fan Fest. I even saw a shade tent for Customs and Border Patrol. Why CBP needs to be in downtown Atlanta is beyond me. But I did learn that the Atlanta Police Department is specifically refusing to work with ICE during the World Cup, which is heartening.

 Perhaps the biggest surprise has been Marta. First of all, Marta was supposed to deploy 224 new train cars last year, then earlier this year the the week before the World Cup started. Nada. We still have the old cars in service, some of which are decades old. I was also quite surprised to see that some Marta stations hadn’t gotten the new turnstiles into service either. The station next to the stadium definitely had the new turnstiles up and running, but Inman Park and Five Points did not. This meant that you could get on the train in Inman Park and get off at Five Point and never pay the fare. Seriously, Marta, you’ve known about the World Cup for 8 years, and you’re missing out on so much revenue. Surely, heads are rolling at Marta.

But, on the Marta plus side, they have been running extra trains on game days. When we went to watch Spain vs Saudi Arabia, the trains were running every 2 minutes, and this was on a Sunday morning when trains typically run every 20 minutes. The stations also had Marta employee volunteers at each station to help visitors with questions.

Also, the renovation of the platform areas at Five Points station got completed. Upstairs there are still a lot of plywood barricades as the renovation is scheduled to continue through 2028. But at least the barricades are branded for the tournament.

In downtown Atlanta, I’ve seen a lot of temporary signage to help visitors figure out where to go. I haven’t seen that many visitors around my office, because Fan Fest and the stadium are about 4 blocks away. But I did see a temporary public toilet in one of the city parks. Additionally, the fountains in the park were cleaned out and are now full of water and running. They had been turned off for a couple of years, probably to conserve water.

The construction in the park is still going on, and it turns out that they are building a dog park. This is interesting because it indicates an anticipation for more people living in the heart of downtown. This is also interesting because I’m surprised that the City allowed this construction to be occurring during the World Cup. There is a moratorium on starting new construction projects during this time (and I know this because my firm has projects downtown), but I guess the City projects are exempt.

One of the funnest and funniest things I’ve discovered has been foreigners sharing their experiences in the USA. I’ve heard about a German guy and a Swedish woman who are (separately, they are not traveling together) documenting their fan experiences. The woman posted a photo of her hand holding a Twinkie and Doritos bag captioned, “I feel like I’m in a movie right now.” The guy posted a picture of a Buc-ees in Alabama and its crazy number of gas pumps and said, “This is a gas station in America.”

Apparently visitors are also obsessed Ranch dressing. Do a google photo search for TSA Ranch dressing and you can see that people are trying to take full bottles of Ranch dressing home in their carry-on bags.

People are also really into Waffle House. Waffle House is a staple in the South. It is open 24 hours a day and serves breakfast and lunch-type stuff, so it’s the perfect place to go when you’ve flown in from another time zone and are jet-lagged and it’s the middle of the night. (Waffle House also has an interesting business philosophy about being a shelter/destination in a weather emergency. Another thing to google, it’s very interesting, and I have friends who have taken advantage of this.) Anyway, Waffle House did themselves a solid and made branded soccer jerseys that I have seen around town. Awesome.

Finally, here are some misc photos that I have snapped over the last 3 weeks:

The Atlanta Fan Fest takes place in Centennial Olympic Park, a park that takes up five city blocks in downtown Atlanta. The park was developed for the 1996 Olympics, and it is now a central tourist destination ringed by the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola museum, College Football Hall of Fame, Children’s Museum of Atlanta, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. It is also across the street from the former CNN Center which is currently being redeveloped, and it is a few minutes’ walk from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the venue for the FIFA games, as well as State Farm Arena, the basketball arena.

Perhaps most importantly for me, Centennial Park is a 5-minute walk from my office. I have an annual pass for Georgia Aquarium, so it’s easy for me to pop over there during my lunch hour or after work to watch the underwater animals. It also meant it was easy for me to walk over there during lunch on my first week back in the office. I wanted to see what the deal was with Fan Fest and see the global visitors in downtown Atlanta.

At the end of that week on Saturday, Chad and I went to Fan Fest to watch the Croatia-Ghana game. We got there at 4pm, the game started at 5pm, and we left at half-time at 6pm because it was so hot.

We did walk all around Fan Fest. All of the corporate sponsors had booths/tents. One thing that was cool was that there were water-bottle-filling stations for free, which was important since it’s July in Georgia. The England game was playing on the biggest screen, and the Croatia games was on the smaller screens.

Then on July 1, we went back to Fan Fest for the USA game. I told Chad that I wanted to watch the American team play in America and watch with a bunch of Americans. Check. For this game, the free tickets for the general admission area were “sold out,” so I splurged and bought tickets to the GA+ area, and I’m so glad I did. The general admission area was packed like sardines, standing-room only. And while our paid area was full, we still had room to move around and sit down during the breaks and we had a perfect central view to the main screen.

The USA won the game that night. And as we walked out, the DJ played “All I Do Is Win” by DJ Khalid and everyone sang along which was perfect.

Through all three of these perspectives of the Fan Fest – walking around during my lunch hour, the free admission, and the GA+ special admission – it’s been amazingly cool to see so many people from around the world. And honestly, the most obnoxious experience was the USA game – the screaming and obscenities and people throwing things, it was disappointing. But I’m glad we’ve been able to experience the World Cup for these weeks in Atlanta.

We bought tickets to one World Cup game in Atlanta. We got them through the lottery last fall, and, at the time, we had no idea which countries would be playing in the game. I was very excited this spring when I learned that Spain would be playing, as they were favored (at the time) to win the tournament.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium was built about 10 years ago, and it is a beautiful stadium.

We’ve been there to watch a few Atlanta United soccer games.

We also got to go on a private tour of the building with some of my Gensler colleagues in 2019. The stadium is used for the Atlanta United soccer team and also for the Atlanta Falcons football team.

Due to FIFA rules, there were some transformations to the stadium for the World Cup. First of all, the US football field size is about 10 yards narrower than a FIFA soccer field, so some of the lower spectator seating was removed to widen the field. Also, FIFA doesn’t allow any commercial branding, so the Mercedes-Benz signage on the facade was covered up, and the stadium is temporarily called Atlanta Stadium. The ban on branding also translated inside where locally branded concession areas were given generic names. Even the branding on things like condiment bottles and restroom soap dispensers had to be covered up. Crazy. 

We went to the game with Chad’s sister, Michele, and our friend Hans and approximately 68,000 other people. It was so much fun to watch the game live and in person and feel the energy of a stadium full of people.

My favorite part, though, was being in a crowd with people from all over the world and speaking a variety of languages. We met Saudi Arabians on the way inside, and some guys from Guatemala sat behind us during the game. It was so cool to be part of a global community event.

After the game, we walked around the area, in the intense summer heat, to check out the pop-up shops in the Gulch area (lame) and to visit the newly renovated former CNN center which so far seems to only be a re-do of the food court (also lame).

We then headed back to Marta for the short ride home. We got home around 4pm and did nothing for the rest of the day, exhausted from the heat. But the experience was totally worth it.

Today marks the 250th birthday of the U.S.A. This is a significant milestone and there should be a happy sense of national pride. Instead, Donald Trump has politicized the day and polarized the nation over the last year and a half. There is a failed State Fair on the National Mall where several states have declined to participate. Trump has announced that he is going to give a speech before the DC fireworks show and that he will speak for hours just to show people that he can do so. There’s the saga of the algae in the Reflecting Pool and the subsequent arrests of visitors who had nothing to do with the water quality problem. Of course, these are minor things compared to the litany of terrible things that this administration has unleashed. I’ll leave that there for now.

I remember the 200th anniversary in 1976. I would have been 5 years old, but I remember going to watch the fireworks with my family and understanding that it was a big year for the U.S.A. It’s funny how things stick with you and you can remember them 50 years later.

Here in Atlanta, Chad and I don’t typically go anywhere to watch fireworks. During the first years that we were in our house, we could see the fireworks in downtown Atlanta from our top porch. Since then, though, the trees have grown tall enough that we no longer see downtown. Maybe we can see the show if we stand in the middle of the street in front of our house. Technically, it’s a clear shot to downtown (and I know this since I walk that way to work).

During my Italian lesson this morning, my tutor, Francesco, asked me if people truly celebrate the Fourth as a significant day of independence. I told him (in Italian, of course) that I think most people just treat it as another summer holiday by going to the lake, grilling, drinking beer, similar to Memorial Day or Labor Day. Of course, people do recognize it as the birthday of our country, but for most it’s a day off of work and a day to hang out with family and friends. However, I do appreciate what we have in this country, despite the current administration, and I feel fortunate to be an American.

In lieu of posting photos of fireworks, here are photos of summertime flowers this week. We have new flowers blooming in our yard.

And there are lots of flowers blooming around the neighborhood.

There’s a big patch of yellow flowers along the creek in Springvale Park:

There were yellow and purple irises blooming along this creek in April:

I don’t know what kind of tree this is, but these spiky balls are interesting:

My neighbor’s tree has peaches:

I like how this grass is seeding:

And finally, there’s this bad boy. Agave plants, also known as century plants, store up energy for years and then bloom once when they are somewhere 8-30 years old. This plant is 10 years old. When the flower stalk first appeared, it grew 4 feet in 10 days! The stalks grow to 15-20 feet, and flowers appear within 1-2 months. After flowering, the main plant dies over the course of 3-6 months. This yard had another agave that bloomed last year, and it was cool to walk by it over the months and see the changes. That plant died over a few months and is no longer there. There is a third agave in the yard, so maybe it will bloom next year.