Exploring Atlanta with Sophie

My husband and I recently took a “summer break” from our teaching business for a couple weeks. While that time off ended up being a series of unfortunate events, we did manage to get in an adventure with Sophie. We decided we wanted to go somewhere totally new, so we packed for a day trip into Atlanta. My mother-in-law was in town for a visit too, so we all enjoyed a fun, family day of adventuring together!

Atlanta is about an hour and a half drive for us. Sophie usually doesn’t do very well with car travel, but she surprised us this time. She only cried for the first 20 minutes or so, and then she calmed down. That is a BIG improvement for her!

Our first stop was Piedmont Park. Piedmont Park is an almost-200 acre park just a mile from downtown Atlanta. We all enjoyed a nice stroll through the park in the late morning hours, before it got too hot.

After a little walk around Piedmont, we decided to hit the Atlanta BeltLine. The BeltLine is a trail around Atlanta that used to be a former railway corridor. People can walk it, bike it, scooter it, etc. It is still a work in progress, but many portions are already complete. The aim of the BeltLine is to improve transportation, add green space, and promote redevelopment.

Along the BeltLine, you can find painted murals and art installations. It also connects different places around the city, so you can get off at any point as you reach the restaurants, shopping, and parks along the way. We had a great time admiring and posing in front of the murals we saw.

After so much walking, we were getting tired and thirsty. Thankfully we passed this little coffee shop along the BeltLine. We stopped for a rest and refreshment.

During our rest, Sophie got to make some new friends of the human variety. There was also a golden-doodle dog who came up that Sophie wanted to befriend, but the dog (who was at least 5 times Sophie’s size) was terrified of her… haha!

After we rested up, we hit the trail again for some more BeltLine explorations. We eventually came upon Ponce City Market, which is a big shopping mall. They had several restaurants with outdoor seating, so we settled on Minero, a Mexican restaurant, for some lunch. Sophie was so well behaved and patient while we ate. We tied her leash to the table leg, and she just laid on the ground and people watched.

While there were several more cat-friendly places we wanted to visit, by the time we finished eating and made the trek back down the BeltLine to the car, we were all so tired. We decided to head home. This just means we have another Atlanta adventure to look forward to in the future!