A City Without Peach Trees

It truly is amazing how many different living styles there are among cities and towns that dot this country. Take New York City alone, there are thousands of different lifestyles in a single city. There are thousands of small towns across the country that differ from one another. It’s quite amazing to me. A person can choose such a wide variety of environments to raise a family, start a first job, or settle down for retirement.

This week the road brought me to Peachtree City, a planned city that is only about 30 years old. As Joe was saying, it’s like Stepford; trophy homes and trophy wives. Joe and Dianne moved here from NYC, one of the most diverse places in the world. He gets a chuckle out of his kids being able to leave a bike on the street and it’s still there the next morning. Sure it’s great, but they admit it’s like living in a bubble.

As for my short-term experience here, it’s fantastic! I’ve heard of golf cart communities before and have kind of shrugged them off. Well that was a mistake. The first thing on the agenda when I arrived was a golf cart tour of the town by Rachel and Brit (I met Rachel’s brother Ben when I was in Birmingham, which is how I ended up here).

There are about 100 miles of golf cart paths where you can get from anywhere in the town to the other side. It’s fantastic! First of all, they’re all electric, just plug it in at night and it’s charged to go to the grocery store the next day. No gas wasted, no pollution. It’s quite friendly, it’s loads of fun, and it just makes sense. Why do people need a Hummer just to drop off a book at the library or to go to a friend’s house. I’m a fan. Also, the golf cart tour of the town was one of the best tours I’ve had of a town on the trip. There are bridges and tunnels too!

It worked out well to be here on a Thursday. Brit and Rachel invited me to the weekly Grey’s Anatomy party at their friend Kelly’s house. These girls make Grey’s Anatomy a BIG priority! But it’s more of an experience, an event. How so? Well it’s about ten teenagers laughing and talking together and hanging out, of course the rule is that you can’t talk during the show, only commercials. But when you have delicious popcorn and top it off with a gigantic spoon full of brownie mix, who wants to talk anyway? This was my second Grey’s Anatomy TV party of the trip, the first one was in Seattle, where the show actually takes place.

Some stops on the trip are too long and some are too short, this is one of those that is just too short. But I have to get moving. Thanks everyone, for a short stop that got me fired up. Brit and Rachel, thanks for bringing me to Partners for potato pizza!

Also, another side note that I’ll have to expand on at some point. So many people in towns like Peachtree City, Celebration, and more are people transplanted from other states. It changes the definition of local. In Idaho I met a dozen college students, I think only one was from Idaho. In Hawaii I had a great tasted of Mexican culture. Here in Peachtree City I’m staying with a family from NYC, with awesome New York accents. And of course there have been several Michiganders along the way and a few Yoopers.