We meet the man, the myth, the terrifying legend: T. Tommy Reed. That’s right, Anthony’s infamous cellmate tracks him down to make him an offer he [probably] can’t refuse. Meanwhile, we’re still hotly debating what’s worse: Anthony’s plight or Mary Jo’s staycation with JD and their combined five children.
Stick around for this week’s "Extra Sugar" where we talk about our favorite staycation spots here in Georgia (and...like...close to Georgia).
Some reads:
Come on, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: Choking attack.
Nikki: She didn't give me the warning sign.
Nikki: You look like you're okay.
Nikki: Well, the universal sign for joking.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: Well, also, hello, everyone.
Salina: Hey, y'all, and welcome to Sweet Tea and TV.
Nikki: Welcome.
Salina: We are, like, well into season two now.
Nikki: We are episode 1313.
Salina: Like over the hump.
Salina: Well, over the hump.
Salina: We're tracking along.
Salina: No, we're trucking along.
Nikki: Trucking and tracking.
Salina: I like that.
Nikki: We're moving.
Nikki: We're there.
Salina: Well, and we are semi close to wrapping up our introspective time with Mr.
Salina: Proust.
Nikki: Oh, how I'll not miss you, Mr.
Nikki: Proust?
Salina: Well, I got two tough ones coming at you today, dagnabbit.
Salina: And so tough that I'm just going to go ahead and tell the truth, which is that I told them to you ahead of time.
Nikki: We didn't have to tell the truth on that.
Nikki: She told it to me before we recorded at our last episode.
Nikki: So I've not had tons of time to think about it.
Nikki: But I did think about it before that episode because I thought that's when she was going to ask them to me.
Nikki: Yeah, we changed her mind.
Salina: We gave ourselves like two minutes to think about it.
Nikki: I still don't have any good answers.
Salina: I've got nothing.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So I'm about to show off my smarts.
Salina: Who.
Salina: Nikki Mays, are your favorite writers?
Nikki: I think the way I'd like to attack this question is less about the favorite person and my favorite characteristics of writers that I enjoy.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: That's how I'm going to attack this question to get me out of I have trouble remembering names of people and things right on the spot.
Nikki: That's just hard for me, places.
Nikki: So I could read 1000 books by one person and I probably would forget their name.
Nikki: So what I can tell you is that some of my favorite books that I feel like I could read over and over again or I feel like I read one time but just is like a favorite of mine.
Nikki: Hyper descriptive.
Nikki: Like I can picture the whole book in my head without even barely trying.
Salina: So you love Hemingway.
Salina: Go on.
Nikki: Super descriptive.
Nikki: I love plays on words.
Nikki: So to take something that means one thing and then twist it into something to mean something different, love that.
Nikki: So people who are talented, those are my favorite writers.
Salina: I like it when a writer can write.
Salina: You know what I'm saying?
Salina: So I want to echo the fact that minus the fact that I feel sort of dumb right now, but I could name writers a cool.
Salina: But also, I'm not going to say and be like, I just love Hemingway sometimes when I'm in my home, just read, you know?
Salina: I'm just not going to do that.
Salina: I have read a wide variety of different authors over the years.
Salina: Some very well known, some not as well known, some most I couldn't remember their name.
Salina: So I'm with you on that.
Salina: I mean, I think it's different things that will attract me to a book.
Salina: I have noticed that as I've gotten older, my tastes in books have changed because actually, I don't really read that much fiction anymore.
Nikki: That's all I read.
Salina: Or if I do, it's like historical fiction or something like that.
Salina: And I still read fiction, but I don't know.
Salina: I just feel like my tastes are really changing, and I don't usually read unless it's a series.
Salina: I'm not like, oh, this person got to read all their materials.
Salina: I don't necessarily operate like that.
Salina: So I think the way that I handled the question was to sort of think about when I have and who were those authors.
Salina: And the thing is that it's been a while, but one is James Patterson.
Salina: I have probably read more of his books than anyone else's.
Nikki: He's probably written more books than anyone else, probably.
Nikki: So he's got, like, a billion novels.
Salina: They're just page turners.
Salina: They're not hard, but they're thrillers, and they're just interesting.
Nikki: I would say that's another characteristic of a writer that I really enjoy.
Nikki: If it's a book that I pick up and I just like, I cannot stop reading.
Nikki: I need to know what's going to happen, right?
Nikki: Whether it's a thriller or right now, I'm reading the book.
Nikki: Crap.
Nikki: What is it called?
Nikki: It's the one about if America had ended up a monarchy, and it's like teen adolescent teen book.
Nikki: That's where you can always find me.
Nikki: It's teen fiction.
Salina: And like, if we had like, if.
Nikki: We had a yeah, yeah.
Nikki: If America had become a king.
Salina: I didn't even realize that was young adult when I picked it up.
Nikki: The Washington line.
Nikki: If they had been the monarchy.
Nikki: I'm reading that one.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Good.
Nikki: It's good.
Nikki: It's like one of those things where I'm like, they get you these characters you really like, these storylines that are compelling.
Nikki: They're not life altering.
Nikki: It's not Jack Carawak or Poe.
Nikki: It's not things that you learned in school.
Nikki: But it's interesting.
Nikki: These are characters you like.
Nikki: It's well written.
Salina: I feel like even though all of the stuff, mainly the stuff that we read in school, I wound up not liking because I was being forced.
Nikki: Because you were forced to do it.
Salina: Yeah, exactly.
Salina: Speaking of the name of this episode, which is Great Expectations, I thought it was terrible experience for me.
Salina: I felt personally attacked.
Salina: I just didn't like it.
Salina: And so I feel like all of those kind of touchstones know literature and I'm a lip.
Salina: Whatever.
Salina: Give me James Patterson.
Salina: Not these days, but once upon a time.
Salina: And Kiss the Girls was my favorite.
Salina: Judy Bloom is another one for me.
Salina: And the reason why is, okay, not only did she have books for children that I really enjoyed at that age, but then she does have books for adults, like Summer Sisters that I grew up and really enjoyed, too.
Salina: And I think that's really something to have that kind of success in two very different genres.
Salina: So that's another person that stood out for me.
Salina: And this is kind of different, but I actually like comedic writers, too, so I don't know if you've ever read any of Chelsea Handler's books, both her and Mindy Kaling.
Nikki: Mindy Kaling.
Nikki: I've read hers.
Salina: Mindy man.
Salina: But there's something about somebody who is just able to really, like you were saying, set up a scene.
Salina: But I'm thinking, like, not just like a beautiful scene, like the whispers of the know that sometimes will lose me, to be honest.
Salina: But this idea of just being able to do what a comedian's mind can do, which is see a situation and a scenario and pick up on this thing that we all experience on a frequent basis and be able to paint that picture, and we're like, oh, my God.
Salina: They see, you know?
Salina: And I think that Mindy Kaling did a really good job in that in her book.
Salina: So those are mine.
Salina: That was hard.
Nikki: That was really hard.
Salina: Why would you do that to me?
Salina: Proust?
Salina: I thought we were friends.
Nikki: When he was writing these questions, there were a whole lot less writers to think about and a whole lot less books.
Salina: Technically.
Salina: He didn't write these questions.
Salina: He just popularized the game.
Nikki: Well, back when the questions were written.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: We don't really know who did two question two, or as I call it, 28.
Salina: Who is your hero of fiction?
Nikki: Good Lord in heaven, who is your fiction fictional hero?
Salina: Well, I already told you my joke.
Salina: One off Mike, which was Bella Swan from Twilight.
Nikki: I didn't think that was a joke.
Nikki: I thought you were serious.
Salina: Oh, no, it was kind of I mean, I don't know.
Salina: I could make her into a hero.
Salina: That's easy enough.
Nikki: I have one.
Salina: Yeah, I thought you have one for this one.
Salina: Anyway, go ahead.
Nikki: I did, but then I forgot it, and now I remember it, and it's not as good as I wanted it to be.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: But I do actually have say it.
Salina: Oh.
Nikki: But does it count as fiction?
Nikki: He was a real person, but he was playing a character, mr.
Nikki: Rogers from Mr.
Nikki: Rogers Neighborhood.
Nikki: He was a real person.
Nikki: Yeah, but his neighborhood wasn't, like, real.
Nikki: He was on a uh huh.
Nikki: That counts.
Nikki: Right?
Nikki: And if that doesn't count, then I'm counting.
Nikki: Daniel tiger.
Salina: I think you can count whatever you want to count.
Nikki: Mr.
Nikki: Rogers.
Nikki: He's a cool dude.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Like, the lessons he put out in the world were really cool.
Salina: I love Rogers.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Good idea, Nikki.
Salina: I didn't know we could pull from television shows, though.
Nikki: That's his fiction, right?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Can pull from anywhere.
Salina: There wasn't any TVs in the days of Proust.
Nikki: There wasn't James Patterson in the days of proust.
Salina: Well, that's a whole different weird line.
Nikki: In the sand to draw at this point.
Salina: So in that case, then I would say that Black Widow from Marvel is mine.
Nikki: Well, there you go.
Salina: She's a fictional character.
Nikki: You were going to say Bella Swan.
Salina: She's from a oh, not Twilight the movie.
Nikki: Well, it's all the same.
Salina: I'm more highbrow than that.
Nikki: Because the other thing I was thinking about truly was Jack from Titanic.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Because he really did save her life.
Salina: Oh, you go.
Salina: True hero.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: But in even a psychological way, he opened her eyes to a whole different experience and a whole different life that she could live and an option for herself.
Nikki: And while she killed him, he saved.
Nikki: Yeah, that was my other thought.
Nikki: That was the one I thought of earlier.
Salina: Oh, I see.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So are you landing on Black Widow?
Salina: I just want to say yes.
Nikki: She likes the strong female characters.
Salina: I do.
Salina: In fact, I couldn't even think of a man speaking.
Salina: All I could think was the strong women.
Nikki: Well, speaking of strong female characters, we have not one in this episode.
Nikki: We have two strong male characters anthony and the T.
Nikki: Tommy Reed.
Nikki: So this is season two, episode 13, Great Expectations.
Nikki: Hulu says that Anthony finds himself the unwilling business partner of a murdering ex con who is planning to open a shop in Atlanta upon his parole.
Nikki: IMDb says while Anthony's former inmate friend T.
Nikki: Tommy Reed offers him a job running his gift boutique.
Nikki: Mary Joe and JD's.
Nikki: Respective children don't get along on their weekend together.
Nikki: Written by LBT.
Nikki: Directed By David Trainor And It aired January 4 what a nice kickoff to the new year, meeting T.
Nikki: Tommy Reed and possibly getting a new start in life for Anthony.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So I would say that the biggest general reaction for me.
Nikki: I would imagine this is for you as well, but we finally meet T.
Nikki: Tommy Reed.
Salina: Absolutely.
Salina: We've talked about him forever.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: We're finally meeting him.
Nikki: What did you think about meet your expectations?
Nikki: Did he meet your great expectations?
Salina: Well, he is actually in my like category.
Nikki: Really?
Salina: So I'll just skip to that.
Salina: Do it.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So this is your show, Salina.
Nikki: I do what you want.
Salina: I think he's fascinating, and I want to know more about him and his life.
Salina: I really thought that he was a great character, and I don't know, I just thought that his over the top vocabulary, like with the ladies, that sounded like he was flipping through that word of a day, word of the day calendar pretty quickly.
Salina: That made me laugh.
Salina: And I liked it when he started listing off all the luxury items he grew fond of in prison.
Salina: I mean, that he read about.
Salina: And I don't know.
Salina: There was just something about his demeanor that worked for me.
Salina: I thought he was actually kind of charming.
Salina: So I don't know.
Salina: I'm guessing not the same for you.
Salina: What did you think?
Nikki: I think all of those things are true, but my takeaway was, that's not what I was expecting.
Salina: Oh, I see.
Nikki: So he was charming, and I was expecting someone a lot harder because even we got little bits and pieces of that.
Nikki: That's how Anthony's described him this whole time.
Nikki: One of the very early descriptions was the story about a book on etiquette, and then he stabbed the guy in the arm for not doing the right thing or in the hand or something.
Nikki: So we have this image or I had this image in my head of this hard guy, but who has a taste for the finer things and wants to elevate himself, but he's going to step on everybody to get there.
Nikki: And so what I ended up getting out of the character in this episode.
Nikki: The way he treated Anthony, the way he ended things with Anthony, I was like, Whoo, that is not what I grew to expect of this character.
Nikki: So maybe he reformed post prison.
Nikki: Maybe he spent some time after Anthony knew him, getting to know himself.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: He was one of the things I liked in this episode, and I loved the idea that we finally got to meet this legendary character with the caveat that he wasn't what I was expecting.
Nikki: So I just felt like that was sort of disappointing.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I think he's crazy.
Nikki: You do?
Salina: Yeah, because he said at the end he said something about what happened to the guy who told you no or something.
Salina: It was something that alluded to the fact that he killed him.
Salina: Well, in a previous well, I think.
Nikki: In, like, a previous life.
Salina: Oh, so you think he's left all that behind?
Nikki: I think so.
Salina: That read like a threat to me.
Nikki: Oh, not me.
Nikki: Not me.
Nikki: Because of something else he said earlier, but maybe.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Well, if it was a threat, it'd be good to see him again.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I definitely don't think he came off quite as sadistic as I thought he would have from some of those stories.
Salina: And he obviously really cared for Anthony.
Salina: You really liked weird in a weird way.
Salina: You could tell he kind of wanted to use them for whatever this endeavor was.
Salina: But I don't know, it just seemed to be like he looked up to Anthony in a way he thought a lot of him like we do.
Nikki: Yeah, I love Anthony.
Salina: He could run my boutique, who knows?
Nikki: And he had some really nice ways of characterizing, Anthony.
Nikki: Like you said, he was, what do you say, like classy.
Nikki: He had just a few really nice things to say about Anthony.
Nikki: Like, this was a guy you knew, just carried himself really well, put off a good vibe, and like you said, would be really good at running a.
Salina: Boutique, of all places, or whatever.
Salina: Well, while we're on that train so one of my general reactions or stray observations, however you want to classify it, was about this business venture.
Salina: So T.
Salina: Tommy Reed's friends gave him 50,000 to take over a chic Atlanta boutique.
Salina: This is an Ozark situation.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Oh, like a front.
Salina: That's what I was assuming.
Salina: I don't think he's changed his ways.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I think he was going to have Anthony as the frontman for a place that's laundering money.
Nikki: Oh, cool.
Salina: That was my cool.
Nikki: Cool.
Salina: Well, I do really like the show Ozarks.
Nikki: Yeah, I guess that's true.
Salina: So I didn't know if you had that same impression.
Nikki: I did not.
Salina: Yeah, see, this is where you're the light and I'm the dark.
Salina: You're literally sitting in the light right now.
Salina: I'm literally in the dark.
Nikki: He's turning his life around.
Nikki: He's making some big changes.
Nikki: Didn't occur to me.
Nikki: I just thought it was weird.
Nikki: But that makes a lot more sense thinking about that than it just kept hitting me.
Nikki: Like, why a boutique?
Salina: Why?
Nikki: Or gift shop or something.
Nikki: Why?
Nikki: I don't understand.
Nikki: That makes a lot more sense.
Salina: Okay, I'm just going to devil's advocate myself because why not?
Salina: If you go the flip side of that, if he really is about all of these luxury items, well, where else are you going to have luxury items but in a boutique?
Salina: I think he really likes those things, though, and I think those are great items to have if you are going to also be running a money laundering business.
Nikki: I will say I think Anthony definitely thinks something untoward is happening, and I think that's the biggest reason he's saying no.
Salina: Well, and he's got the most reason to think that because he was his.
Nikki: Cellmate for however many years he knows him.
Salina: So one of my actual reactions was that was going to be a question for you, which is, who do you think is in a worse situation in this episode, mary Jo or Anthony?
Salina: So we haven't really talked about Mary Jo yet, but she's on a staycation with her boyfriend and his kids and her kids all trying to make this like The Brady Bunch, but they are not.
Salina: And then also well, I think that Anthony's being extorted by an ex con.
Salina: So what do you think?
Nikki: Is I would have said Anthony either way, even before.
Nikki: Only because I believe people can reform.
Nikki: I believe people can change their ways.
Nikki: I believe people can make a decision and change their life.
Nikki: If I were in Anthony's shoes, I would be afraid of inadvertently getting sucked back into a lifestyle or a group of people that I was trying desperately to claw my way out of.
Nikki: I think that it's possible people who have a history of crime and criminal activity, it's possible they could find themselves back in that lifestyle without even realizing it happened.
Nikki: So for someone like Anthony, I just think the chance of sliding into something inadvertently is just really high by going into business with T tommy Reed.
Nikki: Even if T tommy was trying to change his life, so Anthony stood to lose more.
Nikki: So I felt bad for Anthony.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: But Mary Jo and Ted's storyline was my least favorite part of this, so yeah.
Salina: Oh, you did?
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Nikki: Whatever whoever she's with, whatever that man's name.
Salina: I can't I'm just gonna have to say it.
Salina: Nikki's in a sunspot.
Salina: You're literally lit up like a Christmas tree right now from my window, and I feel terrible.
Salina: I am so sorry.
Nikki: I like the sun.
Nikki: I just can't see your face.
Salina: Well, we've had a pair of sunglasses for you right now.
Salina: Yeah, you do look like you're kyle.
Nikki: Calls me kyle calls me a sunflower because the sun will come out, and I'm like, well, I find it.
Salina: Well, you owe me a happy place right now.
Nikki: I'm getting plenty of it.
Salina: So I think the only other general reaction I had on this one was what I would call a stray observation.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Which is Anthony and T tommy being at the same restaurant as Mary Jo and JD.
Salina: That felt I mean, and I think that is sometimes the thing about sitcoms that I'm like.
Salina: It's just like, you're not really trying, but it's fine.
Nikki: I don't know where I put this.
Nikki: I feel like I wrote this somewhere.
Nikki: But that dinner was very fancy no.
Nikki: To take five children out to.
Salina: Yeah, well, he is a braves, like, recruiter.
Salina: They make good money, don't they?
Nikki: It's less about the money and just more about the atmosphere.
Salina: Yeah, well, I think we've already established that they didn't put up, like, the best trip, so maybe we can remedy that in our extra sugar this week on staycation activities.
Nikki: Maybe.
Nikki: I have two strays for you.
Nikki: We've talked several times, at least twice, about Anthony, this character of Anthony, and how conniving is Anthony?
Nikki: Is he a criminal mastermind or no.
Nikki: And he came up with that West Indian story, like, super fast on the phone when T.
Nikki: Tommy called, which is.
Salina: How T.
Salina: Tommy identified.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: And so it just gave me another glimpse.
Nikki: I was just like, holy crap.
Nikki: Anthony can just turn it on, like, change a scenario and make it something quickly, right?
Nikki: It's a little bit scary.
Salina: It's true.
Salina: It's true.
Salina: I think a little bit of that wore off for me after we got the episode where we find out that he was just, like, unknowingly the getaway car.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: But it doesn't mean that he didn't pick up some tricks right.
Salina: From his unjustly accused days.
Nikki: And desperate men can do a lot of things, I guess.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: He had to quickly come up with something.
Nikki: So my second stray is, like, next door neighbor stray.
Nikki: Like, it's pretty stray.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I'm pretty sure the B roll shot they used outside the hotel where Mary Jo and JD.
Nikki: Were staying is the same hotel shot they used in the beauty pageant scene right before the beauty pageant.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Salina: Well, it's probably the only hotel in Atlanta at the time.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: And at the time when we recorded the beauty pageant episode, I believe we said, that looks nothing like a hotel in Atlanta.
Nikki: It had, like, a lake in the front, and it just didn't look like Atlanta at all.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So as soon as it popped up on the screen, I was like, I've seen that before.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: That's funny.
Salina: I wish I had noticed it, because I did not.
Nikki: That's why I'm here, Salina.
Salina: I know.
Salina: Thank you.
Nikki: You're welcome.
Salina: So, do we want to talk about what we liked about this?
Nikki: I think I already talked about my one thing that I really liked was finally meeting T.
Nikki: Tommy with the caveat that he wasn't what I thought he was going to be.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So and obviously, that was a like for me.
Salina: Another one for me was Meshach's.
Salina: Acting was really good.
Salina: I thought.
Salina: The way he was really nervous around T.
Salina: Tommy throughout the episode, sweating at one point.
Salina: Well, if you'd seen somebody, like, stab someone a few times, I think that would bring up some fears.
Nikki: And I feel like T.
Nikki: Tommy tracked him down super fast in a non Google world.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: A non Facebook world.
Salina: I think he has a network.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: You're bringing me around on the fact that T.
Nikki: Tommy is still in the underbelly of society.
Salina: Well, this reminds me.
Salina: I had something kind of exciting for you, maybe.
Salina: I felt like they put Mary Jo in a decent looking outfit towards the end of this episode, and I took a picture of it, and let's see if I can find it before I'm 103.
Salina: Oh, here we go.
Salina: So, she's got on a green top.
Salina: It's fitted black pants, a nice belt.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: It looks sophisticated.
Salina: They're not making her into a little girl just because she's petite.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So I thought that was a pretty good one.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: And the clothes weren't swallowing her up.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So I thought I just had to share that.
Salina: And I finally remembered to take a picture of an outfit for the first time, so that was exciting.
Nikki: And as you're saying that, I'm remembering I had an outfit picture for you for the last episode.
Nikki: Forgot it.
Salina: All right.
Nikki: That well, another day.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So that's all I had.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: There was a lot of general observations in this one.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Not much else, really.
Nikki: What about things you didn't like?
Salina: Really?
Salina: Just that.
Nikki: There'S a whole thing.
Salina: No, just that I didn't have much to really dig into.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I mean, it just kind of went by.
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: I thought the Staycation storyline was so silly.
Nikki: I wish they'd gone camping or something.
Salina: Camping would have been ripe with activities and plenty of things.
Salina: Shenanigans.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I feel like they would have gotten the opportunity to work as a team.
Nikki: I don't know, to build a shelter from the rain or something or get to know each other better somehow.
Salina: I guess the only reason they did that was to keep her close enough.
Nikki: By so that she and Anthony could end up at the same restaurant.
Nikki: So they could have a passing interaction.
Nikki: Yeah, I just wasn't sure how much bonding was expected.
Nikki: Going to a theater to watch Benji or sitting at a really fancy restaurant where the kids couldn't be kids.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: So I don't know.
Salina: Yeah, or kids at an art museum.
Salina: Seriously.
Salina: I mean, I'm the only weirdo that, like, doing.
Nikki: It.
Nikki: Is it four kids or five kids?
Nikki: Five.
Nikki: So as of five kids, probably one of them would have enjoyed it.
Nikki: But that's, like, taken a real shot in the dark on the rest of the kids.
Nikki: Yeah, and then even, like, the movie, their age ranges were all over the place.
Nikki: So, like, the little ones wanted to mean that little girl wanted to watch Dirty Dancing, she didn't want to watch Benji, and the older kids didn't even want to be there.
Nikki: So I don't know, I would have picked something a little more realistic.
Salina: Get with it, guys.
Salina: That's what we're trying to say.
Salina: Try harder.
Nikki: Try harder.
Salina: Well, does that mean that we're already ready to moly?
Nikki: Fastest episode ever.
Salina: Whoa, whoa.
Salina: Time check.
Nikki: We are at 27 minutes and we.
Salina: Spent about 15 minutes talking about the two questions we couldn't answer.
Salina: This is a record for the books.
Salina: Well, let's rate it.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: My rating scale was prison gift shops.
Salina: Oh, I like it.
Salina: I like it.
Nikki: What's yours?
Salina: Mine?
Nikki: I have to decide if I want to steal yours.
Salina: Mine's forced good times.
Nikki: Oh, I do like a forced good time.
Nikki: Well, either way, I'm giving it two out of five.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I thought this was a real letdown of an episode.
Nikki: Like you said, it just sort of went by.
Nikki: But then beyond that, I feel like we built up t Tommy Reed so much and he was just a big old softie.
Nikki: Like, I could have gone for a veiled threat against the server at dinner or something unkind to one of the women.
Nikki: Like, if we're going to say that maybe he's not fully like, I would have liked to have seen those rough edges a little bit.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Come on, LBT.
Salina: Couldn't he just punch Suzanne face or something one time?
Nikki: That's all it would have taken.
Nikki: So I actually liked like you said, I actually liked him, but I didn't really want to.
Nikki: After everything we'd heard about him, I felt like Anthony it's funny you say that.
Nikki: Mishak Taylor.
Nikki: His acting was really good.
Nikki: I felt like his character fell a little flat in this.
Nikki: Like, I feel like he could have just shined some more.
Nikki: This is an episode all about him and this storyline and this character that we've heard so much about for so many episodes.
Nikki: And then just to sort of be like, I don't know, it really took everything in him to stand up to this guy, and it actually took someone else starting to stand up to him first.
Nikki: I don't know, I just felt like he fell a little flat.
Nikki: This staycation was super boring with me, and if I'm one of those kids and my mom and my dad are getting together, I'm forced in with these other siblings and then you make me go to a fancy sit down dinner and possibly make me miss my football game to go watch Benji at 15.
Nikki: I'm going to be cheesed off.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And it just didn't work out.
Salina: Yeah, well, I feel like mine was my rating looks a little high.
Salina: I'm like, I hate this episode now.
Nikki: Go with it, Salina.
Salina: I just felt average about it, but for some reason I gave it a 3.5, which is like, that's like a B plus, isn't it?
Salina: So there wasn't really anything that I really loved, except I really enjoyed T.
Salina: Tommy.
Salina: I don't know, I just thought he was interesting.
Salina: I would like to see a spinoff show with T.
Salina: Tommy.
Nikki: So I guess did you look into the actor at all?
Salina: I did, but I didn't write anything.
Nikki: Down because the only reason I'm asking that is because I didn't write it down.
Nikki: I remember one thing from reading about him and the actor said at one point, he has a face that's made to be a hardened criminal.
Nikki: He was like, I knew when I got into acting the kind of character people were going to hire me to be.
Nikki: This face is made for that.
Nikki: And I thought that was so funny because he does you look at him, you go, oh, I get that.
Salina: Well, and where I do know him from is Con Air.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: With Cage.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: And I remember liking his character a think, I don't know, he just has good timing and I don't know, he comes off as down to earth or something.
Salina: There's just something that works there.
Salina: I'm not trying to say that he's I don't know why this actor's name is escaping me now, but I'm not saying he's like in the upper echelons of Academy Award winners or anything, but he's just got a certain something.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Well, he made you like him in twelve minutes on screen.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: I'm with you, though, because what I did like is that we got an episode focused on Anthony, but again, it was just one of those ones where I was just like, okay, yeah.
Salina: Which was kind of like disappointing.
Salina: But I did think it was an interesting idea to take someone that we've heard about but never seen and give us a chance to react to them, which is a tall order, and it can always go well, I guess, one of a thousand ways, but usually it's going to go good or bad.
Salina: So for me, I think the showing was good.
Salina: I just think maybe the plotline could have used.
Salina: Some love.
Salina: And I agree that it's not even just that the staycation was like, MIT MIT, but also just that it was kind of a weird pairing with this one, I think.
Nikki: Yeah, I agree with that.
Salina: I think maybe we could have gotten up something that was on more equal footing.
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: Or, like, have them intertwined in some.
Salina: Way besides them meeting in a restaurant.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: Yeah, it was kind of weird.
Salina: I guess so.
Salina: Yay.
Salina: On that note, is there any combos that you had?
Salina: No, I only had one, which was both that it was in the south and unknown to me, which is Lake Ponchatran.
Nikki: Lake Pontchatran.
Salina: Okay, thank you.
Salina: And that is a Brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana.
Salina: So now, you know.
Nikki: You would have known that if you took our Louisiana Day quiz on Instagram.
Salina: I did take that.
Salina: Oh, I got that one right, too.
Nikki: It's the longest bridge over water in the world, the Poncho Train Causeway.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Nikki: Hey, but that's the the you go over that lake to get to New Orleans, and Kyle and I went to New Orleans many years ago, and getting on the bridge, there was a gigantic gator that had gotten stranded somehow on the bridge, and they were using a crane to get him off.
Nikki: Oh, it's just the most New Orleans thing.
Salina: I took your quiz.
Salina: I always do.
Salina: I did.
Salina: I got a hundred.
Salina: It's true.
Salina: Casey got that one wrong, by the way.
Nikki: Oh, bummer.
Salina: Mine was a total guess.
Nikki: I don't even know how I got that one right, to be honest.
Salina: Apparently, since I also forgot it 80s.
Nikki: Things looking up, movies in the paper as well as the movies.
Nikki: Benji The Hunted, which sounds a lot more dark and desolate than it is.
Salina: Than about a pup.
Nikki: Yeah, it just sounds very scary.
Nikki: They also talked, I think, about The Princess Bride and Dirty Dancing, which are all very 80s movies, incidentally.
Nikki: Dirty Dancing, I think, might have been the first VHS that was ever wholly mine that I got.
Nikki: It's a wonderful movie.
Nikki: My grandmother sent it to me.
Salina: It's a wonderful movie.
Nikki: It's such a good movie.
Salina: Princess Bride also a wonderful movie.
Nikki: I'm going to level with you that I'm still not sure I've seen that whole movie.
Nikki: I don't know how.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Where's my movie list?
Salina: I never think about this until later.
Salina: That's okay.
Salina: We'll just play it back.
Salina: We'll play it back.
Salina: I'll write it down.
Salina: Hopefully, maybe could happen.
Salina: So I had that on there.
Salina: I called it an 87 movie dump.
Salina: And then also calling your server a waitress.
Salina: Just felt old school instead of sometimes.
Nikki: I accidentally still say it.
Salina: Me, too.
Nikki: And I was one.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Southern things.
Nikki: I didn't have any well, I had Lake Pontcha train, but you got that one already.
Salina: Johnny Cash for that.
Salina: Oh, sorry.
Nikki: Oh, Johnny Cash.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So we got a reference to him, and then that was my only one, though.
Salina: I feel like maybe I missed something, but I don't think so.
Salina: Everything was pretty generic.
Nikki: It really was.
Salina: References that you looked up or that we need to talk about?
Nikki: I don't have any.
Salina: The only thing I did was I looked back at that list of the fine of things that he mentioned, t Tommy mentioned, just because I was just curious.
Salina: Some of them I had heard of, other ones I was less familiar with or I just didn't understand, like, what makes this a thing?
Salina: So Wedgwood China was the one I was the most familiar with, just because Wedgwood is like that blue color.
Salina: But I just looked up and saw that it was first established in 1759 in England, and the Protizi sheets were also mentioned.
Salina: And so I was just curious about that one as well.
Salina: I was not familiar with that.
Nikki: Are they silk?
Salina: It's just Egyptian cotton.
Nikki: Oh.
Salina: So I didn't really understand.
Salina: But Egyptian cotton does have a higher thread count that makes it stronger, softer and more luxurious, in case you needed to know.
Salina: The Belgian lace, it's a thing I don't know.
Salina: It's just like I went down a whole rabbit hole about lace making.
Salina: I am not going to do that to you all.
Salina: But if you want to do it to yourself, I'll link to the article and then layla crystal, lalik leila lalik.
Salina: He mentions one of the two.
Nikki: Is it Irish or Scottish?
Salina: It is French, actually.
Salina: I know this is another one where I thought maybe you were going to fix my pronunciation for me, but anyway, so it's been around since 1888.
Salina: It's very expensive.
Salina: And I'll just say this, I don't really just get jazzed over crystal.
Salina: So I don't know.
Salina: It's fine.
Nikki: That's why we are in the class that we are.
Salina: You're not fancy enough for crystal.
Nikki: I feel like a rich person's listening right now.
Nikki: And they're like, that's why you're middle class.
Salina: You don't know what it is.
Salina: Well, the only other thing I thought about is I do have this, like a Waterford crystal vase that my dad got me when he was in Ireland years ago.
Salina: A funny fact, I don't think Waterford crystal is even made in Ireland anymore.
Salina: It's actually made in the US now, but I mean, it's pretty, but I mainly just treasure it because it's something my dad gave me more so that I'm like, oh, look at this crystal balls I have.
Salina: So, I don't know.
Salina: It's not for me.
Nikki: I also think things like crystal and China, you have to be so particular about whether they were made in the right place, because there's a lot of china that's been reproduced over the years.
Nikki: And it's nice, it looks lovely.
Nikki: And if you like it because it looks lovely, that's fine.
Nikki: But if you like it because it has value, you have to make sure that the thing you have actually has value because a lot of these things are reproductions.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: So, like, Wedgwood China, I think, is one where they have, over time, stopped making it in the same handmade way that they used to.
Nikki: Now it's mass produced.
Nikki: You can buy it at Macy's on sale on Black Friday.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Just doesn't have the same value.
Salina: And I do get that for sure, but I don't know, I think sometimes it is just the history of that or, like, I don't know, like the love or care or something that they put into an item or whatever.
Salina: Or like the history of the kind of person that makes something like that.
Salina: Because I think the guy who started Wedgwood, it sounds like he was a pretty colorful person.
Salina: And so those are the things that intrigue me more than anything else.
Salina: But it's also that kind of thing I'll read and not come here and share with you.
Salina: So you're welcome.
Salina: Cut lines.
Nikki: I had a lot of insignificant ones, but a couple that I will call somewhat significant.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: The first one I'll say because we get a bingo entry.
Nikki: And I think we've agreed cut line bingo entries can count.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: It doesn't really matter except that Anthony is saying he gets off the phone with T.
Nikki: Tommy Reed, I think it is, and Suzanne says, you mean that was like, that's the meanest guy on your cell block?
Nikki: And Anthony looks at her and he's like, how do you know?
Nikki: And she goes, you pick up things lying around and somebody says, Anthony, you mean this is the person you've told us about all those terrible stories during your unfortunate incarceration?
Nikki: So we got one of those.
Nikki: We got a throwback to a previous T.
Nikki: Tommy Reid anecdote.
Nikki: Is that the guy that checked the book out of the prison library on table manners and then stabbed an inmate for serving him from the wrong side?
Nikki: And Anthony says, Right, that one's important.
Nikki: Because then in the very next line, anthony references that book and says he checked out a book on dancing next.
Nikki: So there's like a little bit of an inconsistency in the anecdotes because of the cut lines.
Nikki: So Anthony says, after the table manners book.
Nikki: But you haven't heard him mention the table manners book.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: So you have to really be able to go way back in time.
Nikki: So there were just some that made the continuity a little unclear.
Salina: Yeah, those were the ones that I marked as maybe important, just because it's giving us some reminders and it's kind of and I think maybe that's why he seemed like even less of a bad guy, because you don't get some of those things about him.
Salina: I mean, they do talk about him cutting somebody's head off, but he also has a nice vocabulary.
Salina: It's fine.
Salina: He lacks crystal.
Salina: He's a stand up individual.
Salina: And then I had three that I marked as not important, but they were there.
Nikki: There were several.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So the next one, episode 14, 2nd Time Around.
Nikki: Yes, it's a romance episode, Tis.
Nikki: So we'd love everyone to follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at Sweet Tea and TV email sweettvpod@gmail.com.
Nikki: And we're on the World Wide Web at WW.
Nikki: Sweettv.com.
Nikki: And I think you already alluded to this, but this week's Extra Sugar, it's all about the staycation.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Atlanta specific.
Nikki: No, that's right.
Salina: Well, sure, I might have gone a little bit stretched the rules.
Salina: Ireland's close enough, right?
Nikki: Just kidding.
Salina: Nikki's worried now.
Salina: No, don't worry, I won't mess it up.
Salina: And you know what?
Salina: Let's go on and get the staycations, and we're just going to see you around the bend.
Salina: Bye.
Salina: Welcome to this week's edition of Extra Sugar.
Salina: Well, we've already told you about 15 times, guys, we're talking about staycations.
Nikki: Staycations.
Nikki: Hopefully one that's slightly better than Mary Jo and JD's.
Salina: And hopefully I didn't make Nikki too nervous when I expanded the ring of staycations to Ireland.
Salina: You know, I'm not good with directions.
Nikki: I'm very nervous.
Salina: No, don't be nervous.
Salina: Okay, just to quickly revisit, we get this whole b plot.
Salina: Mary Jo, JD, they're staycationing with their kids.
Salina: Do they even call it staycationing?
Salina: We're just doing that, right?
Nikki: We're just calling it that.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Because I don't think that terminology even came around until like, maybe ten or twelve years ago.
Salina: I think that it was something that was caused after the eight recession and a lot of people were staying home because there wasn't a lot of funds to go do the things.
Salina: Or you could say we were investing in our local economies.
Salina: Sure, whatever you want to do there.
Salina: But they talk about in the episode, they're going to the zoo and the art museum, but it's all very broad because most cities have an art museum, right?
Salina: Many cities have a zoo, that kind of thing.
Salina: One thing that struck me right off the bat was if this was 1988 and they were in Atlanta and they were already going to the zoo, don't you think they would have gone to the Cyclorama?
Salina: Do you know what the Cyclorama is?
Nikki: I know what it is.
Nikki: I've never been there.
Salina: Okay, so maybe that is only something that you go to if you're on a field trip.
Nikki: I think it might be, yeah, I've looked it up before.
Nikki: It doesn't look like something I want to spend my Saturday doing.
Salina: It's not there anymore anyway.
Nikki: Oh, it's not there anymore?
Salina: No, they closed it down to be restored, I think, in 2017, and then I think they opened it back up last year.
Salina: It's now somewhere over there with, like, the Atlanta History Center.
Nikki: I had no idea.
Salina: For those of you who I missed it, for those of you who don't know, a Cyclorama is basically like a round room of murals that tells a story.
Salina: I'm sure someone who knows the history of Cyclorama is like wrong.
Salina: But anyway, we're in the south, they're.
Nikki: Probably like, right, but that's not it.
Nikki: There's more.
Salina: There is more.
Salina: It's like that was the closest you were getting to a movie back in the day.
Salina: And so we're in the south and this is Atlanta.
Salina: So this one was like basically a battle scene in the Civil War.
Salina: And then in the lobby, it wasn't the lobby, but before you got into the actual circular room, there was like an 18 hundreds locomotive out there in the inside.
Salina: That was the coolest part.
Salina: It was terrible.
Salina: But just to be clear, everything that they're talking about sounded pretty terrible.
Nikki: This is true.
Salina: So I was just thinking in terms of Atlanta specific things instead of these very vague references.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So let's talk about staycations.
Nikki: Let's do it.
Salina: Have you been on one or stayed on one?
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: Okay, so how do you define a staycation?
Salina: I think that's a great question.
Salina: I think it's like something you can do.
Salina: And I will tell you, it's challenging for me because I think a staycation and a day trip to me feel very similar.
Nikki: So the reason I'm asking you this question is because in thinking about this segment, I was thinking I've definitely spent a lot of time at home around Atlanta COVID, but also pre COVID.
Nikki: I don't like when we were young and first married, there wasn't a lot of money for vacations, so we'd stay around town.
Nikki: There's also a lot in Atlanta proper I just hadn't done, and so getting a chance to do all those things.
Nikki: So staying in the Atlanta area, I've done.
Nikki: But when I searched staycations around Atlanta, just to sort of jog my memory, if there were some big milestones I was forgetting or whatever, they suggest everything, like up to Helen, they suggested down to the barrier islands.
Nikki: I always forget what those are called, like Cumberland Island and those sorts of places.
Nikki: That feels to me like a vacation.
Salina: So my thing would be like, are you staying the night?
Salina: Because if you're staying the night, then.
Nikki: It no longer it's not staycation.
Nikki: That's the whole point.
Salina: Right, right.
Salina: Well, and I guess in this case, they are spending the night at that hotel.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: So let's just say the definition will be a little loosey goosey with it for me.
Salina: And what I was going to share as mine is something that I did that sounds like similarly timed, but also for similar reasons, which was that the money wasn't flowing super fast.
Salina: So right around the time I graduated, we did take a week off of work, but we didn't have money for airplane tickets and fancy hotels anywhere or anything like that.
Salina: So instead, every day we would just go and see something else that was local.
Salina: Which, by the way, is also not cheap.
Nikki: Yeah, I know, it adds up.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: All those tickets can get pricey.
Salina: So one day we went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.
Salina: And another day we went to the Atlanta Zoo.
Salina: Or we went to Stone Mountain.
Salina: Not a mountain, by the way, but I digress.
Nikki: Exposed granite.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: The largest piece of exposed granite.
Salina: It's wonderful.
Nikki: I took geography.
Salina: Geology.
Salina: Same.
Nikki: I think it was geography, though.
Nikki: Physical geography.
Salina: Physical geography.
Salina: I took anything that kept me out of anything that was really too sciency for me.
Nikki: I paid a lot of money for a class that allowed me to say.
Salina: Exposed granite or a mamadnock.
Salina: Mamadnock.
Salina: That's the technical.
Nikki: Oh, for exposed granite.
Nikki: There you go.
Nikki: I didn't remember that.
Salina: Did it feel worth the price?
Nikki: I paid too much.
Nikki: State of Georgia paid too much.
Salina: And then Georgia Aquarium, that was another thing that we had done, as those were that was for me now.
Salina: But even we couldn't by the end, I think we could only afford to get away for just the weekend.
Salina: So the weekend we went to Charleston, and all through the week, we just went to all of those different Atlanta spots.
Salina: So that was my.
Nikki: We have done where we'll go to an Atlanta United game.
Nikki: We've done this a couple of times.
Nikki: And the kids will stay with grandparents for the night.
Nikki: And Kyle and I have gotten a hotel room in the city, be.
Nikki: And so we'll go to the game and then take an Uber to a restaurant and then go back to the hotel and stay at a hotel.
Nikki: Because sometimes just staying at a hotel is fun.
Nikki: You can get a good deal or whatever.
Nikki: So we've done that just so we don't have to drive all the way home.
Nikki: But I've also done just a lot of not planning a whole vacation around it, necessarily, but planning like, maybe a long weekend, planning one activity for the long weekend day so that we can do something we don't normally do.
Nikki: And you sort of do have to force yourself out of your own town and get in town so that you can not be tempted by cleaning house or cooking or meal prepping or whatever.
Nikki: We've done a few different things.
Nikki: We've never really done what you just described, which is planning a week to stay home and do things right.
Salina: I mean, we literally call it a staycation.
Nikki: And I think it was we haven't done that.
Salina: It was like a thing that people were doing at the time that was like a big deal.
Salina: More now today.
Salina: And some of the things that I'll share, because what I'd like us to do is talk about some spots that we would absolutely recommend.
Nikki: Right?
Salina: Because there's a lot of things to do more today.
Salina: It's like I mean, I know the saying is really trite now, but like a Sunday fun day, what can you do just to get out of the house today and really get away to your point so you're not getting dragged into all of these things?
Salina: That we have to do on a regular basis.
Salina: And I am also of the same variety of, like, you've got to get me out of the house or I will start doing housework.
Nikki: Yeah, I'll just spiral, and the next thing you know, I'm like organizing photo albums.
Nikki: And I never intended to do that.
Nikki: I'm not sure why I'm doing that, but I'm here and it's there.
Salina: Sure.
Salina: Why not just spend your whole Sunday cleaning out drawers?
Salina: It's what a good time?
Nikki: What better time to do it than today?
Salina: So tell me, what are some places that you would just absolutely recommend?
Salina: Let's just say someone moved to Georgia.
Salina: What should they absolutely put on their bucket list?
Nikki: So I split mine up into three categories of the things that appeal the most to me.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Get outside, go to a concert, game, or performance and eat.
Salina: Wonderful.
Nikki: So you mentioned Stone Mountain.
Nikki: I think if you're visiting Atlanta and you like to be outside, you like to explore things, stone Mountain is super cool.
Nikki: There is a hike that you can do up to the top of the quote, unquote, what did you call it?
Nikki: Monogram.
Salina: I had to write that thing down.
Nikki: Exposed piece of granite.
Nikki: You can hike up it.
Nikki: It's a nice hike.
Nikki: It's a good workout.
Salina: Mad knock.
Nikki: There you go.
Nikki: There's a train that goes around the bottom, but then there's a lot of other so, like, Stone Mountain is the one everybody talks about because it is, like, pretty much right outside the city.
Nikki: You don't have to go very far, but if you go up north, like, to Kennesaw, there's some really cool hiking and exploring to do.
Nikki: Like, I think Kennesaw Mountain and there's another Blood Mountain or something.
Nikki: There's all kinds of mountains that if you're in the city of Atlanta, it takes you an hour to get there, maybe.
Salina: Right?
Nikki: The Soap Creek ruins are really cool.
Nikki: They are.
Salina: It's a factory, wasn't it?
Nikki: It was.
Nikki: It was a factory.
Nikki: So it was multiple types of factories over, like it was a power, like a water power mill.
Nikki: At one point it was like a leather mill or something burned down.
Nikki: The ruins are there and you can kind of hike through them.
Nikki: And it's very cool, totally random.
Nikki: Then the Silver Comet Trail.
Nikki: Like, if you like to bike or run, this is a trail that starts north of Atlanta in Smyrna.
Nikki: It goes 63 ish miles to the Alabama line, and then it continues on into Alabama.
Nikki: It's a different it's chief something in Alabama.
Nikki: There's a whole nother name for it, but it keeps going.
Nikki: I've actually ridden my bike 63 miles and done the whole trail all the way up to the Alabama state line.
Nikki: Literally the state line.
Nikki: That's pretty cool to do, right?
Nikki: So if you like to get outside, there's a lot of outdoorsy stuff to do in Atlanta.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: That was my first category.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And that is cool.
Salina: And I would like to just tack on to that this idea that I do think that's something that makes Atlanta unique is that you can get that kind of feeling while you're still in the city.
Salina: I mean, you can't do that everywhere.
Salina: And in fact, Atlanta is so successful at that in green spaces that they have been consulted by areas all around the country for guidance on what they've been able to achieve.
Salina: Here.
Salina: I have put this in honorable mentions, but since we're talking about some outdoorsy things, I'll go ahead and mention that East Palisades trails are really cool.
Salina: Where the bamboo forest is.
Nikki: Yes, I've seen pictures of that.
Salina: That's really fun.
Salina: And the whole trail, you're just walking alongside the Chattahoochee, which is pretty, and the bamboo forest is just cool.
Salina: You're suddenly in the midst of these towering bamboo for about an acre or so, and it's just a good time.
Salina: Or if you're going up in the North Georgia mountains, I love Delonega and Blue Ridge and Helen.
Salina: And you can do hiking or tubing or horseback riding.
Salina: I've never horseback ridden up there.
Nikki: But you can do it.
Nikki: You can do it.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So those things are all really great.
Salina: Gibbs Gardens.
Nikki: Oh, yeah, it's pretty is amazing.
Nikki: Especially in the spring when they do is it the Tulips?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I haven't been there for the Tulips, but I have been there in the fall when they were really promoting, like, the Japanese Gardens, japanese Maple Gardens.
Salina: And, I mean, every picture I took looked like a screen saver.
Salina: It's crazy.
Salina: And Gibbs is he holds the landscaping company for those who are like Gibbs Gardens.
Salina: What's that?
Salina: And basically he lives there, but he's opened up these beautiful gardens that's just like acres and acres and acres for people to come and just walk around in.
Salina: And it's really a site.
Salina: But my number one for this category, I think we sort of categorized ours similarly.
Salina: I didn't name them necessarily, but mine would be Cloudland Canyon.
Nikki: Oh.
Salina: So for those who haven't been, it's about a five mile hike round trip.
Salina: And this is in northwest Georgia.
Salina: There's just like, waterfalls.
Salina: There's a boulder filled canyon floor.
Salina: And then it's like you're wrapping up the hike.
Salina: There's these meadows that you sort of track back through.
Salina: And then the warm weather, they have like wildflowers and stuff growing out there.
Salina: And then I've only been once, but on the way back, what we did is we basically trapezed through all of these wildflowers on the way back in these meadows and then sat down and had a picnic.
Nikki: That's cool.
Salina: It was a really lovely day, and I've been to quite a few places around the country and it's some of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen.
Salina: This was number one, right?
Nikki: This was number one.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: We're doing great.
Salina: Do you want to share with us your second spot?
Nikki: I get really passionate about the outdoorsy ones.
Nikki: So my next two are a lot faster, seeing a concert gamer performance.
Nikki: Atlanta has really cool sports teams.
Nikki: We've talked about the Braves at length.
Nikki: We have Atlanta United, the soccer club.
Nikki: We have the Fox Theater, which is close to kind of a Broadway experience that you could get.
Nikki: It's beautiful.
Salina: I love the fox.
Nikki: That's a cool place to go.
Nikki: I put this in here.
Nikki: It's not really concert gamer performance.
Nikki: It kind of fits in this category.
Nikki: But you mentioned a minute ago, the aquarium.
Nikki: You can do like a behind the scenes at the aquarium.
Nikki: It's more expensive.
Nikki: I won't say a little bit.
Nikki: I don't know exactly it's more expensive, but I treated Kyle to that for his birthday or something one year.
Nikki: And they take you on this platform, this raised path, and then walk you by where the Whale Shark tank is so you can look over and see the Whale shark swimming right under you.
Nikki: Very cool.
Salina: Yeah, that's neat.
Nikki: And then where Atlanta United plays at Mercedes Benz.
Nikki: They always have a concert there's, just always a show there.
Nikki: And it's a very cool place to go, right?
Salina: Yeah, it's a nice stadium.
Salina: I mean, you know how much I love sports, but concerts actually haven't I don't think I've been to any events there except for sporting events.
Nikki: Yeah, I think I saw Taylor Swift there.
Nikki: I think I saw her at the Georgia Dome one year, and then the next time she was at Mercedes Benz.
Nikki: I'm pretty sure it's a cool venue.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So my second one, this is why I kind of got like when you said just Atlanta, right?
Salina: My second one is Chattanooga.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: That's not Atlanta, which is in Tennessee.
Salina: But the reason I chose Chattanooga is because it's a totally achievable day trip.
Salina: So you can go up there early in the morning and you can have a very full day there and then come back and still be in your own house, your own bed, and your own PJs at night.
Salina: I don't know why sleeping in Chattanooga wouldn't necessitate being in someone else's PJs, but whatever.
Salina: Which depends on where the day takes you, you know what I'm saying?
Salina: But they've got like, a good beer scene up there.
Salina: Also, the vibe is just nice.
Salina: It kind of reminds me of Asheville.
Salina: It's a little bit of that granola hippie hipster vibe.
Salina: But there's also everything I've ever had up there restaurant wise, has been really tasty.
Salina: I love the bridge that's over the river up there.
Salina: It's a walking bridge.
Salina: I think when they do their triathlon, they run across that bridge.
Salina: The scenery right there overlooking the Tennessee Aquarium.
Salina: But also some other little exploration.
Salina: See and do's that they have.
Salina: It's just really pretty.
Salina: It's very quaint.
Salina: And a Tennessee Aquarium.
Salina: I have been to many aquariums around this country because Casey loves an aquarium and Tennessee Aquarium is still my favorite.
Salina: I don't know what it is about it.
Salina: They have like, an indoor part, an outdoor part.
Salina: There's just a lot to explore, and I just really love it.
Salina: So that one's a number two for me.
Salina: And what's your number three eating?
Nikki: Just in general?
Nikki: There's all kinds of cool restaurants.
Nikki: You can get, like, Southern we're back in Atlanta.
Nikki: Sorry.
Nikki: Yes, I define staycation as our area.
Nikki: But, yeah, you can get, like, traditional Southern food.
Nikki: Like Mary Max Tea House in Atlanta does very southern traditional food.
Nikki: But you can also do like southern fusion.
Nikki: And there are a lot of restaurants in Atlanta that people from other cultures have come in, sort of taken Southern cuisine, mixed it with other types of cuisine, and made very delicious food.
Nikki: Some of my call out restaurants to say, if you're staying in Atlanta, bones and Buckhead, some people think it's overrated.
Nikki: That's the best steak I've ever had in my life.
Nikki: It's amazing.
Nikki: If you're coming into Gwinnett, Luciano's in Duluth, incidentally, a friend just sent me a TikTok of this one because it was, like, reviewed by a food blogger or whatever.
Nikki: It's in a Kroger shopping center.
Nikki: It is so unassuming, but it is delicious Italian food.
Nikki: And then we have a lot of again in Gwinnett, and then that like, buford highway area in Atlanta.
Nikki: There's a lot of Asian style restaurants that are delicious, but in Gwinnett, we're known for, like, Korean barbecue.
Nikki: And apparently over by Gwinnett place mall, there's a place called Iron Age.
Nikki: They've opened a couple of other ones, apparently.
Nikki: It's amazing.
Nikki: I haven't done it yet, but everybody says it's delicious, so I feel like I have to call that out.
Salina: Yeah, so I think I've been to six, seven, eight a few times up here, but Iron Age is one of the more popular ones.
Salina: But, I mean, it's just some of the best Korean barbecue just around, and there's so many different options.
Salina: And Korean barbecue is so good.
Salina: It's delicious.
Nikki: So that was my eating category.
Salina: Yeah, well, I had some restaurants that sort of fits into the narrative of my number three, and my number three is the Atlanta Belt Line.
Salina: So I came back, I joined you.
Salina: Good.
Salina: So for those who don't know what the Atlanta Belt Line is, this is a massive undertaking to connect 45 in town Atlanta neighborhoods.
Salina: And what they are doing in order to achieve that is they're using these former railroad corridors as the footprint.
Nikki: And that's actually sorry, just to interrupt real quick, that's actually what the Silver Comet Trail is.
Nikki: And what makes it possible to have 63 miles of trails is they paved over a former railroad.
Salina: Okay, that I did not know that they were also doing a similar thing there.
Salina: I've seen that done in other parts of the country too.
Salina: So I like it when we take old things and make them new.
Nikki: Yeah, I mean, the infrastructure is already there.
Nikki: Why.
Nikki: Not take advantage.
Salina: Absolutely don't reinvent the will or something like that, right?
Salina: And so the other thing with this is that, okay, so the Atlanta Belt Line has been in progress for a really long time, for about 15 years.
Salina: It's expected to finish by 2030.
Salina: I mean, it's a big undertaking.
Salina: That's why I know it's a lot of work, though, and it costs a lot of money.
Salina: When it's finished, though, it will connect the whole city with 20 to 30 miles of trails, parks, all of that good stuff.
Salina: But I will say too, though, one thing that I have forgotten about until I look back into just the history of the Belt Line is that it was someone's school project.
Nikki: It was a paper school.
Salina: Can you imagine that, that's your paper led to this thing?
Salina: That's like transforming an entire city.
Nikki: This is what I'm saying.
Nikki: One more time.
Salina: It's what happened with all my college papers.
Salina: So there's already a bunch of sections that are already completed and it's making it one of the more unique in town experiences that you can have with access to great food, different watering holes, and a ton of shopping, if that's something that you want to do.
Nikki: So shop and then carry your bags around.
Salina: Yeah, just shop and shop and shop and then just die in all your packages.
Salina: So Pont City Market is the most well known food hall, I would say, in the city.
Salina: And again, there's lots of high end shopping.
Salina: There not something that I doing a lot of partaking in.
Salina: I might was actually it's formerly in the old Sears and Roebuck building.
Salina: It's the same group who did Chelsea Market in New York City.
Salina: If you've been there, I've been to Chelsea Market.
Salina: It's lovely.
Salina: I think Pont City Market is actually prettier.
Salina: There's other development projects that are also coming along that fall on the Belt Line, like Lee and White.
Salina: And this is in the west end of Atlanta.
Salina: I've talked about this before.
Salina: This is where, like, Monday night garage is, some other brewery projects, different kombucha places, and just a lot of really nice outdoor gathering spots.
Salina: And then the Atlanta Dairies is another one that I've been to that's pretty cool.
Salina: This is whatever you want to call it, downtown Reynoldstown off of Memorial.
Salina: So it was kind of like commercial dairy for years and years and years.
Salina: And now they've converted the space into some restaurants.
Salina: Some breweries are coming up over there and like a music hall.
Salina: And again, it's that idea of taking something that was there and not just wiping it out, but really just reusing that space.
Salina: And there's something about that that I just really love.
Nikki: I think Atlanta has to your point about maybe just the green space, and it just has like an old fashioned vibe sometimes.
Nikki: Like when you get into downtown and some of the individual neighborhoods, you get to have that vintage vibe that feels really cool.
Salina: Well, I love that industrial look, so what better place to do it than in these old kind of industrial parks?
Salina: The other thing is there's just, like a ton of parks and murals and public art projects and even, like, the tiny doors.
Salina: Are you familiar with those?
Nikki: I am.
Nikki: I haven't actually seen one, like, in the wild.
Salina: Yeah, I mean, it's just cool for those who haven't seen them or you don't know what they are.
Salina: You're not from Atlanta or you're like, Shut up, ladies.
Salina: Anyways, whatever the case is, they're like tiny little doors that people will put up around the city.
Salina: I'm showing Nikki.
Nikki: It's very I'm laughing because you said and, like, the tiny doors.
Nikki: They're like tiny doors.
Salina: It's a really good explanation, but they're kind of like they're supposed to be like fairy.
Salina: Is it's neat when you do find them?
Salina: Because it's sort of supposed to be like, oh, I found one.
Salina: And it's supposed to just be exciting to kind of find one while you're out on the belt line.
Salina: Also, I just love tiny things.
Nikki: That's what it's really all about.
Nikki: She feels at home.
Salina: I do.
Salina: I could walk through them.
Salina: They're two inches high.
Salina: And those were all my favorites.
Salina: I went through all my honorable mentions.
Nikki: I have an addendum to the entertainment, like concert one I forgot to mention.
Nikki: Like, when you think about going to see a concert in Atlanta, mercedes Benz is an amazing place to go for an arena concert.
Nikki: The Gwinnett's Arena over here in Duluth.
Nikki: I've seen concerts there.
Nikki: It's great for, like, an arena show.
Nikki: I saw Weezer there and it was a very green day and it was a very cool concert.
Nikki: But also, there are some other smaller concert venues in Atlanta that are very cool.
Nikki: So Variety Playhouse in Little Five is a very cool place to see a show if you're going for something much smaller.
Nikki: Plus you get to be in Little Five, which is a neighborhood that if you're looking for something a little more off the beaten path or a little more alternative, it's a very cool place to go.
Nikki: They have the Vortex, where you get some really cool hamburgers.
Salina: It's a cool place to be.
Nikki: And then also, the Tabernacle is actually super historic and it's a very pretty place to see a concert.
Nikki: I've seen Hanson there.
Nikki: It was lovely.
Nikki: I saw the All American Rejects in the Cotton Club, which is underneath the tabernacle.
Nikki: It's a very cool venue.
Nikki: So I wanted to attend those.
Salina: It's a really neat venue.
Salina: I'm a huge fan of Little Five.
Salina: For those who are not from around here.
Salina: It's the greenwich village of the south.
Nikki: That's very cool.
Salina: Well, so I think for me, this was just sort of a reminder that there because sometimes I'm like, oh, Georgia.
Salina: But it was such a nice reminder that there are a ton of things to do in the city where we live in the suburbs is not always the worst.
Nikki: There's a lot of cool stuff in the suburbs.
Nikki: We don't get enough credit.
Nikki: And during the pandemic, a lot of in town people have moved to the suburbs and, like, it's so cool out here.
Nikki: And I'm like, yes, it is.
Nikki: We're people.
Nikki: We enjoy entertainment.
Salina: But I'm like, don't be crowding it up now.
Nikki: No, please don't.
Nikki: We can't handle anymore.
Nikki: We're full.
Salina: What I'm trying to say is this get out and explore where you live.
Salina: There may be more than what you ever expected.
Salina: That's this week's edition of Extra Sugar.
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