Georgia...Georgia

The week after my second trip to Miami I traveled to Georgia! I spend a lot of time in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport (eight times in the last 26 days) but getting out of the airport and enjoying the state is something I've only gotten to do twice in the last year. Our program recently added eight new courts, including Paulding County, Georgia, and that one is mine! Paulding County is about 40 miles NW of Atlanta and is a really nice little (but growing) community.

This is downtown Dallas, GA at rush hour =-)

I must say it's truly a breath of fresh air to have a jurisdiction with a population significantly smaller than the others where we work. To make a comparison- Los Angeles has around 22,000 children in foster care. Paulding County has about 94. And they already have a great collaborative structure in place, great court practice, a great child welfare agency- I'm excited! It's going to be fun working with them, and in such close proximity to Atlanta! I LOVE Atlanta! I'm not sure if I could ever move there... but of course I don't love Reno and I moved there, so I guess if God wanted to move me to Atlanta I'd have no objections! After a two day site visit where I met basically the whole town and observed court, I drove up to Stone Mountain, GA for a conference. The entire time I was in Georgia it was overcast and foggy- which was nice! It reminded me of Oregon and was a great backdrop for their gorgeous trees.

This is the view from my hotel balcony

The county is growing so quickly that they have decided to build a new courthouse and county administration center, so on my way out of town I got a tour.

Here is our entourage driving up to the new county complex...

And here is the judge in her "new" courtroom pretending to call us to order. She is great!

So that's it for Georgia- thankfully no mishaps hotel or otherwise. I'm actually posting this from Charlotte, NC... and you'll be hearing about this trip in the not-too-distant future!