Thrilllist Stop #2: The Grimes Residence!

Rick's house is located at 817 Cherokee Ave SE, which is basically across the street from the zoo, and therefore incredibly central to downtown Atlanta. Compare and contrast:

Rick, exiting his house. Note how awful the lawn looks - as though the world had recently ended!

The house today:

At the end of the day, it's just a house.  And privately owned, so we probably only lingered in front of it for about two minutes, because we did not wish to frighten the people who currently live inside.

It has of course been cheerfully repainted, and has nothing whatsoever to mark its role in TWD, so the thrill of visiting it consisted in sitting on the stone steps (for about 15 seconds) and feeling giddy as I recalled the scene in which flappy-hospital-gown Rick gets beaned with a shovel.  This particular moment was captured by Husband:

I was kind of trying to... well, I am not sure what happened here.  I was trying to look casual about sitting on a total stranger's private property.  So I inadvertently opted for an "angry orangutan" pose before we bolted from the scene.

I also think I was mid-way through saying "Where's Carl?  What's goin' on?  Hope nobody done gonna smack up and bean me!"  Ho, ho! 

Anyway.  It was also pretty cool to look up and down the street and see that yes, it looks strangely rural - like there's just nothing around besides trees and a park, small-town Rick and Lori-style.  No hint that you're about five minutes from the heart of Atlanta.

Again, because we were only going by Thrilllist, we moved out of the area pretty quickly.  But apparently there are other sites, such as Morgan's house, in the vicinity.  But do you really want to tour real estate?  Keep movin' on! 

DIY Walking Dead Tour: Planning

I recently found myself in the great state of Georgia, with a car, one week, and a native husband willing to put up with my interest in tracking down filming locations from "The Walking Dead."

Prior to the trip, I was only dimly aware that this was a "thing" that "people do."  I suppose it never occurred to me as something I myself might do, because... well, wouldn't that be kind of geeky?  Notwithstanding the fact that I have a pretty geeky TWD blog, I mean.

Long story short, I did some Googling in order to put together our tentative agenda, not really expecting we'd visit much (if anything). 

Because we were passing through Atlanta, I first came across Big Zombie Tours, a full-blown tour company who will shepherd you between downtown Atlanta-centric sites.  This is probably worthwhile if you don't have your own transportation, and/or don't know the area.  I am from Oregon, so the expansive highway system and aggressive driving of native was terrifying to me.  I seriously considered putting down $85 per head, until my husband reminded me we'd have a rental car -- thanks to GPS, all he needed were addresses and we could DIY.

This led to searching for those them addresses.   You apparently cannot swing a dead cat without running into a full-blown blog about these locations:  the aptly-named Walking Dead Locations.   

Now, I respect the work of its author, but by the time I really committed to this tour, we were already on the road, in Atlanta, in a puny red Hyundai that could barely roll up a hill.  All I had was my iPhone, which meant that navigating this wealth of information just wasn't gonna happen.  There's just so much!  Windows kept popping open, which stretched my phone to the limits of its strength.  And I became quickly aggravated by pages like Morgan's House.  I just wanted an address to plug in.  I just wished for a map that showed what was close by to where I already was, given that I had absolutely no idea where I really was in this strange, large city.

Which brought me to Thrillist, which I actually stumbled upon via Pinterest.

This big-ass infographic was perfect, in that it gave us a decent idea of scale and a "top ten."

I have my suspicions that Dave Baldwin, author of the Thrillist "Walking Dead Road Trip" article, composed his list based on Google mapping, rather than actual visits to the sites.  I know, shocking!  I could be wrong, of course.  But because I wound up dependent on this list... believing in it, if you will, I was a little wounded every time I encountered bad directions and dead ends.  Which is why I'm following up in my own little blog (for me and my audience of six human beings, I presume).