Walking Dead Thrillist Stop #2: The Creepy Hospital

If you are ever near 2352 Bolton Road in Atlanta, you'd best bring some hand sanitizer and a big ol' dog. 

This is another first season location - first episode, actually. Remember when Rick wakes up in a hospital?  And bangs out a metal door and discovers utter mayhem? And it looks like this?

While it is pretty amazing for a Walking Dead nerd to visit this site, this location is indeed VERY CREEPY.   I was expecting it to be a, you know, occupied building.  It is in fact abandoned, and silent, and filled with stained mattresses, weeds, and probably some Ebola-tipped needles.  This is probably not a place to take your kiddos.

Here, you can witness the aforementioned mattress:

 

Veeeeery cautiously, we approached so I could get a money shot:

"Look at me, I'm Rick!"

And we checked out the grounds, thankfully free of corpses:

And then we skadaddled, for upon our backs we felt the watchful eyes of many a street bum, wishing us gone.  Did I mention there's a wooden hill facing all of this?  A perfect place for transient murderers to prey on dumb tourists. 

But still, pretty cool!

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!