Atlanta Vacation Part 3

Sunday morning we met up with David and Tricia Troester and went to their church near Stone Mountain. Tricia used to teach Becca and me piano lessons in NC.

After church we went out to eat with them, then home for naps.

Later that afternoon we went back to the covered bridge for photos and exploration.

That evening Rebecca, Dad and James drove to downtown Atlanta to get some night photos of the skyline.

On Tuesday Rebecca, James, and I took Lily to Six Flags of Georgia. I took Lily on the kiddie rides while James and Becca rode the crazy fast coasters. I normally like fast coasters, but I can't ride while pregnant. :-)

They rode the Superman Coaster and every coaster in the entire park.

Lily actually rode this swing ride by herself, but she said she didn't want to try it again.

She was a little nervous on some of the rides.

She rode on a truck ride around a track.

We rode on a boat ride through monster mansion.

We rode on a balloon ride.

I think her favorite was the carousel though.

Refreshment time! Coke advertisements are everywhere in Atlanta. :-)

We rode the train around the park

The next time we rode the truck ride, Lily rode the in cab by herself and "drove."

Becca rode this craziness - an extreme drop tower ride.

This was the first ride they rode. Becca's cell phone fell out of her belt clip on this ride, and she got to watch it fall toward the ground. They told her they could only do a track sweep for lost items after the park closed at night. But there was a rain cloud and they closed everything down for a little while in the afternoon. They did a track sweep then and returned her lost phone! She was thrilled that it was undamaged except a small crack on the case. Lots of people left the park under threat of rain, so the ride lines were shorter after that too!

Atlanta Vacation Part 2

On Saturday we went to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History with the entire family. We bought the City Pass for five Atlanta attractions and this museum was the part of that package.

The museum employees said the stone floor tiles have fossils in them so the girls bent down to investigate.

Becca's "selfie" in front of the hugest dinosaur ever.

The huge dinosaur's head and neck...

And the dinosaur's tail

We watched an IMax film about Great White Sharks. Anna looked very grown up sitting in her own seat.

Lily was  little nervous of the scary sharks at first.

They had a play area that the girls enjoyed.

James reached through the crack to get Lily's hand.

They had a bubble-making area that James and Lily loved!

James was really good at it!

James got a bubble to float, then the trick was to keep it airborne!

We were weathermen for the moment

The museum entrance

Lunch!

Anna was hungry.

That afternoon the young adults went to Underground Atlanta and the Civil War Cyclorama while the Grandparents took the girls home to nap.

I don't recommend Underground Atlanta. Don't bother going there.

The Cyclorama was neat. It is a three-story-tall painting hung in a continuous circle. If it was spread out, it would cover the length of a football field. It was commissioned for a general who wanted to be elected Vice-President of the USA. It was his campaign poster completed by 11 artists depicting the battle of Atlanta.

Atlanta Vacation Part 1

We met Dad and Mom Joyner and Rebecca in Roswell, GA for a wonderful vacation. It was going to be a violin teacher's training conference that lasts eight days, but the class was cancelled for lack of enrollees after we had already booked the vacation rental home. We enjoyed sightseeing instead!

 Lily and Anna were fairly good travelers. It was nice that Atlanta is closer than Kings Mountain.

During our stay Dad rented a mill house built in 1853. Thankfully it had been modernized since then. :-) It was a block away from the covered bridge and the historic Civil War era mill site in Roswell, GA on the Chattahoochee River. Sherman destroyed the mill and shipped the workers north during the Civil War.

 Dad and James took the girls to see it during our first morning in Atlanta while the ladies went to Walmart for groceries.

 They are at an overlook with the covered bridge and the river behind them.

We had the opportunity to see many sights around Atlanta, and the first one on Becca's list was the Coke "Factory." It is really a museum with a miniature coke bottling operation for souvenirs and demonstration purposes. 

 The main hall where you could choose to watch a 3-D movie about Coke, go taste 60 different Coke products, look around a small museum about Coke, see Coke memorabilia, get your picture with the Coke polar bear, tour the safe where the only written copy of the Coke recipe is locked up, or tour the sample Coke bottling factory where the small bottles were made for the guests to take home.

James tried lots of different flavors, Rebecca tried all 60, and I limited myself to the non-caffienated ones that I already liked. :-) I didn't want to harm the baby by drinking something nasty! I thought the samples would be only Coke, but instead they had Sprite and every other Coke product from around the world. The worst tasting one was "Beverly" from Italy. You should have seen James' face after that one!

Becca got her picture on the Coke couch used in Dancing with the Stars (or something like that).

Sample bottles of Coke being bottled in their automated machines.

The outside of the building with a huge Coke bottle.

THE Safe where the recipe was kept. If you crossed the line to get too near it, an alarm would sound.

That evening Dad watched the girls while we took Mom to Agatha's Mystery Dinner Theater downtown. There were only two professional actors, and the rest of the play was performed by the dinner guests. James and I got speaking parts to read from cards at the right time. Poor James' role was to be killed by a dragon. Mine was a sailor so I had to wear the hat. I wasn't allowed to remove it during the dinner either. It was a five-course meal with scenes from the play between courses. It was called Throne of Games. In summary, a lot of people got killed trying to take over the throne. Each time I thought I knew who the murderer was, that actor got killed! It turned out to be a dinner guest that "done it." One of the funniest scenes was another guest who read his lines from his card and kept reading "strike a pose" without a clue. I think he was supposed to act that out! It was funny and a great time was had by all.