Thursday we were planning on spending the day at Stone Mountain, a nearby park. But there was one rather interesting "adventure" along the way.
We were in our hotel room getting everything ready to go when there was a knock on the door. Since the housekeeping cart had been down the way, we assumed that's who it was. But, when I opened the door we instead saw a glazed-eyed man holding some cigarettes and a lighter.
"What's happening?" he said (or something to that effect).
"What?" was my rather confused reply.
He repeated that same thing, at which point Dee, thinking much clearer than I was, came up and simply closed the door. He went, got in his truck and drove off. Dee then said she'd seen him driving around the hotel. At this point, our desire to remain in that hotel plummeted. So we packed up all our stuff into the car and checked out. There was another hotel next to the one we'd been in (one that had internal doors, not external ones). We stopped there and they said they had rooms available, and just to come back and not make a reservation. That was kind of nice, because we weren't sure we wanted to commit to that place anyway.
Anyway, we went on to Stone Mountain. The line was longer than we'd anticipated, and took longer to get through. Once we got our tickets, we were ready to go. The first thing Jessie and Brennan decided to do was a little ropes course:
They also had a high-level ropes course, that had three levels (at 12, 24, and 36 feet high). Jessie and Brennan wanted to do that, as well. But you couldn't have hats, or loose things in your pockets, so Dee gratefully decided to sit out, watch, and take pictures. While we were waiting in line Jessie decided that she was too nervous to do it, so she went to join Dee. Brennan was not nervous, so the two of us headed out on the first level.
Brennan wanted to keep going with the second and third levels, but since Jessie was anxious to do some other things, we decided that wouldn't work out.
Next we went to a barn with some play equipment, rope ladders, slides and such.
By now, we were already realizing time was going to be an issue. Jessie and Brennan really wanted to ride the tram to the top of the mountain, so we decided to go there next. They were very impressed with how high up it was, though Jessie decided she was a little nervous about riding the tram down.
The view from the top:
All of us, on top of Stone Mountain:
The carving on the side of the mountain. That's Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. Sometimes I wonder if some in the South realize that they lost that war...
From there we went to the mini golf course. It was a lot of fun, but time was running out and it was really crowded, so we only played 6 or 7 holes.
We sadly missed the glass blowing demonstrations, and realized that there was a whole little village of shops and demonstrations that would have been interesting. But we just had a few minutes to get to the plantation.
They had a petting zoo there. Brennan, as always, was very confident with the animals.
Jessie was OK with the sheep, but she has issues with goats, so she didn't go near those, even though they were very calm, relaxed goats (unlike some we've had experience with in petting zoos in the past, hence the issues...).
We quickly made our way through the plantation home. As an example, here's a picture of the dining room. We thought it was interesting that they had a separate dining room for the kids to use until they learned good enough manners to join the adults. We wonder if some kids would ever make it out of that dining room...
I really recommend you view this picture at full size so you can appreciate the poses of the kids:
School, in the old days...
Meanwhile, during the day Dee had talked with Marilyn and told her about the hotel situation. About the time we got to the plantation Marilyn called and told us she'd found another hotel for us. It turned out to be a rather nice, new Holiday Inn. We felt much safer and more comfortable there.
And Jessie manning the bakery at the Children's Museum.
And here's a few more pictures from the past month or two:
They also had a high-level ropes course, that had three levels (at 12, 24, and 36 feet high). Jessie and Brennan wanted to do that, as well. But you couldn't have hats, or loose things in your pockets, so Dee gratefully decided to sit out, watch, and take pictures. While we were waiting in line Jessie decided that she was too nervous to do it, so she went to join Dee. Brennan was not nervous, so the two of us headed out on the first level.
Brennan wanted to keep going with the second and third levels, but since Jessie was anxious to do some other things, we decided that wouldn't work out.
By now, we were already realizing time was going to be an issue. Jessie and Brennan really wanted to ride the tram to the top of the mountain, so we decided to go there next. They were very impressed with how high up it was, though Jessie decided she was a little nervous about riding the tram down.
The view from the top:
All of us, on top of Stone Mountain:
The carving on the side of the mountain. That's Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. Sometimes I wonder if some in the South realize that they lost that war...
From there we went to the mini golf course. It was a lot of fun, but time was running out and it was really crowded, so we only played 6 or 7 holes.
We sadly missed the glass blowing demonstrations, and realized that there was a whole little village of shops and demonstrations that would have been interesting. But we just had a few minutes to get to the plantation.
They had a petting zoo there. Brennan, as always, was very confident with the animals.
Jessie was OK with the sheep, but she has issues with goats, so she didn't go near those, even though they were very calm, relaxed goats (unlike some we've had experience with in petting zoos in the past, hence the issues...).
We quickly made our way through the plantation home. As an example, here's a picture of the dining room. We thought it was interesting that they had a separate dining room for the kids to use until they learned good enough manners to join the adults. We wonder if some kids would ever make it out of that dining room...
I really recommend you view this picture at full size so you can appreciate the poses of the kids:
School, in the old days...
Meanwhile, during the day Dee had talked with Marilyn and told her about the hotel situation. About the time we got to the plantation Marilyn called and told us she'd found another hotel for us. It turned out to be a rather nice, new Holiday Inn. We felt much safer and more comfortable there.
Though, really, I think the pictures tell the story more than my words could. (Wait, that sounds similar to something I've heard before.... Maybe it'll make a good cliche someday...)
Sea Otter (We'd never realized how much bigger than river otters sea otters are...)
We ended up spending a lot longer at the aquarium than we had planned. When we left, it was already too late to go to the plantation or the puppetry museum. We went across the street to check out the Centennial Olympic Park:
Jessie and Brennan found these odd things on a playground, but they were a lot of fun.
We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon there, and not going any where else. Then, once we got back to the hotel we met up with Marilyn for dinner:
And that was the end of another busy day.
