Day 5

Coca Cola Museum

May 11, 2013, 1:23 PM

Our first stop in Atlanta was to the Coca Cola Museum. The mother ship called and I had to visit. It was cool, but highly over rated. Even if people had told me that in advance, I would still have wanted to go cause I'm such a fan, but save your money. Yeah, it was really neat seeing all the old artifacts, but not $16 cool. Well I guess that depends on your opinion of Coke. Oh, oh, then the parking, there really is no place to park, they didn't have a parking garage so we found a lot about two blocks over but it was another $15. 

As you go through the first portion of the museum tour they tell you that everyone gets a bottle of Coke on their way out, for $16/person you'd think it would be a 2L bottle, when I picked up my 6oz bottle I asked the woman where we go to get the rest of it. She smiled, I think she thought I was kidding. Think again Miss Thing. 

I did however pass a really nice street performer. There was a guy on the street pretty much in front of the Coca Cola Museum and he was playing the bongos. Reminded me of a beatnik, I wanted to snap my fingers and recite some poetry that makes no sense. But anyway, I got a couple good photos of him. I'm gathering quite the collection of street performer portraits. On the way out there was a guy leaning up against a tree with a trombone, so I got his portrait too.

We had been told by several people to make sure we had lunch at The Varsity restaurant. So we plugged that into the GPS when we got back to the car and it was very close so that's where we went. I was shocked, it was teeming. The parking lot alone is huge. We had been forewarned you need to have your order ready when you step up. It was funny we were ready but all down the line, and the counter you order at is long, all you hear is "what'll you have, what'll you have". They yell it till you tell them. I'm so glad we were ready. 

After leaving The Varsity we are going down the road and there is a line of people stretched around the block. The door they were going into had a sign above it. . . Casting Call for The Biggest Loser, so then we noticed, everyone in the line was HUGE. I mean really HUGE!!!!! It gives a whole new meaning to "cattle call".

It's an overcast day and they are saying there is a 50-60% chance of rain, that's why we are trying to do things that are indoors, but right now the rain is holding off and we are in the general area of Stone Mountain so we are going to cross our fingers and give it a try. 

Stone Mountain

May 11, 2013, 4:35 PM

As we rode up to Stone Mountain you have to pay, of course, to enter/park, whatever they want to imply the fee is for, you have to pay it. So there is a booth and we start to pull up to it and we didn't see anyone in the booth. But then all of a sudden a wrinkled old hand shoots out from inside the booth. There was a little old women in there collecting the entrance fee. Good God you couldn't even see her from the road, but there she is sticking her hand out for her $10. 

As you're driving up to the mountain it just seems it's a pile of dirt, nothing growing on it, but then you realize it's "stone", hence the name, and it's weird. They said it was 1,600+ feet high but the majority of the rock went ten miles under ground. I don't know how they know that, who checks these fact that people throw out there. Has someone gone ten miles under ground to verify that factoid. Oh well, since I don't know any different I'll take "them" at their word. 

I didn't know much about Stone Mountain but it's really impressive. It's hard to wrap your head around just how large the carving is, but one of the guides said they could fit two full size school buses on the rear end of one of the horses. It looks big, but it doesn't look that big. We went into the Discovering Stone Mountain Museum and watched a movie on the making of the carving and you can grasp better the scale. It's not big, it isn't even huge, it is positively massive. Huge on a scale that is inconceivable. We had a good time there. We took the sky lift up and walked around. It was pretty overcast so the pictures won't be great, but you know me, I took some anyway. 

So now we are on our way home. We will have dinner early and I don't know maybe I'll do a load of wash or something but we will have to get a good nights sleep cause tomorrow we are donning our T-shirts, grabbing Spanky, and heading out to the Atlanta zoo. I can't wait!!!!!!