Georgia's On Our Mind...

This weekend Fisher and I had the opportunity to go to Atlanta for a party hosted by my office (my main office is in Atlanta). Since the party was on a Sunday, they let us fly in on Saturday. Being that this was the first time we've had a chance to spend the weekend in Atlanta, we took advantage and had a mini-vacation!

We had a GPS in our car. It was pretty annoying. Not as easy to use as the Garmin Tom has. This was a Magellan. Thankfully, Magellan didn't use this when he circumnavigated the globe or he probably wouldn't have made it. It did cause me to go the wrong way a few times one day, but it was pretty accurate for the most part. We did enjoy hearing it say, "make a hard left," "when possible, make a legal u-turn," and "make a right, followed by a keep to the left!"

Beware, lots of pics to follow!

The Sunkist tasted like a dreamsicle in a bottle...any questions on how good it was? Didn't think so. (It was awesome!) One of the great discoveries we made in NC. The root beer...not so hot, but I don't like root beer. Fisher does and he wasn't thrilled with it either.


Bonnethead sharks! I touched them! They feel like rough rubber. We also got to touch stingrays (slick and smooth), horseshoe crabs (scary underside when turned over, definitely a relative of the spider crab below), sea stars (we collected some of these in Florida once, along with sand dollars...fun!) and anenomes.


This picture makes me sad. We don't have this wonderful store in Texas. Quite a shame. I've read a lot about the wonderful food at this store. I even got to see some of the products in real life! Someone needs to build one of these in Dallas, pronto! Fisher called it a yuppie store and said if he were single he would not try to meet girls here. Afterall, if they shop here for groceries, where do they shop for clothes? Funny, since I heart this store now, and I buy clothes at Target. I'm such paradox.


We drove to South Carolina, it was close, I've never been there and I need to visit all 50 states before I'm 50 years old. This was number 32!


Pretty lake at the SC state line.


More of the lake at the SC state line. I took this picture at the Welcome Center. Which is also where we found out how close North Carolina was to SC. A friend said Charlotte was three hours from Atlanta, but it was quite a bit more than that, like 5 hours; and we were on a limited time frame, so we checked the map at the rest area and decided to drive to Cashiers, NC. We entered it in the GPS and hit the road!


Driving to North Carolina. This is the Cherokee Scenic Byway with the beautiful Appalachian Mountains in the distance. Or A-PAL-A-CHAIN as Fisher was calling them to be funny.


This is Cane Creek in Walhalla, Oconee County, South Carolina. There is a waterfall here (see below) and a tunnel. We were in the park (Stumphouse Park) after the official hours so we didn't get to see the tunnel and spent about five minutes total at the creek. It was very peaceful!


Adorable penguin that we saw at the Georgia Aquarium...


This is Issaqueena falls.


On the drive. A nice lady got out of her truck (where she was sitting with her husband at this lookout point) after she saw us trying to take a picture of ourselves. I figured if we looked desperate enough, she would help!


33! We drove through Cashiers, NC. Quite the fancy small town. Lots of high-end shops, B&Bs, restaurants and plenty of golf courses. It's part of the Blue Ridge arm of the Appalachian mountains. Too bad our day was short, and we didn't get to see the area in much daylight. It was beautiful even at night, seeing the houses lighting up the mountain side.


Garden eels at the aquarium. They looked so much larger on the posters that we almost couldn't find them! They are hiding in the sand because the fish in the tank will eat them, and it was just feeding time so all the food was settling to the bottom of the tank.


Me in the bubble that you can crawl into to get a closer look at the fish. There were some gigantic catfish in this tank. And by gigantic, I mean two and a half feet long, a foot wide.


Sea anemones! We petted them when we came in. They like to "stick" themselves to you. Basically, they are trying to sting you, but our skin is too thick for them to penetrate.


A super creepy spider crab. There was one crab that was undulating its underside. I don't know what it was doing...giving birth or something. Who knows. But it looked like that scene from Alien where the alien pops out...even though I've never really seen all of that scene. That spider crab came close to what I imagine happened.


An octopus. This particular species reminded me of the creepy (I like that word today) Davy Jones in "Pirates of the Caribbean." This octopus walked on it's tentacles (eew) and it's tentacles were growing off of its head like a beard (hence Davy Jones). I thought octopi (?) had eyes on the bulbous part of their head. Obviously, cartoon octopuses (?) are not anatomically (I almost said grammatically) correct.


Look at these two penguins! This is the pop up in the penguin enclosure where you can get a close up look at them . The lady who took the pic didn't get the penguins in the picture. I got them in hers! LOL This penguins are from South Africa and like a temperate climate.


People looking at this gigantic aquarium. There were several sharks in here. There were also some really elegant and awesome beluga whales at the aquarium. They are so graceful, and they slide their bodies along the plexiglass when they are turning at the end of the tank. It's pretty funny to see their bellies flatten out against the glass when they hit it! I wonder how thick the plexiglass is in this tank? Imagine the amount of water pressure it's holding back?!


Jellyfish. My camera stinks indoors and in the dark.


The Georgia Aquarium. Looks like a ship. It even has a "mast."



Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympics in 1996. This is the park they built to celebrate it. It is across the street from the aquarium.


I think this guy is playing ping pong. There were three other sports represented in this concrete blocks. I didn't take pictures of them, because Fisher likes ping pong, not the others. I think these may have been the four sports that were added to the Games in '96, or maybe they were just exhibition sports. Well, my speculations were wrong...I guess "table tennis" -- the Olympic name for ping pong is just so cool that's why it gets memorialized.


A giant floating Coke bottle. This is the World of Coke museum, next to the aquarium. I wanted to go here to see the Cokes Around the World display -- From wikipedia -- "guests can sample nearly 70 products offered by The Coca-Cola Company worldwide in the Taste It! exhibit" but I didn't feel that it was worth the price of admission since I really don't care much about the museum. We spent our money, wisely, at the aquarium. Still the giant bottle hanging in the air is neat!


Statue of some guy that was important to the Olympic movement...


Towers that look like torches at COP.


My work party was Oscar-themed so all the food was named/created in honor of nominated movies, thus the "Ratatouille" themed cheese display.


Street vendor hot dog stand, inspired by "Michael Clayton" starring the handsome George Clooney. Very good!


Cheerwine, the tastiest cherry soft drink on the planet! Why oh why is it not available in Texas?!!? Woe is me! Guess we'll have to go to NC again! They also display their bottles in the cold case by hanging them, not putting them on the angled shelves like we have.


Those darn cows took over this water tower. Boy, they are brave! Partly because this was in a questionable part of town near the airport. Which is usually a sketchy area -- in any city. Except Dallas, I guess. DFW is surrounded by fields (where they are now drilling for natural gas), so no real housing near here. But Love Field is in Shadyville. Don't like to go there are night! The cows are also not afraid of heights!


Oh. my. gosh. These things are fabulous. Wow.


Yum. They don't sell these in Texas either.