Day Two

Day one or day two, depending on how you looked at it.  I woke up around 7 Amish; I slept all night, which was great.  I hadn’t been doing that at home, but I think I was just completely run down.  I felt refreshed and went over the plan for today.  We’d start off at the World of Coca Cola, then have lunch at Gladys Knight’s restaurant, go to the Civil War Museum, do the Civil War driving tour, and be back at our hotel in time for their appetizers aka our dinner time by 5:30.  Completely doable.

And it would have been if we had been out the door at 9AM like I wanted, but it didn’t work out that way.  Everyone got dressed leisurely, as Jory was dressing; I wondered why I didn’t have his colors coordinate with the girls who were matching?  Oh well, that seemed like a lot of work.  He’s the oldest and the only boy, he can take a pass on coordinating on non-essential happenings.

I put Day one activities and maps on top of all of my maps and paperwork, everyone had their sunglasses and hats and we were out of our room.  I was pleasantly surprised by breakfast.  Eggs, French toast, sausage patties, gravy, biscuits, cereal, oatmeal, and you could make your own waffles.  I was a little surprised to see grits missing, but we’d live.  They had muffins, bagels, donuts.  We were set and after my cleanse I thought I deserved a piece of French toast and a sausage patty.

Unlike when we were in Seattle staying at that hotel, there was actually tables and a large eating area that crouched into the lobby area, but after having to squeeze into a table of two when there was four of us, I’ll take it.

We ate leisurely though I wanted to pick up the pace, but then the kids discovered there was yogurt and wanted some of that.  We hopped into the car and ready to take off when I remembered we had no car seats.  A quick stop at Wal-Mart was needed.  We drove to Wal-Mart, I grabbed some cute pink car seats, and desperately searched for some cheap sunglasses for my mom, who left hers at home.  I love her a lot, but she doesn’t need twenty dollar sunglasses when she has a pair at home.  I got our items and Jory got squished between the car seats on both sides of him.  My mom found the new sunglasses adequate.  We were now on the road to start our adventure.

Getting off the freeway, I wasn’t in the right lane to make the turn on the needed street.  What to do?  What to do?  I drove around a bit, then found a street name I recognized and there it was.  The World of Coca Cola.  We found some parking easily.  We got out, the girls got in the stroller and we were off in the blistering heat.  The line was longer than I expected and the line to get inside the Aquarium was crazy.  I was so happy we weren’t going there.

We got in line and luckily it was shaded as we got closer to the front of the line, I heard, “Tickets, please.”  Crap!  This wasn’t the ticket and get in line?  Doh!  I pushed the stroller to the side and quickly got out of line to discover the line to purchase tickets wasn’t short.  The line to buy tickets with a credit card was non-existent, of course it would be when I vowed to not use my credit card or debit card on this trip.  The line moved fairly quickly, I found my family, after they received their first warning about going to the end of the line if they didn’t have tickets.  A nice family let us get ahead of them in the enter line and bam we were inside.

I had heard good things about the museum, but I wasn’t sure to expect other than I was going to sample Cokes from around the world.  We started off good when they said anyone with wheelchairs or strollers come to the front of the line.  SCORE!  We looked at memorabilia, then saw a “cute” movie about Coke.  Except I’m not sure what the point of the short was, so that’s why I put cute in quotes.

Walking into the inner sanctum of the World of Coca Cola

Yes, you were right that was Raquel Welch you saw in the Coke display.

The old, old school way they use to get Coke.

 We read up on how Coke started in a drug store in Atlanta and how Coke cost the same price from the late 1800s up until WW II.  I saw the Coca Cola Polar Bear, then I saw the line to take a picture with him and I thought my kids don’t care.  We don’t like him that much, maybe I would have been tempted if it was Christmas time, but it wasn’t so we kept it moving.  We saw bottles of Coke moving through the line being filled and packaged.  It was hard for Jory to really see it since people seemed to not realize other people were behind them and after a reasonable time they should move away from the window.  He saw the gist of it that would have to do.

After roaming around the first floor for an hour or so, we made our way upstairs to the taste testing.  People were everywhere as I pushed the stroller and tried not to run into people darting in front of us quickly or walking super slowly with no place for me to turn to avoid them.  At first, I would park the stroller, take my cup and politely ask to get to the soda fountain then I would taste the Coke from that country and then step away.  I did that for a while, but then I saw Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, North America, and I knew in order to taste them all I was going to have to be aggressive.  Oma didn’t want to go hardcore like me, she tasted some and was ready for real Coke, so I left the kids with her and went to do my testing.

The way to do it is to politely get in front of the fountain and try each drink in the fountain, and when you finished the whole fountain, move out of the way and move on to the next country.  It worked awesomely.  I tasted everything and I discovered a few things.  One, those boys at Krystal’s were playing a trick on me the drink Beverlee was possibly the worst thing I’ve ever tasted and that included drinking Mountain Dew.  Two, thank God I’m an American because some of those drinks were so incredibly sweet I wasn’t sure how anyone in that country had any teeth left; and some were so bitter, I figured people in those countries must have lost their taste buds.  I was going to skip North America, until I saw they had Tab.  I remembered Shane’s sister, Holly, use to special order Tab from her local grocery store, she loved it so much.  I took a sip and the dietetic taste was rampant.  Yuck!  I vaguely remembered the commercials for Tab, whatever those commercials said was a lie, that stuff was horrible.  I have never been wine tasting, but I figured it must be somewhat similar to this experience.  You just take a bit of the soft drink, taste a little, pour out what you don’t drink, and move on to the next drink.

And after putting up with the crazy and horrible stuff, we moved into the room with the real deal Holyfield and the new fountain machines, which allows you to select what type of Coke product you want with a touch of your hand.  So you want a Coke, what type of Coke?  Cherry, Diet, Vanilla, regular, Coke One, etc….  I just got the real deal and I gave some to the kids too, particularly Layla, who after trying a few from other countries kept saying, “Mommy, I want the brown drink.  I want the brown soda.”

“It’s Coke, Layla.  It’s called Coke.  If you’re going to cry for it, you need to at least know its name.”

 Cokes around the world.  The ultimate taste test.

Drinks in hand, a quick purchase in the gift store, we were out the door, where we received a free eight ounce glass bottle of Coke. 

 

Outside of Coke.  And no, the baby's pants aren't too short.  They are suppose to end the same place Rowan's does, but she's short.

Out into the blistering heat and on to Centennial Park, which SCORE was directly across the street I am so awesome and planning vacations, to find the  “Fountain Rings, a jumping fountain of 251 jets that form the Olympic five rings.”  All was good, until I realized while the kids had a change of clothes, they didn’t have any towels.  Oh well, we had to make do.

Jory had a blast and was stepping on the jets and standing right over them.  Layla was a bit more timid, she would stand near, but definitely wouldn’t stand over a jet no matter how much her brother tried to convince her it was fun.  Rowan was barely letting the water hit her.  She loved running around in the rings, but she wasn’t feeling the jets.  The splashes of water I got felt good, but standing under the blazing sun was no fun.  And the places in the shade were too far away to be able to see the kids.  I let them run and play and Rowan discovered while the ground is cool where it’s wet, the dry ground is hotter than a bangee .  Wet we hiked away from the rings, across the park, where the hot, sweaty guys were setting up for the firework display at the park.  I felt so bad for them.  I was hot just pushing the double stroller up the slight inclines.

Jory and the dude that modernized the Olympics.

 Layla cautiously checking out the rings.

 Looking on as the Fountain is turned off and the Olympic rings can be really seen.

 Jory was all about the jets and the water.  He had a ball.

 Going to see what her big brother is up to.

 One view of the park from outside the fountain.

 Tried to get a shot of all five rings, but not so successful as we left.

We got in the hot car and waited while the air conditioner cooled us off, then we were off to Gladys Knights’ restaurant.  Downtown Atlanta reminded me of a worse version of downtown LA, filled with one way streets, and to add difficulty it seemed like no one in Atlanta knew a better name for a street than , Peachtree.  Yes, I got it, Georgia Peaches.  But it’s hard to navigate when someone says, turn on Peachtree and you see five of them, Peachtree North, Peachtree S, Peachtree NW, North Peachtree, Peachtree Drive.  Are you kidding me?!  After some roundabouts and recognizing the names of streets, we had seen them so much we found the restaurant, in maybe not the world’s best neighborhood..  Then their parking lot became elusive.  “It’s just around the back.” I was told.  Hmm, which parking lot around the back?  You do know you’re surrounded by parking lots, right?  Someone finally told me it was pass the double red lines.  So while sitting in one parking lot, I saw the double red lines and was able to crossover from the paying parking lot to the free one. 

It took us so long to find the parking lot that we missed our names being called.  The kids quickly changed into dry clothes and off we went to wait and wait and wait.  We were finally seated by a waitress, who wasn’t having the best of days.  The restaurant had dim lightning.  Gladys’ music played over the speakers, her gold albums lined the walls, the TV played a game and in the crawl it said the restaurant was known for chicken and waffles. 

The best part of going out to eat with my mother is her leaving her glasses in the car, at home, having me read the menu to her, trying to find all the items without meat, then see her turn nose up and everything I read to her and/or getting annoyed that I’m reading unappetizing items to her.  Awesome!  Heaven knows that even though the restaurant is famous for waffles that you should try and order anything but waffles.  I got waffles for myself, then I turned to see what Jory wanted and noticed he was sleep.  My mother wanted me to wake Jory, spoken like a woman who only one kid, I thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie.  If his body was that hungry, it would have kept him awake.
 

The baby wanted chicken fingers, really little girl?  The crawl said, “Famous  for chicken and waffles.”  But she wasn’t budging.  Bygones.

We waited and waited and waited and finally our food came.  I thought about asking for more Coke, but who knew if I would get my glass back before my meal was finished.  I’m not a foodie, never have been, never will be.  McDonald’s is my favorite restaurant.  Without said, the only way Gladys Knights’ chicken and waffles are famous is because these poor unfortunate souls have never had Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles.  And on top of that I picked up a wing and saw not one, but multiple fried hairs on the wing.  I wanted to throw up in my mouth.  Disgusting.  Who leaves hair on chicken?!?!  YUCK!  So the review for Gladys’ restaurant, service stunk, and the food was average.

Okay, chicken and waffles is in the name of her restaurant?  Oh, yeah, that's sad, unless you never been to Roscoe's then it's fine, I guess.

I carried Jory to the car and got the girls all locked in because whoever designed this gimpy car decided the seatbelts should be buried in between the seats, making it difficult for my girls to buckle themselves in.  And why was there so much whining going on and arguing amongst my children?  Oh, because we have a minivan.  They’ve never been this close to each other for an extended period of time in, I don’t know when.  I remembered being sort of bad when I bought the minivan.  I thought it meant I was old and I was one of those awful soccer moms (is it possible there could be a more boring game to watch then soccer?), but listening to my children I was never more grateful and happy that we had a minivan with bucket seats and Jory had the backseat to himself.

“Are we going back to the hotel now?” my mother asked.

Who was she talking to?  It wasn’t even 3PM.  There was a plan and the plan included the Civil War Museum, followed up by the Civil War driving tour, then it would be back to the hotel in time for appetizers.  “No, we have some other places to hit up.”  Who was she traveling with?  Go big or go home.  Only wimps would visit two places, then go home.

We were off to the Civil War Museum, except I looked at my hand out and noticed it wasn’t open on Sunday.  Crap!  How in the world did I miss that?  Oh well, we’d have to come back later in the week.  Off we went to the museum anyway since it was the start of our driving Civil War tour.  We found the museum very easily, thank you Mapquest and discovered the Civil War Museum was next door to the Atlanta Zoo.  We started the driving tour and came to the Lemuel Grant mansion.  “It has been said that the 1857 Italianate mansion was spared by General Sherman in 1864 because Federal soldiers found a Masonic apron in a trunk in the attic, and Sherman forbade the burning of things connected with the Masons. Grant joined the Confederate Army in 1862 and as chief engineer, designed the defense fortifications for the city.” 

Next up was the Oakland Cemetery.  “Established in 1850, Atlanta's oldest cemetery is a fine example of Victorian statuary. The 88-acre cemetery holds the final resting place of five Confederate generals, nearly 3,000 Confederate and 16 Union soldiers and the grave of Gone with the Wind writer Margaret Mitchell.” . TTT were sleep so there was no getting out and taking a tour, so we decided to drive around the 88 acre cemetery.  I searched for the Confederate graves first.  Nearly 3,000 graves, those couldn’t be that hard to find.  I found their graves.  I pulled over to the side of the small street, not meant for cars, got out and quickly snapped some pictures.

 Lewis Morgan was from the 19th infitary from South Carolina.  See what you can learn from a cemetery tour guide.

 William McCarty's family put a lot of details on his headstone.  He was in the 18th Alabama Regiment and wounded in the battle at Chickamauga.


 I even found one of the general’s graves.  I thought that was pretty cool, what were the odds I’d find one of five general graves out of 3, 000 Confederate graves.  This general’s grave was very simple, as if he told his family or his family decided he would most want to be buried amongst his men.

We drove further along and came upon the black section of the cemetery.  This was the first time I had been in a segregated cemetery.  We kept driving, finding different little things, even a grave with the name “Herrington” on the headstone.  I assured my mom they weren’t related to us and kept it moving.  
 

Civil War Battle Information

Thanks to a man walking his two gigantic dogs, seeing me at the grave of people named “Mitchell” he showed me where Margaret Mitchell was buried.  (She wrote Gone With the Wind.  I’ve discovered a lot of people don’t seem to know that.)  Yes, she died in 1949, she would be buried under her married last name, Marsh in case you were wondering.  
 

We found the graves we wanted to find, except for the graves of the Union soldiers.  I wasn’t leaving until I found them.  I circled the cemetery, looking for their graves.   As I was driving, I saw a Star of David, then I saw two, three, I stopped the car and backed up, yep, we’d hit upon the Jewish part of the cemetery.  The Union graves were elusive, we stopped and asking people who were obviously tourists but they hadn’t come across them, but I was able to direct one group to Margaret’s grave.  Finally we stopped when I saw what look like a tour group, I got out and ran up to the group and asked the tour guide if he could point out the graves to me.

I chose the right random tour guide to ask, he was a Civil War buff as were his friends.  He brought me to the graves, which I knew had to be at the back of the cemetery, and they were at the back of the cemetery, and then more acres were added and they were no longer at the back.  He told me that based on the dates of the Union soldiers’ death, near the end of the War, that he and his friends didn’t believe the soldiers were buried here.  He said tensions were high and that most Union soldiers would have been sent up North.  Not even in death could they be buried near each other.  Interesting factoid.
 

Another interesting factoid the guide taught me was the difference between Union and Confederate headstones.  Notice the Union headstone is slightly curved but flat, while the Confederate headstone has an arch on the top of it.  He said so even in death the Confederates could stick it to the Union, or so the joke goes.

  Then he walked me over to the black part of the cemetery, showed me the graves of important leaders in the black community back in the day and founders of churches in Atlanta.  I saw the grave of the first black dentist, his white father was a dentist and taught him.

I asked if there were any graves of black Confederate soldiers?  We walked around while he tried to find the grave of one, but he didn’t believe this far inland there would be any black soldiers.  But the grave he was taking me to, he felt was probably the manservant of one of the Confederate captains.  The guide told me on the coast there were black Confederate soldiers and that some freed slaves had slaves of their own so they fought in the war to keep their slaves.

 He took me to the grave of the first black woman buried in the cemetery.  He felt embarrassed by the back of her headstone.  I thought it was sweet that the children she took care of, possibly raised, thought enough of her to put words on her headstone.

  We parted ways, but he told me if I wanted a full tour to give him a call, then I had to find my way back to the car.  Lost in a cemetery - - AWESOME!  I found my mom who had moved the car cause she thought I had forgotten about them.  I gave her my newly gained info, then we were off to find Maynard Jackson’s grave.  (He was the first black mayor of Atlanta.)  His grave was kitty corner to the street, which I thought was interesting.  I later read he was buried that way so he could get the best view of Atlanta the city he helped build.

The Oakland Cemetery knows exactly how old this tree is because some historian discovered a letter where the planter of this tree wrote to family saying he went to visit his cousin's grave and he planted tree next to his headstone.  If I remember correctly, the tree is 120 years old.

I just thought this saying was nice.

Nearly two-and-a-half-hours after entering the Oakland Cemetery, we drove out and since it was getting late I decided we would have finish the rest of the Civil War tour later, maybe Jory could be awake for it.

One of the reasons, I chose the Drury Inn was because of the free “dinners” we could get in the evenings and for second evening in a row, we’d missed it.  But on the upside, we had the leftovers from Gladys Knights’ restaurant in case anyone got hungry.

The kids swam and this night I got in with them, and once again we closed the pool.  Up the stairs for some popcorn and Coke, then up the stairs to our fifth floor room.  Into our pjs, while Jory peeled the skin off the chicken, more than one wing unfortunately had hair on it.  He ate, the girls and I had popcorn, and then it was off to bed after our first full, busy day in the ATL.