Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Day Four (last sad day!)

Sadly Laura had to head out to the airport early, so we headed out to the last even without her.  Laura, next time you're here we'll come up and take the Fox Tour, you'll love it!
 
we had some time to kill before got to the Fox Tour, so we decided to head on over to the Margaret Mitchell House (http://www.margaretmitchellhouse.com/) mostly because Laura had told us a bit about it and it was very close.  We were goign to the Federal Reserves until it dawned on me, der... I'm a federal worker and I'm off today, so they will be off as well!  Woops, so back to the Margaret Mitchell house to take a peek in the gift shop.
 
Linda found a new friend while she was there...
 



We also looked up a family member by marriages book while standing in the lobby - The Art of Gone With the Wind (http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Gone-With-Wind/dp/0130467405)  We will definitely have to pick one of those up!

Then off to the tour of the Fox Theatre.  I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures of the lovely covered waiting area.  It was really impressive!

I did, however take a picture of the original drinking fountain!  Loved it!
 Just for Eric - "What does the Fox Say?" ha!
 I loved the ceiling in here!!  WOW is all I have to say.  The lights were up for the cleaning personnel, even with that, it was very impressive!  I can imagine what it would look like in low light like fire light.

 Linda was feeling regal  - rather looks it too!
 She also pointed out the font of the exit signs... part of my research now will be to see why the Moroccan/middle eastern theme and love from Shriners... I just now caught onto the deep love of the theme from seeing this place.  You would think the crescent moon and the fez would have tipped me off, eh?  Nope.  Der.
 in the lobby of the tour.  It was very enlightening.  We'll have to come back up and see a show there some day (Ghost the Musical was playing this time... uh, no, thanks)


And with that another All Girls Weekend comes to a close!
Those who didn't make it, you were missed, those that just started to join in on the fun, welcome!!  Hope to see you on another fun get together.

Day Three

 
I did such good planning to avoid the Veterans Day Parade in downtown ATL that I didn't even THINK about sporting events and wouldn't you know it?  Yes, there was a Falcons game this weekend at 1pm.  So, parking was twice as expensive due to the game and the place was going to be crowded, so we took MARTA into downtown. 
 
Now picture this, three women huddled around a bunch of machines trying to figure out HOW to get a ticket.  It was pathetically hilarious.  I finally gave up and went to the parking attendant cashier who told me to push A, A, B, B and low and behold, problem solved and ticket issued.  Well, cards issued.  Laura already had a breeze card that she had used to get from the airport to the hotel, so she had to figure out how to load hers... we were a mess! 
 
We finally got to our stop at downtown and found THIS escalator.  Needless to say Linda did NOT walk these stairs - boy it's a long way to the top at the Peachtree station!!  There was one more floor of escalators around the corner as well - wow!!
 We got out and started looking around and couldn't figure out where we were going, if we got off and went the right way, nothing... so a nice homeless man gave us directions... ha!  Yes, he was nice and we gave him some change and off we went. :) 

Mom, Laura and I went to the World of Coca-Cola and Linda went to the Aquarium for the day. 

 Not sure what the photographer had against my purse, but he really wanted it behind me.  Weird.  That's OK, we got the LAST picture in the group and headed out to looks around. 

We'll just say it's "interesting" and leave it at that.  It was OK.  I can see why the kids didn't want to go with me again... once you have been, you have been.  Enough said, it is now checked off my bucket list :)

On to CNN:

We went up the tallest free standing escalator in (8 stories) and then walked down all 8 stories.  After Stone Mountain, poor mom was done in on stairs!
 
 Not many photo's of the tour... not much to really take pictures of.  it was interesting, but here again, wouldn't go again, it was another to check off the bucket list of "things to do and see in ATL"  ha!

We did see Fredricka Whitfield prepping to go on live.  she was quite bored and yawing away, then she fluffed her hair and went on line like she was so busy and occupied in the news room.  What a switch from watching her sitting there reading the news and info before going on :)
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/whitfield.fredricka.html



Linda wrapped up at the aquarium just as we were wrapping up at CNN and met us in the food court/lobby as we were going to catch the train from there to the house.  When we headed out, we had to walk by the Phillips Arena - and low and behold had to go UP a flight of stairs and right back down the same height of stairs - poor mom walked out and commented on them :) I don't blame her.
 We were on the train headed out and found a few of the Falcon fans headed out... which at 2 pm made me ask... apparently the game was going VERY bad and the score was something like 34 to 3 or something horrendous.  Hum... doesn't bode well for us as we're going to see more and more folks as we head out.   we found we had to change trains in 5 Points and me NOT being familiar with the train managed to head us to DoraVille (insert Dora the Explorer theme song here!)  POOP!!!  So, after a 10 - 15 minute wait and a backtrack to Lindbergh we were the in MIDDLE of the folks bailing out of the game as it was now pretty much over.  Woops - so much for my timing, eh?  Oh, well, there are worse things to happen, I'm sure!

And THIS is the sight that greeted us every time we were back at the hotel right at sunset... so pretty!!

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Day two

We were a bit early to meet at Stone Mountain so we went to the Wren house Museum (http://www.wrensnest.org) The funny thing is that this was on Laura's list and the rest if us had no clue what it was all about. We really enjoyed it and the tour guide was a little old lady who rambled on and on however was entertaining. You can see her here

Linda, ever the librarian was checking out the first run books kept under lock and key. 1800's books. Liz would have been thrilled as well with those books ;)

Fun lock on a cabinet.

Front porch. It was. Beautiful day.




About the time we finished with the tour and were in our way Karen and Leah called and were headed to the Mountain. (http://stonemountainpark.accessomobile.com/Landing/Index/114?url=%252fMenu%252fList%252f233627). So off we went.

After getting thoroughly lost on our way there and ending up in a cute old town we got together and parked and to the ticket booth. Linda opted to hike up with Karen and Leah while the rest of us took the tram to the top.

(yeah, never ask a stranger to take your picture - he didn't even get the full sculpture in the picture - funny!)
 (then he moved us down a bit and STILL didn't get the full sculpture in the photo - funny!)

I liked the curvature of the cable in this one....

Our timing was perfect and we got to the top just as the hikers arrived! Nice! 
hold your head over to the right - Fish!


They hiked back down while we trammel back down





We then headed to the little market town to get some lunch/dinner of BBQ. We wandered the shops on the way to the train.


Open air train ride
Trees in the old tracks

After the train we headed to the house earlier than planned but it was for the best. We all got a good  8hrs sleep for day three tomorrow.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Day one..

Going to Atlanta I didn't get the directions put in my phone so we put "Hyatt Peachtree" there could only be one right? So I get going and we happily drive and end up downtown. As I had done no research on the hotel I really didn't think twice. We drive past it and didn't see an entrance sign so I decided to drive around and we found ANOTHER Peachtree road on the OTHER side of the hotel ... Weird. We went in and talked to the receptionist. Seems there ARE more than one Hyatt place on Peachtree!! Wow. So we get instructions on how to get to the "other" Hyatt. Off we go. Do you KNOW how many streets contain or have Peachtree in their name in 8 miles? Us either however were sure it's over 10!! We laughed and giggles every time we saw another Peachtree :)

We got to the hotel and after my panic of booking the wrong hotel (Buckhead) canceling that reservation then booking the perimeter hotel, then finding out Laura was at the Buckhead hotel after all... Rebooking at a much higher rate..... Well we got here and the NICE gals at the Buckhead desk helped us get to Perimeter and I'm at my much happier rate there! Whoooo hooooo problem solved! Good thing too as Buckhead is a driving madhouse in my opinion. :$

Laura wasn't in her room she was still at her museum. So we called her and talked and arranged to go to the 2nd hotel and book it to be sure we had a room for the weekend. Laura was going to walk back to the hotel and meet us there. When left she said she was on Peachtree and I chuckled. When we got back and she had yet to make it to the hotel we took our chances and went to look for her! Success!! We found her on the main Peachtree road next to Peachtree Battle Memorial road. Nope not kidding. Ha!

However there are cute little Bucks all over town!

We headed to Perimeter and drove to find lunch...On the way and detour number twenty five we saw this:

What a creepy fun house for Halloween eh?

The hotel is great and looks JUST like the one In Buckhead.




Mom rested and Laura and I went out to goodwill and Target.

After catching up and visiting we headed to Chuys for dinner. Very interesting place. Laura and mom had some spicy Chimichangas and I had Flautas. Yum!

Fun ceiling isn't it?






Now we're sitting at the hotel and getting ready for Linda to get here at 12:30am!! Come on midnight.

Geeze I'm getting old. It's 9:30 and I could go to bed right now. Then again my tummy is full ;)