Friday, July 3 - Drove from Bartlesville to Memphis, including a drive by Graceland. We didn't take the tour, but we did see the house, the Lisa Marie jet and another jet from the street. I took a couple of pics of the house and the gate from the car.
Saturday, July 4 - We got up and went into downtown Memphis to see the Lorraine Hotel, where Martin Luther King, Jr was killed and tour the Civil Rights Museum. Awesome museum. Jackson studied MLK this year and he wanted to see this. He seemed to enjoy it and really liked the fact you could see blood on the sidewalk outside the hotel room. We doubt it was really MLKs blood, but they have preserved a piece of the walkway that MLK was standing on and there are some red stains on it. After seeing that, we hopped back in the car and drove on to Atlanta. Seven hours later, we pulled into our hotel.
Sunday, July 5 - Georgia Aquarium! This is the real reason we set out for Atlanta in the first place. The GA is the largest aquarium in the world an
d home to three whale sharks. By far, the best attraction I have ever seen. They had five areas and the exhibits were all just incredible. When we got to Ocean Voyager, the kids were beside themselves. Reid was wanting to see "bammerheads" (hammerhead sharks) and she got her wish just as we stepped up to the first window. Jackson wanted to see the Manta Ray and we saw her many times. Damon and I wanted to see the whale sharks. The GA is home to three whale sharks in an exhibit that holds 6.2 million gallons of water. The exhibit can hold up to six whale sharks and they currently have four. The exhibit also had a variety of sharks, grouper, sting rays, and thousands of other fish. Awesome is all I can say.
The shocker of that experience was lunch. I always expect to pay out the nose to eat at those places, but the Georgia Aquarium takes the cake on this one. $63 for four of us to eat lunch. Yes, read that again slowly, you read it right....$63 for lunch...and we didn't have lobster. The kids each had chicken strips, fries and a drink. I had a bacon cheeseburger and drink. Damon had a chicken sandwich, a individual pizza, and a drink. And, we got two desserts to share.
After seeing the Aquarium, we walked across the park area to World of Coca Cola. Very interesting, very fun 4-D movie, and some time in the tasting room.
Monday, July 6 - I have always wanted to see giant pandas and today I got my chance. We headed over to Zoo Atlanta for the day. They currently have three pandas - a mom, dad and baby. The docent was telling us that the zoo pays the Chinese government $500,000 a year to keep the pandas and any baby pandas bred are sent to China once they are weaned. The baby is getting ready to go to China in a couple of weeks.
Tuesday, July 7 - We headed back to the Centennial Olympic Park area and went to CNN for the tour. Jackson got to sit in a news studio mock-up and read the news off the teleprompter. He thought that was pretty cool and the group applauded for him. The tour was very interesting even though we didn't get to see them broadcasting. Due to the Michael Jackson memorial service, most of the broadcast was coming out of California for the day. After the tour, we ate lunch at CNN Center and drove over to the Martin Luther King, Jr. birthplace/burial site. After seeing the Memphis museum, we were disappointed in the Atlanta museum. His church - Ebenezer Baptist - was closed due to some reconstruction work, the birthplace home tours were already full, and the museum just wasn't as well done as the Memphis museum. We also drove over to the Atlanta Underground - not much, didn't stay long.
Wednesday, July 8 - Six Flags White Water! We spent the day splashing and sliding at White Water and the kids had a blast. We also stopped at Archiver's on the way back to the hotel and I left my contribution to the Marietta, GA economy.
Thursday, July 9 - We made a brief stop at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in the morning. But, between the humidity and Jackson's allergies, we didn't stay long. We went to lunch at CNN Center and then let the kids change into their swimsuits. Centennial Olympic Park has a splash pad, with water shooting up in the pattern of the Olympic rings. Damon and the kids went to that, while I went back to the Coca Cola store to pick up a few things I wanted.
We asked the kids to choose one thing they wanted to go back and see again. They both chose the Georgia Aquarium, so back we went. It was worth another $100 in admission tickets. This time, it wasn't near as crowded and we were able to see some things better. When we got back to the Ocean Voyager, we just sat down at the larger observation window and stayed there for a while. We could have stayed there for hours.
Friday, July 10 - We packed up and headed back to Memphis.
Saturday, July 11 - Home!
It was a really good trip and a fun, family vacation!
Sounds so fun!! It will be funny later to hear what really stands out in Jackson and Reid's heads from the trip! You know how you have snap shots that stand out! It's so funny that Robin, Ivan, and I always have such different memories of the same event!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Jackson will hang on to the memory of somone taking one of our laundry bags from the laundry room. That really seemed to bother him. We had our dirty clothes in those extra large ziploc bags and after I put them in the washer, I folded up the bags and laid them to the side on a counter (figuring, locked laundry room, empty plastic bags, no one is going to be interested). Wrong! They took one of the bags. That is the one thing he tells people right off, if they ask him about his trip.
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