Thursday, October 25, 2012

From Georgia to Florida, Day 3

287/366

Sunday morning, we left Addairsville, Georgia, and made our way towards Atlanta.  There was a ton of fun to be had there, so I suspected.  However, along the way, I swore I saw flowers planted along an exit ramp.  I kept driving, grabbing for my point and shoot camera, then realized that they were at every exit/entrance.  I decided if I saw pink, I was getting off at the next exit.  I did!


This sea of pink cosmos was simply heavenly.  

Of course, we were not the only family/car to stop, but I managed to get ride of the other folks. 



I love these beautiful Cosmos, too bad they are invasive, but hey it's not my yard they are invading.


The bees and butterflies were also very interested in this field of flowers.    


With numerous bees buzzing about, my boys were disinclined to get too close to the flowers.


I stepped into the middle of the field to show them there was nothing to fear.  The bees were MUCH more interested in the flowers than in tasting sweetboys.  


I loved being in among the flowers.  

It was probably my high point for the entire trip down.  


And I also loved being able to take a few pictures of the beautiful flowers.  


Gorgeous.  

Don't be surprised if you see one of these pictures hanging around my house in the future.


But my boys could care less about flowers, they were happier to get to Atlanta. 

Like I said, much fun to be had. I really thought they would enjoy Coke World, because they had such a great time in the Sampling room in DisneyWorld.  And the Coke room was much bigger and better when we drove through in 2004.  I wasn't exactly trying to reproduce the entire trip down that we took then, I just knew that those stops would bring my kids joy.  And they did.  



At first they were just happy to be out of the car.  


But once we got into the World of Coca-Cola, they were really intrigued.  


The boys both had fun trying to "mix" the special secret mix to make their own coca-cola. 


And they got to meet the Coca-Cola Polar Bear!  



Behind this giant locked door is the super secret formula.  Leave it to Sam to reach past the red line, and set off a warning alarm...time to move on. 


Off to the Tasting Room! 



The boys got a huge kick out of sampling everything! 


Eric was not a fan of the "most often sampled" beverage called Beverly from Europe.  It was bitter,  terrible.  Left a horrid taste in my mouth.  I think it's the most popular because no one believes a soda beverage could taste that bad and still make money.  


Sam's favorite?  Plain old Coca-cola! 



Then the boys got crazy in the gift shop.  


We were only there a couple hours, but it was long enough for us, I wouldn't spend the whole day there, though it was a pricey couple of hours.   Frankly, the tasting room was my favorite part. However, the mix of strange beverages made my stomach very upset, so we left and didn't stop for lunch for another hour, it was 4 before we had 'lunch'.  Actually that worked out fine, apparently, eating lunch/dinner at 4 helped curb my evening sickness. 


When we stopped for dinner at Zaxby's fried chicken fingers,  I ran into the CVS for ginger ale, just in case it didn't sit well.  While in there, I found these Muno beanie babies.  When we went to Wisconsin earlier this summer, the boys chose stuffed Plex beanies as a souvenir from the trip.  I saw these and had to buy them.  They were a huge hit as we finished crossing the rest of Georgia.  


They took a power nap after lunch/dinner meal thing.  Sam slept for 2 hours while Chris happily watched Toy Story 3.  We transitioned from the pine trees of Georgia to the Cotton Fields.  



As we got further south we could even see where they were harvesting some of the cotton.  Too bad the kids don't find this nature/agriculture stuff as interesting as I do.  Maybe when they get older...


As the sun set, we crossed into Florida.  


We stopped for dinner about 8, a hot fudge sundae with no nuts for me, and cheeseburgers for Chris, Sam was happy with fries.  We continued on until the thriving metropolis of Wildwood, Florida.  We wanted to leave only an hour or two drive to Grandpa's for the next morning, and Wildwood was right before where the Florida toll road began. 



I am so thankful that the ipad my Dad gave me keeps my kids so happy, they almost share it.  It makes the perfect leverage.  The KNOW if they misbehave I take it away, they behave much better.  And while, yes we did pack the portable DVD player, it only has about 2 1/2 hours battery, and Mommy forgot the car plug for it, Doh.  It ended up working out.  It guaranteed that we could start a movie with it, at dark, and they would happily watch, letting us make more progress without stops in the evenings, than during the day.  During the day, we all want/need to stop more often.  But we made it across Georgia, stopping where I wanted to stop, and more, it was a Good Day.  




2 comments:

Unknown said...

We have a bunch of orange and yellow cosmos. They do go crazy, but I think it is worth it.

Elizabeth said...

I LOVE that picture of you in the pink flowers. Beautiful!