Road Trip Part 2

Hubby had a seminar Saturday, so my camera and I set out to explore Atlanta. We started at the aquarium.





From there, we went to the Rhodes house, also known as 'the castle on Peachtree Street.' It was built in 1904 by Amos Rhodes, a furniture magnate, in Romanesque Revival style, copied from some castles Amos saw in Europe. It was one of the first places in Atlanta to have electric lights. It also had a form of security system and an intercom system. Quite avant garde.



Those tall windows on the curved part of the building are protected from the sun from the outside because they are marvelous on the inside.



They appear to be stained glass, but they are actually painted. A pair of brothers from Germany painted some windows that won awards at the world's fair. Amos commissioned them to paint windows depicting scenes from the United States Civil War, and they are amazing.



There was a period beginning in the sixties when the house was empty for about two decades. City officials were afraid the windows would be damaged or vandalized, so they moved them (keep in mind, they are 15 feet tall) AND the mahogony staircase, to the archives building until they reopened the home for tourists. I'd kind of like to know how you go about moving such things.

From the Rhodes house, I went to the Margaret Mitchell house and saw where she wrote "Gone With the Wind," pretty cool. Then the Atlanta History Center and back to the hotel to rest up for the Jack Daniels distillery and Graceland on the way back home.

Road Trip

A journey of 2000 some miles starts with a single . . . tank of gas, a cooler with sandwiches, juice, water and veggies, some snacks, a couple of laptops (working vacation), a few suitcases and a camera. Hubby had a seminar in Atlanta and we decided to drive so we could see some fun stuff along the way. And drive was pretty much what we did the first day. The terrain changed a lot from our neck of the woods and we stopped in Jasper, Alabama for the night. Next morning we drove into Atlanta, checked into our hotel and headed for the World of Coca Cola Museum.



The museum chronicles the history of Coke, has tons of Coke memorabilia and at the end of the tour you can taste over 60 Coke proucts from all over the world. Some of them are yummy, some taste like water, and some taste how I would imagine some of the yuckier Harry Potter Bertie Botts jelly beans would taste.

We made a stop at the Hard Rock cafe and I liked their neon sign out front. Oh, and the car stuck into the side of the building.



On our way back to catch the train to the airport, we encountered what has to be the longest escalator in the world. It was so long and steep that the floor below us looked like the wall, and we had to hold onto the railing to keep from tipping over.



When we got back to the hotel, we encountered what has to be the biggest tow truck in the world. It was, as they say, a badass.



But I guess you have to be a big honkin' tow truck if you're going to haul this thing around.



So that was our first afternoon in Atlanta. I get as much of a kick out of the mundane but funky things as I do out of the touristy things. Little things amuse me. We did get to see some other cool touristy things, though, so there'll be more pics coming up.

(There will also be more wedding stuff, but I'm waiting for some photos.)

New Definition of Biker Chicks

First wedding story. We (moms, sisters, bridemaids, etc.) at the salon getting our hair done. Sipping mimosas, although I thought nine a.m. was a little early to be imbibing. Didn't participate.

Very nice salon, though, catering to us. I got my hair done in record time. The whole salon experience was fairly perfunctory, except that the photographer happened to be a bit avant garde. He looked out the window and saw some bikers. He said to me "I'm going to go out and ask those bikers if they'll let the bridesmaids sit on their motorcycles." I said "Go for it." He came back in and said "They're cool with it." So we went outside (and it was cold) and got some pics. They didn't actually sit on the bikes, but the photographer told them to get the biker attitude.



What I thought was amusing, and I should have totally gotten a picture of it . . . the bikers (leather, chains, do-rags) all pulled out their cameras and took pictures. Love it!

Nearly Wordless Wedding

I'm taking a cue from some of Jeff's wordless and nearly wordless blog posts. I can't believe our little dude is getting married on Saturday!







First solo, flight instructor Dad











We love you so much and wish you both a world of happiness. Can't wait to be part of your big day!

Stay tuned for wedding pics.

Mother Nature Says No to Home Show

The home show was going very well, good attendance, even in this economy. Had some interest in the business. The booth was in good shape. Jess and I took a break to look at the other booths and sample dips and cheese balls.

The show ran until seven last night, so I came home late afternoon to make some tacos. Hubby and Jess came home, we ate supper and were watching the television when Rick Mitchell came on to say that we had some nasty weather heading our way. Hubby got three motorcycle helmets and we went into our laundry room, because it's at the center of the house away from windows. The tornado sirens went off five or six times and we listened to storms hit and then fade away. Finally, they told us we could come out of our hidey holes.

Shortly afterward, they started showing pictures on the television about the tornadoes that had hit north Enid, which is where we live. In fact, the Expo Center, where the home show was being held (two miles east of our house), took a direct hit. Obviously, the home show was cancelled for today. We went over a couple of hours ago to see what was left of our booth, if anything.



This is the main part of the building. Our booth, however, was way down at the other end, near that awning on the right side of this photo.



This was a utility pole out by the street.



This is what we saw when we went in to see if any of our stuff was salvageable. This had been the booth behind ours. One of the back doors had been blown off, so everything in that buiding got tossed around for awhile.



This was taken from where our booth had been. Some of our pamphlets are over there, the blue ones. Oh, and that pink bowl was one of the ones we had candy in on our table.



Jessica had taken the balloons and put them in her car last night, I'm not sure why. We had a couple of boxes of pamphlets and flyers, some candy, a few snacks, a pot of flowers, and our banner. They were all there, still intact. All in all, we got lucky. But our booth doesn't much resemble the photo from the last post.



And that's how we do an Oklahoma home show!

Weekend Warriors

Our town is holding its semi-annual home show this weekend and hubby decided it would be fun to rent a booth. He's going to be promoting his engineering and business consulting, and plant design. Jessica will be drumming up business for her web design division of the company. I'm going to be the one who runs out for food or a pot of flowers because the table is 'not colorful enough' or whatever else needs to be done.

The show goes five hours this afternoon and evening, ten tomorrow and six on Sunday. Not your typical weekend, but it will probably be an interesting one!



If we weren't doing this, I would probably be in St. Cloud, Minnesota for Jeff's CD release party. Congratulations and have fun, Jeff!

I Think That I Shall Never See a Thing as Heavy as a Tree

When we lived in Minnesota, our next door neighbors were Bill and Lois. They are still some of our dearest friends. Bill is really smart and very kind. He is also a character. One day, he decided he was going to cut down the tree at the corner of his house. He had it rigged so that it would fall out into his back yard, missing his garden, the garage, and all the other trees around. It was a good plan. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.

I had just come home with the kids. We came out of the garage and started up the driveway and then stopped because Bill was taking a chain saw to a tree. We knew something exciting was about to happen. And it did. The tree fell, but instead of taking the preferred path down, it came out at an angle from the house, in a direct line with where my son, who was seven, was standing. I was not concerned, because I knew the tree was not tall enough to make it to the driveway, but he didn't. The tree fell, taking out their clothesline and ours, the ground shook, and Curtis burst into tears. Lois came out of the house and yelled at Bill for upsetting Curtis. Bill got his chain saw, cut up the tree, and righted the clotheslines.



So you can imagine my interest yesterday when hubby came home from Saturday breakfast with the boys to tell me that they were going over to one of the guys' house to cut down a tree. Where's my camera? Bill, you may want to take notes.

Lots of ropes controlling the path of the limbs.



The first of two big limbs coming down, spewing smaller limbs everywhere.



Now that the second big limb is down, it's a matter of cutting it up and cutting the trunk down to a stump. When that was done, they loaded it onto a trailer using a crane. Then they hauled it to the dump, where it weighed in at 1540 pounds.



I'm just glad no clotheslines were harmed in the cutting down of this tree.