An Evening in Atlanta

After our time at the aquarium, we returned to our suite to chill and read the paper.

We had a bit of a storm and it rained for a few minutes.

Michelle and I were both trying to get cool pictures of the city lights with a slow shutter speed to capture the blur of traffic; however, there weren't enough cars on the streets near us to really get the effect we were going for. This is still cool picture though of the city lights of Atlanta as viewed from one of our balconies.

Something fishy

Today we went to the Georgia Aquarium! It is the only aquarium in the world that holds Whale Sharks, which is neither whale nor shark. We had a good time there and enjoyed the exhibits. They had a good variety of odd creatures like the whale sharks, albino alligators, manta rays, sawtooth shark, garden eels, and electric eels. We also got to pet the hammerheads in the touch pool, that was fun.

Hammerhead!

These were the electric eels, they looked pretty gross.

Sarah and Michelle at the reef exhibit.

Hammerhead shark and ray pool.

Albino Alligator.

WHALE SHARK!

Sweet Home Alabama

We had breakfast at our Days Inn on Thursday morning. There were make-your-own waffles, which was fun, and hot.

We set out about 8:30am on our drive to Atlanta, GA. We stopped in Alabama for lunch at Full Moon BBQ. I had found the place online before we left because I wanted to make sure we had some good BBQ while in the South. Full Moon had good reviews and claimed to have famous ribs.

Michelle and I tried the ribs and they were good. Jonah got a baked potato because he wasn't too hungry,

but it ended up being the biggest potato any of us had ever seen!

After lunch, we drove the rest of the way to Atlanta and settled into our hotel there. They had run out of regular rooms, so they upgraded both our rooms to suites, which was nice. Michelle, Jonah, and I worked out and showered then met Dad and Mom and walked around downtown to check things out before retiring to our rooms.

We're going to Jackson...

Sadly the time came to say goodbye to Vicky and get back on the road.  Our drive form Duncanville, TX to Jackson, MI was a short 6 hours but somehow during this drive something strange happened to us as we drove through Louisiana....

 

We saw lots of bayous which we thought were really cool.

This was one of our favorites because it was so green.

Crossing the mighty Mississippi

We survived the drive and made it to Mynelle Gardens, a 7 acre haven of lushious plant life. The garden was cool but there weren't as many flowers as we thought there would be and it was 100 degrees and of course VERY humid.  But we managed to get some pictures and enjoy it anyways.  

Mynelle Gardens

After we finished at the garden we drove another 15 minutes to Jackson where our hotel is for the night.  We unloaded and then went to Applebees for dinner.  We figured we should try a local place for dessert so we chose Bop's frozen custard.  We weren't sure how frozen custard would be but it was good and tasted pretty much like ice cream.

'Til the cows come home

Today, in the spirit of Texas, we went to the Texas Cowboy Hall Of Fame. They had a cool collection of old wagons along with alot of other cool western things. By the time we were done, we were really hungry. Good thing we were close to the Fort Worth stock yards where there were plenty of food options. We chose Risckys BBQ. I was happy to find out that they had the famous Texas fried pickles! Talk about a dream come true! They were pretty great. Everyone else enjoyed Buffalo burgers which were also a hit. After lunch we wandered around the stockyard and found a shop that sold the original Dr. Pepper in bottles. We decided to have some and, just as we had been promised, it was really good. Finally the time came that we were all waiting for. The cattle drive. Twice a day some drover come down the stockyard with some Texas longhorns. It was fun to see, and if you have never seen one in real life they are huge! Some of the horn spans can be six feet long!

Fried pickles and buffalo burgers!

The Original Dr. Pepper!

Texas Longhorn cattle drive.

Now we are back at Vickies relaxing and getting ready for our journey to Jackson, Mississippi!

Down in the old Texas town...

Today we made it to Texas. We are here visiting Vickie Ghent, a good family friend. Michelle and I drove through the night starting at 4 a.m. It was a nice drive and the sunrise was one of the coolest we have seen. We attempted to make a stop in Bowie however the gas stations available were terrible. We had a fun time visiting with Vickie so far today and we were glad to have the opportunity to shower. For dinner we had some good Texas food at the "Texas Roadhouse." There was a feast of shrimp, ribs, chicken, and "roadkill," which is actually steak. It was pretty satisfying. We also had some good ice cream made in Texas (Blue Bell) and it was pretty good as well. I have yet to see an armadillo and Texas is way more green than I had imagined.

Scott helped Vickie caulk the sink.

The rest of us had a good workout and a shower, then we relaxed. I found a book on the Civil War and read for a while.

Then it was off to the Texas Roadhouse for some good Texas BBQ.

Mmmmmm, ribs!

Happy to be clean, rested, and full.

Through Painted Deserts

We continued driving on the I-40E and got to the Petrified Forrest and the Painted Desert in the afternoon.  We went inside the gift shop and found a penny presser, Jonah is trying to get a pressed penny from all the places that have them.

We stopped at some more Indian ruins and were again dissapointed.  There was also supposed to be some petroglyphs but those weren't impressive either.  Sarah and Jonah show their dissapointment.

We did however find this cool little guy!

Then we saw these petroglyphs and were much happier with them.  We all liked the large bird in the center that seems to be eating a man.

We went on a 3 mile loop and saw lots of petrified wood.

Notice the petrified wood scattered around...

There were a lot of rain storms happening all around us but it never rained on us.

Dad and Jonah ready to go in the van while Sarah and I were taking pictures

This car marked the historic route 66 through the Painted Desert