My husband and I decided last week that we had earned a well-deserved and long overdue vacation -slash- Valentine’s Day getaway, so we packed up the boy and headed to Atlanta and Helen over the weekend. We had a wedding we had to shoot on Saturday, but we had all of our bags packed and ready to go, and as soon as we finished, we came home long enough to take showers and then we were on the road.
It only took us four hours to get to my husband’s best friend Danny’s house in Woodstock. The drive up really wasn’t so bad, it was just boring. I’m not keen on long road trips, so I had a good book
One of the first places we visited was Helen, Georgia. The drive up from Atlanta to Helen was breathtaking. The mountain views and farmland along the way reminded me so much of West Virginia and the area I grew up in. Helen itself is amazing. When you come around the bend into Helen and see all of the buildings, you really feel like you’ve stepped into another world. There are horse-drawn carriages everywhere and cute ornaments on the buildings and shops. The smell in the air is to die for, especially when you get near the candy kitchens. My husband bought like five pounds of fudge, which will probably never get eaten it’s so sweet, and I bought three chocolate covered strawberries which were heavenly. I literally took a bite and just let it sit in my mouth for like two minutes at a time. I’m not big on chocolate, but man it was good. We didn’t get to see everything or visit all the shops, but we’re planning on another trip soon so we can complete the tour.
On our way to Helen, we stopped in Cleveland, Georgia to visit BabyLand General Hospital, the birthplace of the Cabbage Path Kids. Being a true child of the 80s and owner of a few Cabbage Dolls myself, I was tickled pink. The husband and boy? Not so much. Nonetheless, the men were troopers about the whole thing and patient as I “ooh” and “aahh’d” over the hospital. We actually got to witness a “live cabbage birth” and wouldn’t you know, they named the baby after my son. He wasn’t impressed until I took him to see it and take a photo of him holding it, then he became really quiet and didn’t say anything until after we left for Helen. On the way there, he started asking questions about adopting the baby. It wasn’t until after we had left Helen and were on our way back to Atlanta that he started telling me that he wanted to go adopt the baby as his little brother. When I told him that the baby was probably already gone, he actually teared up. Poor little guy! He wants a little brother so bad that he’s willing to get a Cabbage Patch Doll as a substitute. I guess this means that it’s time for another one, right? Oh, if it were only that easy. Believe me, if it weren’t for my one remaining gimp fallopian tube, he’d already have a little brother or sister. When I was at the BabyLand gift shop, I bought a bell with the face of a Cabbage Patch baby that looked just like “Little Brother” and I’ve given that to the boy to soothe him for a while. I give it a week and he’ll be over it.
The next day, we finally visited the Georgia Aquarium, which was right up there at the top of our list. The aquarium is so amazing and so far beyond anything we could have ever imagined. The place is huge; big enough to fit the White House 9.5 times. It’s crazy. It’s also very crowded. We were hoping that because it was a holiday, a lot of people would stay home with their kids. We didn’t plan on hundreds of teenagers to be there. Apparently there was some sort of cheerleader competition in Atlanta and they all decided it would be fun to visit the Aquarium at the same time we did. It was so loud and there was so much pushing, that an 89 year old man was actually knocked to the floor. It was ridiculous. Human beings can be such animals sometimes. So rude and pushy. Aside from the pushy teenagers and vulgar mothers (one was throwing around the “f” world like it was going out of style), the trip to the aquarium was worth every single penny and more. If you haven’t already been, you need to go now. It’s an experience you’ll never forget.
Our next stop was the CNN Center, which is within walking distance of the Georgia Aquarium, separated only by Centennial Olympic Park. I had promised the boy that we would go into the Cartoon Network store before we left and so the two of us went in to do a little shopping. This actually makes our second trip to the CNN Center, the first being five years ago when I took the studio tour. This time, we weren’t going for the tour, just to shop for him. The first thing we saw when we walked in was this little plush Cheese toy hanging upside down from the Kids Next Door Treehouse. My little boy LOVES Cheese and has always wanted a toy, which we’ve never been able to find. I admit it, I’m a fan of Cheese myself. He’s a funny little guy. Seriously, Cartoon Network really needs to bring back “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends”. It was a great show.
So we snatched Cheese up, perused the very small Adult Swim section of the store (it was shamefully small!), threw in a few CNN magnets and pencils, and we were on our way to our next destination, the Gone with the Wind Museum in Marietta. On the way there, we paused at the red light in front of the Margaret Mitchell House. I didn’t go in, so I had to honor her from the road. It’s now on my list for the next trip up. I’m a HUGE Gone with the Wind buff, and I adore Scarlett O’Hara, so the trip to the Gone with the Wind museum was a dream come true. The museum isn’t very big, but it’s a nice private collection full of interesting memorabilia and costumes. I was expecting maybe a little more costumes and movie memorabilia, but it was worth the $7 admission fee.
And that was our trip in a nutshell. We visited some interesting places, I saw the Big Chicken, and even a tacky castle that someone had built, which just goes to show that too much money and time on your hands can be a very questionable thing.
You can view all of the photos from our trip here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dizzygirl
You can view video from the Georgia Aquarium, BabyLand, and Helen here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/dizzygirl
