Atlanta Blue- day 2- Sunday, June 26, 2016

Corey and Bridgette came to our hotel and had breakfast here with us this morning.  Then our family went back to Atlanta.  Being early Sunday morning, the traffic was much better, and the day was hazy to overcast, which made it feel a little cooler.  We got to the park at Pemberton Place (which is where we also were yesterday, right by the aquarium) about an hour before the World of Coca-Cola opened. We got some drinks and made some phone calls at the table at the cafe in the park.  When the lines started to form at the World of Coke, we were ready to go.

Something like Hershey's Chocolate World in Pennsylvania, the World of Coca-Cola is a pretty splashy place to advertise the product invented here in Georgia in 1886 by John Pemberton.   One of the first things that you see is a movie called, "Moments of Happiness."  It doesn't have much to do with Coke, but it's a cute movie, and the title is pretty descriptive- it shows an engagement in a hot air balloon, a soldier surprising his family after coming back from Afghanistan, and so on.  The girls said Julie cried through the whole thing.  "The Vault" is an area that contains the only written copy of Coke's secret formula and shows a history of the recipe.  (How are they allowed to sell something without labeling everything in the mix?)  There was a lot of other exhibits that were heavy on the red and white Coke logos.  (Not much Diet Coke, Scott noted sadly).  There was kind of a lame "4-D" movie.  We all agreed that the "Polar Bear" that people were posing for pictures with was a bit creepy looking.  A mock up of a bottling plant shows the steps that go into that process.  Among the artifacts on display, Scott liked the paintings that were done of Santa Claus drinking Coke.  Some people have said that Santa dresses in red trimmed with white today because of those Coke ads.  We went kind of quickly through the "Tasting Room" where you can get samples of soft drinks around the world.  [Emma later told Corey that she had tried one kind-- regular Coke.  Scott tried Diet Coke.  They were happy like that.].  Of course, there was a gift shop after that.

We had lunch at McDonald's and then made our way to Zoo Atlanta.  The last time we were there was with baby Anna in 2002 or 2003, and Atlanta was being hit by Hurricane Bill.  We went inspite of the rain back then, and basically had the whole zoo to ourselves.  We spent a while with the pandas then. We remember the panda's keeper asked if Anna had any questions, and Anna asked her if she had a dog.

Today, we went straight back to the pandas again, and even though there were more people than back when we were here before, it was still possible to see the pandas and spend some time near them.  They were inside, like before, but this time it was to keep cool.  There were two young ones out, and the girl one started climbing around and showing off while we were there.  The zoo is a little small, but is pretty high quality.  The animal exhibits and habitats seem to allow for easy viewing and there are quite a few interesting ones on display.  We saw a baby orangutan peeking out from behind its mother.  We also saw a strange African bird called a kori bustard that was puffing himself out for mating season and making a weird low thumping sound, like someone tapping on a live microphone. We really enjoyed the time we spent there, and had seen about 2/3rds of the zoo in a relatively short time.  We were trying to talk the girls into riding the train when we noticed that there were some dark clouds starting to roll in, so we cut the afternoon short.  We went to the car, and as we were driving back to the hotel, it started raining and Scott noted that the thermometer in the car had dropped into the 70s.

We got back to the hotel and most of us took some much needed naps.  When we woke up, we went to Corey's house, where we had dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers.  Bridgette (and Dixie) were there, of course, and we were joined tonight by Corey's daughter Kayleigh and her boyfriend Matthew.  They just arrived back today from Washington state.  Some of their friends were there to see them too.  Kayleigh hadn't seen Anna since they had visited us back when Anna was 2 years old and Kayleigh was 15.  Now Kayleigh is expecting in November.

Anna got a ride tonight on the back of Corey's blue Harley, and apparently she has now fallen in love with motorcycles.  We called it a night around 9:30 because Corey has such an early morning tomorrow.  The lightning bugs were starting to come out.