Family Vacation - Part Seven

Saturday morning dawned and it was time to check out. We loaded up the car and began heading back towards civilization. We took our time coming down out of the mountains and stopped at one of the scenic overlooks along the way. 

When it got to be lunchtime, we managed to find a place to eat that Daryl and I had not seen in years - Schlotzsky's Deli used to be right next to University Mall when we were at college at USF. It was as good as we remembered! 

Our destination for the day was Atlanta, Georgia. Daryl and I visited here together back in 1996 when we chaperoned a youth trip to the Summer Olympics and we wanted to show the boys some of the sights. We checked into the Aloft hotel in downtown just two blocks away from Centennial Park and Pemberton Square. And then we went exploring.....

Our first destination was at Pemberton Square - the World of Coca Cola museum. This was one of our stops 20 years ago, but this is a totally updated museum in a different location than the one we visited. The boys were pretty impressed with the fact that they received free samples of Coke on the way in, could try various samples from around the world while inside and got another sample of Coke on the way out. 

There was a whole display talking about the debacle of New Coke. 

The boys got to design their own Coca Cola bottles on screen. 

This was in the Pop Art section. Davis had no idea who Muhammad Ali was - but he thought it was cool that this guy was standing there next to the Coke bottle doing the "whip-nae-nae" dance! 

The tasting room with Coke products from all around the world. Some of them were quite good! The "Beverly" from Italy tasted like spoiled mouthwash to us. 

Then it was time to wait in line to meet the Coke Polar Bear. 

Last bottles of Coke on the way out of the museum. 

With the inventor of Coke - Dr. Pemberton. 

Then we wandered across the street to walk through Centennial Olympic Park.

It was a hot humid day and there were people everywhere in the Olympic Rings fountain and also the reflecting pools. 

We even looked up and found the brick we bought as a youth group to commemorate our trip.

Right along the edge of the park was this fun event - Slide the City. We looked it up online - Davis was too tiny and same day tickets were pretty expensive. But the kids had fun watching the other people slide down several blocks on inner tubes. 

We finished up our tour of the Park through the five Quilt plazas. This section of the Park was much quieter and less crowded. 

Dinner was at Johnny Rockets - hamburgers and shakes hit the spot - and we had an interesting view of the huge Georgia Aquarium across the street. Everyone crashed out hard when we made it back to our hotel!