Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Howdy Y'all from the Peach State

Did you know that on a typical day in Atlanta, 280,000 people pass through the airport?

Evidently they all pass through at 4:30 ... which is precisely when we landed.



They try to make your visit more pleasant with sculptures representing Zimbabwe.


It took over an hour for our luggage to arrive at the baggage claim area.
That was okay, because it took us that long as well.

From there we took the Sky Train to the Enterprise office.



They upgraded our ride for the week.


We drove and drove and drove until we reached Perry.


Finding the Ramada Inn was surprisingly simple .... for us!


Big ass signs help.



Our room was inviting ....




... of course, after traveling all day, 




this would have been inviting!


Naturally we overslept .... but we still got ready with time for 
the breakfast buffet at the Green Derby.




It was delicious .... and even had grits!




We easily found our way to the National Fairgrounds.





I was fascinated with the trees that lined their walkways.



The day was good .... full of informative, but humorous speakers ....


Danny Brassell started and ended our day.
He's every bit as funny as Lester Laminack, so we enjoyed him a lot.


The whole reason we chose this conference was to see Regie Routman again.




She reaffirmed everything I believe about reading.
The best part is that we get to see her again tomorrow .... twice!


We are getting a new science curriculum next year so we
went to hear Dr. Malcom Butler talk about Science Notebooks.




He was very good .... but he helped write the National Geographic series
so it was essentially an hour long commercial.


The only disaster of the day was lunch ....


See all the people in line at the front of the room in this picture?


They are at the front of the lunch line ready to get their meal.
Vicki and I were number 972 and 973  in line.






Lunch was catered by Sonny's Bar-B-Q.
 Lunch started at 11:45.
The keynote speaker was to begin at 12:20.
We were served at 1:07.
The first afternoon session was at 1:15.


Because of the lunch snafu, the keynote speaker was unable to talk.
Needless to say, I doubt that Sonny's will ever be asked to cater 
any event by the Dodge Learning Company again.






Fortunately, we have speed eating down to a science.


We attended Lori Oczkus' presentation and learned a great deal.




Unfortunately, most of it involved singing, dancing and acting.
Let's just say Hell hasn't frozen over yet and leave it at that.


Then we bought 50 books.
I know.


You're shocked beyond belief.


On our way to the fairgrounds, I had noticed some trees planted in rows
(Right now Sister 3 is rolling her eyes and muttering something about mom)
and I wanted to check them out further.




My guess is that they are pecan trees, but I'm not sure.


At any rate, we then saw this sign




and that is something we want to take in later this week
so we thought we would check out the hours, what there was to see and do, etc.


Important Note:  We have discovered that in the east if there is a sign without miles, you can figure it will add several hours to your trip.


The same holds true for the south.
In Nebraska, we put the number of miles to an attraction ---
we don't just tease you with the name.


We drove forever .... only to come upon a sign that indicated
it was 22 more miles.  By that time we were committed to 
finding the #*$&#^ place, so we kept going.


In fact, after we found Andersonville, we kept on going
until we reached Plains, Georgia .... 


which is famous for ....




We didn't run into the former president, but we intend to
go back on Thursday when the museum and other attractions
are open.


It was a beautiful drive and we saw lots of interesting things ....




A fruit stand .... where we had to buy some peaches.
The gentleman there asked if we'd ever seen melons that big
and I so badly wanted to say "Yes, in Pigeon Forge," but I refrained.




 I thought of Sister Two when I saw this sign.




Yes, the Baptists




are alive and well




in Georgia!




We couldn't decide between attending the revival




or going to this hopping night spot,
 so we settled on supper instead.



After supper we entertained ourselves in the gift shop ....


where there was a parrot that imitated our laughs.
At first we thought it was  motion sensitive and that we kept causing it to laugh by our movements.


However, when we got closer we realized the damn
thing was parroting back all that we said.


If we had more room and hadn't bought 50 books, we would have
bought it.  It would be great in our staff meetings.
Or just at the lunch table.


Somehow, I don't see the others enjoying our humor.


It was a whirlwind day and we get to do it all again tomorrow!

3 comments:

Mardell said...

You two definitely know how to be tourists. I believe Georgia Bureau of Tourism would be pleased.
Glad the conference is living up to your expectations,

Three Sisters said...

Maybe the dog that lives in the dog houses for sale has something to do with the "Snake Away". You really should have checked it out.

nicki said...

that's so cool!! i like the night life there! we used to have a crepe myrtle (sp?) like the one in the picture at our old house.