Hello you people!!! :-)

Hi, is anyone out there? At least I know that Lynetta and I read these. :-)

Well, lets see where I need to start the update from my perspective...

Last Saturday, Jan. 28th, some friends and I went to Atlanta for a day trip. We had a good time, in spite of the seeming "flaws" that began presenting themselves the week before.


Holli, Lynetta, Johanna, Lana & Stewart

Our original plan was to start the morning with an IMAX presentation at Fernbank Museum of Natural History. From there we would go to the "new" Georgia Aquarium, which has been quite the sensation since its opening several months ago. After that we planned to have dinner somewhere and head back to Greenville. All in all it promised to be a full day. Given the Aquarium's popularity, it was suggested that we obtain pre-paid admissions tickets. A week and half before our trip I called to ask how far in advance they would recommend I purchase tickets for a small size group interested in coming on Sat. the 28th. The lady told me that I should order them several days in advance. Since I was not sure on a total number coming yet, I told everyone that I needed to know their plans by the Tuesday before. So...I called 4-5 days in advance of our trip and the nice person on the other side of the phone told me that those tickets had already been sold out for over a week! Arughhhhhhhh...

So, our next plan was that we would spend more time at the museum...there should be plenty to do...and take in both IMAX features. (The Grand Canyon & Wild Safari) Our first clue that there might be additional issues was that the museum assured us that they NEVER sell out of their Saturday morning IMAX tickets. So, we decided to wait until we got there and decide if we really wanted to get tickets to both IMAX, or if someone else had come up with another idea.

Saturday dawned bright and clear. :-) We all piled into Johanna's car & headed down to Georgia, enjoying the fellowship on our trip. Upon arrival at Fernbank we noted the mostly empty parking lot and were glad we had "beat the rush". We bought tickets for both IMAX and decided to browse around really quickly in the 30 minutes we had before we needed to line up for the IMAX. Imagine our surprise when 30 minutes was more time than we needed to see the ENTIRE museum! :-) Haa, haa...what a trip! Yep...there was a large "dinosaur skeleton"


Lana & Lynetta, note the dinosaur in the background.


...and a small room with sea shells...and a "star gallery" (a room with a blue ceiling and little lights...but you couldn't tell what "constellation" it was supposed to represent). We also found 2 small rooms that had "kids" stuff in them...which of course were the most interesting rooms... Haa, haa...


Lynetta wanted to wear an invisible vest.












"Bird", Holli, Lana & Johanna










Lynetta "Feeding" the birds












The catch of the day.



So then we lined up for our IMAX (surely with IMAX being a "brand name" it would have to go well!) Oh wait, did I say lined up? there wasn't anyone else in line...at least this place still had tickets available...

The Grand Canyon started without a hitch...yes it was real IMAX and the show was pretty good...then 20 minutes into the show the fire alarms sounded! Yikes! was this day to be totally crazy!?!? :-) So we all had to file outside and wait for ...???...



Waiting for the fire alarm to be cleared.



Well, no FD showed up... and eventually the Museum called it a false alarm and let everyone back in. But the little lady standing guard by the IMAX would not let us back in. She said they needed to prepare for the next show and we could go ask ticketing for a refund (but she didn't know if they would give it...) or we could hope that someone would believe us at the door of the next Grand Canyon presentation and let us in. We opted to try our luck on the latter...after all...how many people were there that day? Surely they would recognize such distinguished guests as us :-)

We got in line for the second IMAX (there was actually a short line this time) and it began. It was nice as well. Some really fun footage of Africa's animals.

After that, we stayed near the exit and the guard lady let us in the back door for the rest of the Grand Canyon. :-)

By this time it was mid-afternoon and we were rather hungry. We drove past a Moe's and decided to stop in. Ahhhh...food for the hungry!

Next, several in the group were eager to visit Ikea, a vogue Swedish home furnishing store. We were trying to follow directions...but they weren't matching up with the streets we were on/passing...then suddenly there it was! How we found it...we will never know. :-)

Wow! now this place should have sold tickets for parking! especially on a Saturday. They have a built in parking deck under the entire store (which is rather large) and we had to drive around for 5-10 minutes before spotting some person leaving and claiming their spot... Then we all ventured into the abyss...

Rule #1 if shopping @ Ikea. Any Swedish you know/speak will be helpful! :-) Signs, descriptions etc. are all in Swedish...some items we just had "guess" what they were. :-) For those of you who are not familiar with Ikea and have wondered about it...let me just say, it is not your "Amish country" furniture. It was all very modern and/or very European in styling. I would rate the quality close to that of Wal-Mart, at least what I could tell from looking at it. Prices appeared to "average" on most items. Now their selection was much larger than Wal-Mart and if you had something specific in mind and couldn't find it at Wal-Mart, you might try Ikea...though I would not recommend a Saturday afternoon! I did like their selection of toys/kids stuff as they had some neat stuff I have not seen in the average American store.

At this point in our day we had met up with friends Jon and Karen Sampson who live in Acworth, GA and had "lost" one of our group, Stewart Curry, who had to go to a family gathering in Atlanta. After we all finally found our way out of the store (don't follow their signs that point to exit, they don't take you the most direct way...no, the exit signs lead you through the ENTIRE store!) we headed to Jon and Karen's for dinner. Yum! They had hot dogs/hamburgers etc. and we played a few games and just enjoyed the fellowship. It was a lot of fun!



Jon & Karen Sampson



We headed home with no mishaps and thank the Lord for His protection the whole day.