Atlantean

Super-short version: AWESOME trip, and I wish it could've been longer.

Short version:  Penny was incredibly well-behaved, for a six-year-old in a strange place, surrounded by family she doesn't remember meeting before, and having her schedule completely mucked with. She was less-than-thrilled about hanging out at the nursing home with my grandmother, but let's be honest -- so was I, really. And I have an entire childhood's worth of good memories to bolster me over the rough patches. And that was only an hour or so each day. For fun, we went to the Georgia Aquarium and to Zoo Atlanta, as well as a couple of different parks and some restaurants. I had at least as much fun as she did, and she had plenty. I definitely want to go back sometime, hopefully with the whole family.

And now I'm going to go into the longer version, with pictures.

The remnants of Hurricane Ida (I think?) were sweeping through on Thursday, and I was really afraid that our flight would be delayed or even canceled. (The good news is that school was canceled -- and canceled again on Friday -- so it turns out that Penny didn't actually miss any school for this trip.) But though it was very wet at the airport, our flight left right on time. And the winds were blowing hard enough to give us an extra push, and our flight landed a good twenty minutes early. We'd managed to squeak through without having to check any bags (yay, packing light!) so we breezed right on down and called my Aunt Sharon to come pick us up.

Sharon greeted us with balloons -- a pretty purple balloon for Penny, and a shiny "Happy Birthday" balloon for me, which was fun and sweet. Penny and Sharon took to each other right away, which made the whole visit much smoother, I'm sure.

When we got back to the house, Penny showed Sharon and my Uncle Bill the pictures I'd printed out for them (I'd ordered some prints a while back, but apparently they got lost in the mail, so I printed out a bunch on the printer at work).

After we'd unpacked and relaxed a little, we decided to go visit Grandmom for a bit before dinner. It was nearly time for Penny's snack, so we decided to pack the makings for "ants on a log" (celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins) and take it along with us. We even got Grandmom to eat one, which is good, because she's not eating much these days.

Penny wasn't too keen on the nursing home residents (and since they kept staring and touching her without permission, I can't say that I blame her too much), but she understood that Grandmom was special to me, and seemed to make an effort. She drew a picture of herself and me and Grandmom, and we left it on Grandmom's little refrigerator for her.

After our visit, we went back to Bill and Sharon's, and Penny helped Sharon make dinner, and even set the table (with a little help). Dinner was later than Penny's used to eating, but she was really patient. Being Sharon's helper gave her something to keep her occupied, at least. We didn't finish eating until fairly late, so we called Matt and talked to him a bit, then I got her tucked into bed close to 9:30.

The next day was Friday, and we decided we'd go to the aquarium in the morning. Uncle Bill, who was fighting a head cold, begged off, so Sharon and Penny and I headed over around mid-morning, close to opening time. The aquarium was fantastic. Touch tanks and gorgeous displays, lots of wonderful things to look at.

We went through most of the exhibits in about two hours or so, then paused for lunch. (The aquarium doesn't allow outside food or drinks, but their cafeteria's food was not too bad.) When that was done, we headed for the final exhibit: the ocean tank. That was simply amazing. It started with a clear tunnel that went under the tank, so you could see things swimming all around, and then emptied out into the main viewing room. The main viewing room was the size of a college lecture hall, and an entire wall -- two stories high and almost twice as wide -- was glassed over for viewing. As we came in, there were divers in the tank, even, as part of a brief show.



Aunt Sharon and I told Penny that it was up to her how long we stayed in there to watch the fish (the two of us could happily have spent the rest of the day!) but she barely budged for at least an hour. We had laminated cards to help us identify the various species, and she spent a while gleefully locating fish on it and reading their names for us. (We are sneakily educational.)



She was most excited about the whale sharks, though -- mostly, I suspect, because there was a Go, Diego, Go episode with a whale shark in it, so she remembered it from that, and was excited to be able to see a real one.  The aquarium had four of them, and they were all really magnificent.

Eventually, we headed for the gift shop, where Penny agonized over the toys. I found her a little whale shark, but somewhat to my surprise, she rejected it in favor of a little pink-and-green seahorse. I got some t-shirts for Matt and Alex, and we headed back to the house to rest a little.

Once she'd had a snack, Penny was revived and ready for more fun, so all four of us went to a little park/playground that was just a couple of streets over. The place was swarming with kids, and Penny had a great time running around and climbing on things. She even got me to play with her some.

We went over to visit Grandmom after dinner, which was a short visit, because both Grandmom and we were pretty tired.

Penny was up bright and early Saturday morning, and ready to go to the zoo! Unfortunately for her, the zoo didn't open until 9:30, so she had to wait. But we were there within minutes of it opening!

The zoo was fantastic, too. It was very clean and bright, and the animals all seemed quite healthy and content. We were a little disappointed that the male lions didn't seem to want to come out of their den, but we could hear them roaring, which was a thrilling sound, and Penny was happy to see the mother lion sunning on her rock.

I could've watched the gorillas and the orangutans for an hour, but Penny wasn't quite that patient. Still we took things nice and easy, and got to see almost everything. The pandas were adorable, even if the cubs were nearly full-grown and not nearly so cub-ish anymore. We spent lots of time in the reptile house, where Penny was thrilled by the snakes and turtles. She was slightly dubious about the petting zoo, but once she'd started, she got a lot more enthusiastic.

We breezed past the tail end of the Australia exhibit, since I'd made a late lunch date with my cousin who lives in Atlanta, and we didn't want to be late. But it was probably just as well, since Penny was showing signs of getting tired by then.

Penny and I went solo to meet my cousin and her boyfriend for lunch. I haven't seen her for years, so Penny didn't remember her, but we had a nice time and ate some really wonderful food at a little cafe just across the street from their apartment building. When we'd eaten, we went to a huge park that was across the road from both, where Penny was enthusiastic about the ducks on the lake, and then ran around like crazy on one of the playgrounds. She even talked my cousin into sitting opposite her on the see-saw.

That evening, we went with Uncle Bill and Aunt Sharon over to visit Grandmom, and decided to take her out for dinner. We wound up at Ruby Tuesdays, which wasn't very exciting, but they were patient with our slow eating.

The next day was Sunday, time to travel home. Penny watched a movie on their house theater (seriously: projector and movie screen) while I packed, and then we all headed over to Grandmom's again to have lunch and say goodbye. When she figured out we were leaving, she asked to accompany us to the airport, so we squeezed into the car so she could ride along -- and were happy to do so, because it meant she was feeling stronger and a little more alert.

It was a really wonderful trip, and there were so many wonderful things to do in Atlanta that we just didn't have time for; I really can't wait to go back!