On the road again - parting thoughts on Pigeon Forge

East Coast Road Trip 2015 - Day 17
(it's a long post today folks, sorry)

Yesterday was a much needed day off. We all enjoyed the break from "road trip" mode.
But today we plan to get some miles under us. We are headed to the Georgia Aquarium.

As we leave Tennessee and Pigeon Forge behind us I have a few parting thoughts.
This location has been the biggest departure so far from the rest of the world. The town has about 6000 residents, but the main drag looks like a Family-themed Vegas (Vegi-Vegas, if you like).

Interesting looking attraction... nope none of these are casinos 

Lots of dinner shows.

Titanic Museum 

Wax museum 

Christmas Village - year round

I assume this place just got an bump in attendance, and no they are clearly not affiliated with the movie

Um... We'll take this swimsuit, those sunglasses and a LIVE Alligator?
They had a sister shop about a block down that had sharks :) 

Apparently Dollywood employs the equivelent of half the town. It's clearly very tourism focused.
Again here I haven't heard any foreign languages. Varying degrees of southern accents, and those have all been attached to some of the friendliest people we have encountered.
Only the tourists here are, shall we say reserved - the only person who cut us off yesterday had an out-of-state license plate.

We had the chance to do an Alpine Coaster while we were here.....
You ride in go-cart style cars down a track - you can ride single or double... so hubby rode with the  boy and I rode with the little lady.

Pic of the mountain and some track... no cameras allowed on the ride

This was by far my favorite ride of the trip so far. Funny thing to say and a bit unexpected. The ride up the hill was about 5 minutes through the trees. The trip down... faster :) but just as scenic.
We were able to control the speed if needed. They encourage you to "Hammer Down" meaning go as fast as the sled goes... it has an auto brake to keep you below unsafe speeds.
Well the girls went first, and the boys were behind us. I was slightly concerned about going fast, but was very comfortable with the track and the ride, so I had every intention of going for it. However, the woman in front of me... did not. They ask you to stay at least 80 feet behind the person in front of you and say DON'T BUMP the car in front of you. But they also say DON'T STOP along the way. So I slowed down a number of times to keep an appropriate distance. But it wasn't long until the boys caught up with us. At the bottom when we went to unload the attendant asked "How bad was it?" I didn't know what he meant.... then he said "Did you have to go really slow?" Oh, Yeah, I guess so. But it was ok.
Well, he apparently realized the woman in front was slowing often [Editor's note: Not a hard realization with 5 other cars lined up behind her by the time we got to the bottom] and offered us all a 2nd ride for free. Wow. We took it. This time we knew what to expect, which is a big hurdle for me and we went "Hammer Down" all the way... Woooo HOOOOOO!!!!!!!! What a ride.
The difference between the two rides was marked. The first ride we could see and were close to the person in front of us the whole time. The second... that car was no where to be seen. I braked a bit towards the end... one of the last curves snuck up on me. It was a great ride - a must do if you come out this way.  Long swooping curves and turns, some tighter than others, but all fun. No big drops or steep downhill parts, but you definitely come down the mountain faster than you went up :)

I am so glad we got a chance to check this out.

Welcome to Georgia

We have driven through Georgia in the past, but never stayed more than however long it takes to change planes or when we drove through to Hilton Head from Orlando, years ago.
Today we spent several hours in Atlanta. The Georgia Aquarium is great. A serious contender for best aquarium I have ever been to. Beautiful exhibits. But Oy the crowds. So much so that you get assigned a specific entry time for the day of your visit. And it was packed. We were able to see it all without any issue. We didn't do any of the behind the scenes experiences, but we enjoyed out visit. I took some issue with the dolphin show (in a nutshell, if you think you need to create some crazy musical type event to make a dolphin show interesting, maybe you shouldn't be at the aquarium? When you have to warn people about the lighting effect and the fog effects before an animal show, you should just assume I am rolling my eyes.) [Editor's note: If that doesn't seem like a "nutshell" you should have heard the version she gave me...]

Beluga Whales :) 

In the Ocean Voyager Exhibit 

Whale shark and Manta Ray - Huge critters

Bye bye Whale Shark!

Watching the fishes :)

at the top of the Beluga tank.... a few harbor seals on the deck

So one thing we noticed....the whole southern hospitality thing... it's gone now. I will give the good people of Georgia (in specific, Atlanta) the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to being in a big city. But warm and friendly... not so much. No biggie, we are city folk ourselves and used to the general attitude of go Go GO! (not that WE would adopt such aggressive behavior... at least we don't mean to). But it was a bit of an abrupt switch - welcome back to reality.

Our journey wasn't over yet... Home for the night is Alabama. Yup, another state!

Welcome to Alabama

And.... drum roll please! Hubby's last state. Yes, he has now been to all 50 states!!!! Can you believe it? I think he skipped Connecticut and just won't admit it ;) [Editor's note: I have vivid memories of Connecticut... My memories of Louisiana and Mississippi are kind of hazy though...]

So we will sleep here and yes, go to Starbucks here tomorrow, before we head out :)
Oh! And we realized somewhere around the Alabama border... that Alabama is in the Central time zone.... we have been living in the Eastern time zone for two weeks now... and to dip our toe in the Central zone for only 12 hours.... well, it kind of cracked us up.
[Editor's note: And yes, we did drive ~2 hours out of our way just to spend the night in Alabama...]

You Are Here Mug count up by 1.  I got Atlanta today.

Stats:

Miles today: 365

Miles total: 2085

States Total: 12 (+Georgia, Alabama)
Starbucks Mug Total: 6
[Roller coasters total: 36 (+Alpine coaster)]

A Train, A zoo and New Jersey

East Coast Driving Trip 2015 - Day 8

We have been at this for a week now! This morning the son told me it was day 9, I smiled and reminded him we left last Friday... and that today was Friday. Oh... so its day 7 (close enough... it's our 8th travel day)

We left Hershey this morning... Goodbye Chocolate. I would be sad, but we took soo much with us, it's hard to feel like we will miss it ;)

Our first fun of the day was in Strasburg, PA, with a ride on the Strasburg Railroad. This 45 minute excursion is great. Cars are nicely refurbished and the whole trip is narrated.

Our railfan, with 475 after our trip

ready to board

picture time!

please keep your hands, arms, and heads inside the train at all times :) I love this pic of him. 

From here, we were off to Philly and probably the zoo, but we hadn't decided for sure yet. Along the way we stopped for lunch. And then we had a snag... do you hear it? the music beginning to build... something is going to happen....
Well, it wasn't anything horrible... just a window malfunction. Yup, the drivers side door window wouldn't roll up. Not gonna happen. (What music do you use for a goofy mishap?) Anyway, there we sat, with a completely workable car.. not an emergency by any means, but.. we also couldn't leave the vehicle. Hmm, this would need to be fixed, and today!

So we worked our way through the maze of the phone system from the unnamed car rental company (names are being withheld, until the author has decided how she feels about said company) and hubby connected with a real live person! In chatting they decided we should buzz over to the local rental office and just swap out cars. It was only 20 minutes away.. sounds like a fairly easy fix.

Only slightly wind-blown, we arrived at the office, located in a strip mall. The agent just happened to be in the parking lot when we got out of our car and was quite surprised the company sent us to him.... and didn't tell him we were coming (nope, I am still not naming names). He and hubby went inside to talk options and where we might be able to swap vehicles, preferably along our route today. Well, hubby is a charmer ;) and a few minutes later they emerged with a new set of keys. He had a car we could have... grated it was one "size" down from what we had, but all the windows worked and it was much newer... which means bluetooth and more cupholders. (Never underestimate the value of cupholders on a road trip with kids)
We took it! Moved all our bags over and where off.

We decided to hit the zoo after all. And had a nice couple of hours wandering through it. The Philly Zoo has a 360 theme, so several of the animal exhibits even have animals walking over you... amazing. We didn't see any of the big cats using these walk ways, but they are pretty cool.

You can see the overhead walkway the lemurs use.... maybe even the black and white lemurs inside.

Shows the larger cat walkway... also overhead, can you image looking up to see a tiger!?

Okapi, one of my favorites

Great exhibits for pictures

Maned Wolf... these are new to me, our zoo just got a pair. 

Look up... its a bear! 

On our way out of Philly we drove past Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
And I picked up the Philadelphia Starbucks You Are Here Mug... mug count for this trip: 2.

Independence Hall

More to come! 

In an attempt to catch as many states as possible on this trip we are overnighting in New Jersey.
Good night.

Stats:

Miles today: 186

Miles total: 692

States Total: 6 (+New Jersey)
Starbucks Mug Total: 2

All around the town

East Coast Driving trip - Day 3

We all slept like rocks... yay!!
That was wonderful.

So excited for the zoo and our first day in DC

Our plan today was to start at the National Zoo, then do a Hop on/Hop off style tour of the all the tourist stuff. Hopefully having time to walk through two of the Smithsonian Museums.

With a little research we decided the most efficient way to do this involved several different transportation options, starting with a taxi to the zoo.
The zoo grounds open before the buildings, so we kind of did the zoo in reverse, ending with the visitors' center.... silly us, but it worked.

We decided to eat at one of the Smithsonians for lunch, so we hit the Metro to Union Station to grab our hop on/off tour bus, or I should say "Trolley" - it was a modified bus, to look more like a trolley, but it was a bus ;)

This plan worked well for us. The kids enjoyed the Metro ride a lot, and we were able to get through half of the tour before we "hopped off" at the Museum of Natural History.
Lunch was pretty easy at the counter service style cafe they had. And we really enjoyed the exhibits.

First ride on the Metro

Yup, Scaffolding on the dome... We are told it will be ready for the next inauguration

Supreme Court

The Elephant's name is Henry... and he is undergoing some refurbishment... thus the walls
This is funny to me :)

After the Natural History fun, we planned to "Hop On" the next Trolley.... but it took a bit longer than we hoped. They say, the Trolley comes by every 30 mins. And what was the likelihood that we just missed it?
Apparently - HIGH... 25 minutes later, our Trolley pulled up. We managed to be the first in line... but no luck.
They only had room for 3... and the driver wouldn't allow us to have the youngest on a lap :(
He promised the next shuttle was "Just behind" him.

It was closer to us than he had been originally, but it was still about 10 mins out. And it only had 3 spots left - UMMMM?? However this driver was ok with a kiddo on the lap.
So we got on board. Then we had another hurdle. None of the seats were together. Oh bother.
Honestly, had our son known this going in, he might (might) have been able to muddle through, sitting next to the cute 20 something year old girl. [Editor's note: Give him a few years...] But sitting on his own.. two rows ahead of me and one row behind dad, wasn't ok. He fell apart.
He was barely keeping it together with the previous wait and then the full bus. So, his reaction wasn't a surprise to us. What was a surprise, was the kindness of a couple to give hubby and the boy their row. They sat apart and let my guys settle in - I would have hugged the women if I could have. I don't lean too heavily on the "he is Autistic" excuse, when we are out and about. But on an occasion such as this, I think I would have pulled it out. Anyway - a huge THANK YOU, to that kind couple.

So we were off to finish the tour where we left off and ride on over to the Air and Space Museum.
I think the kids enjoyed Air and Space more than Natural History. Both museums are beautiful, full of great exhibits, many of them hands-on. So we had some fun, and hopefully (fingers crossed) learned a little something, maybe?

This took us to about 5:30. And now we are all tired... 10K+ steps on our fitbits, and hungry. So we taxi'd back to the hotel. Well worth it.

I am hopeful we will all sleep well tonight.

Stats:

Miles today: 0 (well, no driving miles... but a few walking ones)

Miles total: 245

States Total: 3

Once again we head north

Not sure if it's the great exchange rate or a foolish sense of spontaneity, but we decided mid-morning to go to Canada.

On our way home to change clothes before we got on the road, we decided to pack some clothes and spend the night up north. Hubby got a great price on a room in the outskirts of Vancouver.

We grabbed some clothes etc, filled up the tank and headed north. Before we knew it we were crossing the border and the hotel was just a bit beyond that.

Our wait at the border

We checked in, threw our bag on the bed and headed back out.... Time to see them fishes! Vancouver Aquarium here we come!

Our cool room

more room pics

Even had a nice water feature outside

Parking was much much easier today than the last time we popped by. We did observe some protesters outside the aquarium. Three to be exact. They had signs and were yelling a bit. Not fans of aquariums apparently.

We were able to catch the tail end (no pun intended) of the beluga talk. Love the belugas! Then caught the talk about the porpoises. Really cute. Speaking of cute we also heard the sea otter talk.... Sooooo cute.

We haven't caught a keeper talk in forever and we all enjoyed the info a lot.

Now for the inside exhibits.

Jellyfish and octopus were highlights for me. No sea turtle today :(

With closing time around the corner and dinner starting to call we headed out.

Since we have room, we ordered spaghetti factory to go. Which allowed us to relax a bit more than dining at the restaurant.

After dinner we had some ipad time and got ready for bed.

Morning brought breakfast downstairs in the Holiday Inn Express breakfast area... they had a reasonable assortment of things, including a very interesting pancake machine... cool.

ipad time

We were hoping to hit the pool before checkout time... so we took a little time for our food to settle, then headed down to the pool. We weren't the only guests to have this idea. But it wasn't too crowded.

After the fun we cleaned up and checked out. We made two stops on our way out.
First to the Real Canadian Superstore....reminded me of a Super Target or the like. But they had some Joe Fresh branded things that I had been curious about, so mission accomplished.
Plus a few cadbury items... that we couldn't pass up.

Last stop before the border.... Tim Horton's, did you guess? It was surprising that I went this long without my beloved Honey Cruller... my willpower must be growing. But Yummm!!! Thank you Mr. Horton, I enjoyed that.

The border crossing was a little longer going than coming, but that isn't too surprising. It was apparently a holiday weekend up in British Columbia. We didn't notice to much in the way of crowds, but the aquarium was open longer, which worked out great for us.

Welcome home