Atlanta Day 7 - Coming Home

Before leaving, I went to the hotel gift shop one last time. All week, I had been looking at a sweater. But I hadn't bought it yet, in case I found one elsewhere I liked more.

I also realized that I didn't have an Atlanta magnet for my fridge. I had bought one every where we went, but I wanted one that just said Atlanta on it. I also bought a pen and a hot cocoa cup. I couldn't resist the little spoon that it comes with. 

Our plane was scheduled to leave at 11:30, so we left the hotel around 9:15, thinking that would give us more then enough time.  But it was Friday the 13th and we didn't have the best of luck. Russ had been using Google Maps on his phone all week to get us around Atlanta. It had worked great until today. We're still not sure what happened, but it took us on a long, scenic route instead of a direct route to the airport. 

Then, we couldn't find the car rental return. It was very poorly marked. I'm sure we were a sight. We each had our phones out, trying to find it on our GPS. Finally, we stumbled onto a sign and found our way there. But really, they should have signs hung much sooner than where it was.

Our not so good luck stayed with us. As we checked our last bag, it was too heavy. But all our other suitcases had already gone down the conveyor belt, so we had to stuff items into our carryon's to get the bag down to 50 pounds.

Then we got stopped at security. My metal bracelet set off the metal detector and Russ had his bagged pulled for further investigation. Turns out a dolphin figure looks questionable in the bag scan. 

We had already decided we were not walking the airport again, so we hopped on the airport shuttle. Turns out, our stop was the very first one. We found our gate with just enough time to spare to go buy something to eat. 

Our flight had been overbooked, so they had found a bigger plane; but that meant new seat assignments. And they made me check my carry on because there was no more room in the cabin. Our seats were spread way apart, and we all lost our window seats for middle seats! I wouldn't have minded so much, but that gal sitting by the window closed the blind for the entire flight! I wanted to ask her what is the point of the window if you close the blind. 

But after that, things went more smoothly and we arrived home safe and sound. I'm glad I was given the chance to go. 

Day 6 - Dream Cars & Medieval Times

On the last day of the conference, we only had classes until noon. Earlier in the week, Kerri and I had decided to book a massage and facial. When class was over, I went to the spa. 

I spent a few minutes in the steam room and then went back for my massage, followed by my facial. It was so relaxing and I felt wonderful after that. 

After we were done at the spa, Russ mentioned he had found online that they had a Dream Cars Exhibit at the art museum. He had been such a good sport to put up with us women, so I was willing to go. 

We didn't tour the entire museum, but we did look at a few other things while we were there. 

When we were done there, we decided to work our way to Medieval Times. It was located in a mall that was about an hour away from where we were (given the traffic!). 

We were there plenty early, so we decided to walk around the mall. It was HUGE. Its actually split into "neighborhoods" inside to better help you find your way around and to help you know where you parked. 

I was thrilled to find a Bass Pro Shops inside. I didn't spend much time inside because I needed to find the others, but I did take a picture of their mountain display and then I found a few t-shirts for Josh. 

My other favorite store was the Lego store; I had never seen one before. 

After our shopping was done, we headed back to Medieval times for dinner. 

I had never been before, so it was a new experience for me. The food is served medieval style, which means no silverware! We had tomato soup (which we drank), chicken and ribs and half a potato (which we ate with our hands) and desert was an apple turnover. 

It was so much fun, I could resist buying just one more gift for each of the nephews.