Dinosaur Explore (and Lots of Other Stuff) at Stone Mountain

Today (the last day of Anna's and the girls' spring break) we went to Stone Mountain to (among other things) see their current Dinosaur Explore attraction ("New & Only in 2017" the Web site tells us). The girls were a little nervous about seeing the dinosaurs, so we started at the Historic Square, formerly called the Plantation:

This is Jessica taking a picture of Elyse with Mommy's cell phone; maybe later I'll get that picture and post it here:

This is me taking a picture of me:

There was an Easter Clown Bubble Lady there, who delighted Elyse and bothered Jessica:

At this point, Elyse and Mommy were actually leaving Dinosaur Explore near the end of our visit, but I put it here first as a kind of establishing shot:

Jessica, the Dino Ranger (no relation to our own Jessica), greets people as they enter Dinosaur Explore. Here she's posing for a picture with somebody else's kids (I cropped the other kids out because I wouldn't want some strange guy posting pictures of MY kids on his blog):

Inside there are lots of roaring life-size animatronic dinosaurs, slowly swishing their tails and turning their heads and, in some cases, opening their jaws to reveal large, pointy teeth which could be scary if the jaws didn't open so slowly and with such clockwork regularity; they alternately frightened and intrigued the girls:

Inside what used to be the Great Barn there is now a dino-themed play area called the Dinotorium, which was crowded and noisy and all the things Jessica hates, so I wasn't inside any longer than it took to take this picture and get dragged out (which was about long enough for me, frankly):

After seeing the dinosaurs, we got candy in the Crossroads candy store (one of our traditions), and sat outside the train depot to eat it:

Fort Yargo Living History Society 18th Century Market Faire

This afternoon we drove twenty miles north to Fort Yargo State Park to wander around for a while at the Fort Yargo Living History Society 18th Century Market Faire. (It was kind of like a renaissance festival set four hundred years later.)

The girls each picked out a fan to buy:

I don't know if any of the plates and pottery were actually made by this vendor or not, but they were beautiful:

I believe much of the live music was provided by the Gwinnoters, the Gwinnett chapter of the North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association; I'm not sure if the banjo and harp and fiddle (not being dulcimers) are part of that group or not:

This lady was cutting silhouettes:

This is me. Since I'm usually the one taking the pictures, I'm often underrepresented on this blog; now that I take most of my pictures with my cell phone, which has a "selfie cam," that is changing:

I'm pretty sure this is the "1792 log fort built by settlers for protection against Creek and Cherokee Indians" that the park's Web site describes, though it doesn't look like the forts I remember seeing on "F-Troop" when I was growing up (which was also around 1792, I believe):

You know who this is:

Sleeping In

Elyse has been sick with a bad cold, and when she's sick she wants to sleep in the big bed with Mommy. I sleep on the sofa, which I rather enjoy every once in a while, because I stay up half the night reading and/or watching TV.

Today, Sunday morning, there's no Sunday school because this coming week is Spring Break, so they are really sleeping in! Jessica has been up for who knows how long, in her bedroom watching YouTube or Netflix on Mommy's iPad, and I've been up for an hour and a half, but these two, along with the cats, just keep on sleeping. Good for them!

STEAM Night at JC Magill

Tonight we went to STEAM Night at the girls' school to participate in some Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics activities, and also to eat ices from one of the food trucks parked out front. (I wish I hadn't had supper at home so I could have gotten something from the Mac the Cheese truck.)

That's Mrs. Elrod helping the girls make their paper airplanes; three years ago, she was Jessica's first grade teacher:

(She was trying to make the Eiffel Tower, but it wouldn't stand up.)

Jessica is the Frank Lloyd Wright of toothpick-and-marshmallow design:

This stack of books wasn't part of any STEAM activity, I just liked the looks of it. Coincidentally, this classroom is Ms. Redd's, Elyse's Kindergarten teacher, though she was in another room tonight.

Destination Park

This afternoon, Anna took the girls to Destination Park, the park/playground near our house, and the girls took their camera. I got a few of those pictures--all taken by Jessica, which is why they mostly show Elyse--and am posting them here:

Lenox with Pearl

I met Pearl at Lenox today, and I took some pictures while she was looking in the jewelry stores.

(I took a lot more pictures than that, these are just the two I chose to post.)

A Drive South on 441

Today, the next to the last day of my 2017 Spring Break, I went on a little drive. I wanted to revisit the drive I used to do regularly from 2004 to 2006 when Anna and I lived in Madison and I went to graduate school in Milledgeville; I wanted to see how much had changed in the last decade, and if it was as pleasant a drive as I remembered.

It wasn't.

It wasn't bad, really, but I love the drive north on 441 so much more--up into the mountains, into North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Tennessee--that the drive south through Madison and Eatonton into Milledgeville just seemed like a commute rather than a drive.

I did stop at two different Wal Marts, which says something about what a mundane traveler I can be, but I also stopped at Rock Eagle, and managed to have lunch at a good local barbecue place in Milledgeville. I also went into the new GCSU bookstore in Milledgeville, which has as much floor space devoted to college T-shirts as to books (except for the textbook area downstairs), and debated trying to remember where the English department is but decided not to bother.

The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus is said to have proclaimed that "no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man." Some old rivers, like Twain's Mississippi, are worth returning to because both they and we have grown in new and interesting ways. Some old rivers, however, like my former commute down 441, are perhaps best left in the fondly-remembered past.