Trip to Atlanta (Day 1)

This past weekend we made the 5 hour drive to Georgia's Capital City:  Atlanta.  The main purpose of our trip was to see some good friends, but we never want to miss an opportunity to mark one more capitol building off our list.  And since the building was closed on the weekend, we made it our first stop.  

It is way more impressive than the building we visited a few weeks ago, but then again, Georgia was one of the original 13 colonies, so it has a lot more history.  Not the least of which was its experience during the Civil War.  But, by far the kids favorite aspect was this lit up area of the floor.  They treated it like a dance floor.  Eric and I made some attempts to rein in our children's exuberant behavior until we reminded ourselves that they had just sat for 5 hours and need to expend some energy and that the building was deserted as it was after 4 on a Friday afternoon.

 I do apologize as none of my pictures do much justice to the majesty of the building.  It really was beautiful with four floors of marble stairways.  Here is the family in front of a bust of James Oglethorpe, a name I vaguely remembered from AP US History 15 years ago.

 Another highlight for the kids was a memorial to a shoe shiner. 

 Naturally everyone took turns both having their shoes shined as well as shining each others shoes.

 And here is a picture that Dom took.  Both Eric and I noticed the quote on the side that you may or may not be able to read, and were struck by it.  And I liked the artistic angle to Dom's photo, thus I have included it.
 "Democratic institutions exist by reason of their virtue.  If ever they perish it will be when you have forgotten the past, become indifferent to the present, and utterly reckless as to the future"  ~Tom Watson

And as all resourceful children are capable of doing, Molly found the best substitute for a slide available:

Next: We visit the Children's Museum and go swimming