Greg and I had quite the Atlanta adventure this weekend! (Thank goodness for the Internet so we could watch part of
General Conference at our hotel, and then we can catch up on what we missed now that we are home.) The fun began on Friday when we stopped at
Fort Donelson National Battlefield just west of Clarksville, Tennessee. It's actually kind of in the middle of nowhere, but the drive to get there was beautiful. Fort Donelson was the site of the first major victory for the Union Army during the Civil War. It was also where General Ulysses S. Grant earned his nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The site of Fort Donelson is located right on the banks of the Cumberland River in a very pretty setting--it probably wouldn't have been as pretty with the Union ironclads sending "iron valentines" (the attack was on February 14) to the Confederates, but the setting is really pretty today.
After our stop at Fort Donelson, we headed on to Atlanta. We stopped at our hotel and then went and met up with our friends David and Teal at a fun restaurant for a little pre-wedding celebration. Our friends Rose and Chris from St. Louis were there too, so it was really great to catch up with all of them. On Saturday morning Greg and I ventured out into downtown Atlanta and ended up at my new favorite tourist destination: the
World of Coca-Cola. It was an
awesome place!! They had a lot of stuff about the history of Coke, which was originally intended to be a medicinal drink, and they had a lot of fun memorabilia on display.
But the BEST part of the tour is the tasting room where you get to sample 60 different Coke products from all over the world. It doesn't get any better than all you can drink Coke! The worst product was called Beverly, from Italy. It tasted like ear wax. But all of the other drinks were really tasty. My favorites were this watermelon soda from China and Apple-Kiwi Fanta from Thailand (Lindy, I thought of you!). But, out of all of the drinks from all over the world, I think that my
very favorite is still Vanilla Coke from the U.S.A. They also had a really great gift shop there where we purchased some new accessories for our retro-themed kitchen.
After Coke World, we went back to the hotel and listened to General Conference while getting ready for the big wedding. Our friends David and Teal used to live in Springfield (David worked at the Lincoln Home), and the four of us had a lot of fun adventures together. Greg and I were
really sad when they moved to Atlanta for Teal's job with the CDC, but we were happy to get to see them this weekend. The wedding was held at Zoo Atlanta. I have never been to a wedding at a zoo before, and it was quite exciting.
They had a really nice wedding ceremony in a beautiful setting amongst the trees. The only problem was that the trees were overlooking the Gorilla Habitat, and right when David and Teal were reciting their vows to each other, the gorillas started getting mad about something! It made everyone laugh. One of the gorillas was even pounding his chest. Maybe he was jealous of David.
Part of the wedding events included a "private gorilla feeding." So after the wedding ceremony, we all went into this building right inside the Gorilla Habitat. They threw bamboo stalks to the gorillas, and it was really fun to watch their mannerisms as they chowed down on dinner. Our favorite part was seeing Baby Henry, pictured here with his mom. He was just born earlier this year, and he was
adorable!! A couple of the "teenage" gorillas were quite the show-offs and put on a show for all of us. We had a lot of fun watching them, and I think we were all glad that we didn't have to feed the gorillas ourselves, nor were any of us fed to them :-)
After the gorilla feeding, we had a really nice dinner and some tasty wedding cake. Here we are with David and Teal who both looked really nice for their special day! It was a very nice evening, and Greg and I enjoyed being a part of the festivities. We did get a little lost on our way out of the zoo that night. We were afraid we would end up with the lions, and we did wake up and anger some flamingos, but we ended up making it out all right :-) On Sunday morning we headed back home. We had a fun stop in Carbondale to visit that Agates, and then it was on to Springfield where we discovered that the Spikes had escaped from the enclosure we had rigged up for them in the kitchen, so the house was kind of a mess. Both of the dogs looked very guilty. It reminded us of the YouTube sensation, "
Guilty Dog"--this video is so funny! We decided that it was Little Spike's idea to break out, and Big Spike was the muscle who actually broke out. But the house is clean now, so all is well.
Before going inside I wanted to take some pictures. We snapped this one facing south in the parking lot just as the tornado sirens started going off. You can see that the storm is sending down some "feelers." My weather radio was saying that the tornado was coming from the south, so we're pretty sure that this was the storm that prompted the first warnings. 
As the storm moved over us, the clouds started looking all crazy. In the very middle of this picture you can kind of see a funnel cloud trying to form. At this point Greg and I decided that we should go inside. Some people coming out of the mall said that the mall was closing because of the tornado--they said that people were being forced to leave the building! That didn't sound right, so we went in anyway, and people weren't really being kicked out. Some stores had put their gates up, but the building itself wasn't closed--luckily. So we were down on the bottom level of the mall for a little while, but I was getting kind of nervous since I wasn't able to see what was going on. 
By the time we went back upstairs, the first storm had blown over, but now there was this SECOND storm blowing in from the southwest--which prompted another tornado warning. So we went back inside, and within just a few minutes we could hear the hail hitting the skylights in the mall. The weather radio was saying that there were reports of golf ball sized hail in Springfield! We ended up being at the mall for about another hour because as soon as one warning would expire, another would be issued. Finally at about 7:15 p.m. we left the mall (we had gotten there at about 5:30), even though there was still a bit of a thunderstorm going on. The sky was literally green--but we could tell that the worst had passed over us. We drove back home and found the animal children were fine, although a little freaked out. There was a line of pea-sized hail around our doorway (luckily is was not golf ball sized!). It turns out that the only reported damage so far was from up in Athens. When Greg and I first left our house and heard all of the warnings of tornadoes surrounding Springfield, we had talked about driving up to Athens--but luckily we didn't! After all of this excitement Greg and I were pretty worn out and hungry, so we went out for a stake dinner. We are glad that tornadopalooza is over.
In other news, on Wednesday I got to go to Metamora Courthouse State Historic Site to do an artifact inventory with Linda. We had so much fun! The courthouse is a very historic building. Abraham Lincoln used to visit Metamora as a lawyer, so we even got to see some Lincoln artifacts. Speaking of Abraham Lincoln, I'm afraid that the Lincoln Home will be closed indefinitely as of tomorrow because of the looming government shutdown. The rangers got everything ready to close down today. That is sad. Hopefully the government can get it together soon.
