Atlanta Adventure - Day One: Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Our adventure started at 5:00am at my mum's house in Calgary.  We were out the door by 6:00am, heading for the airport with Claire at the wheel.  Everything started off smoothly.  Nobody asked to look in our bags, nobody questioned me about traveling without Jose, we found our gate, and sat down to wait for our boarding call.  Just as I was telling Jose how well things were going, the computer screen describing our flight information flashed "Cancelled".  It turned out that the plane was having technical difficulties.  That was bad enough.  Worse was that the plane the night before had also had technical issues, and had to be cancelled, so now there were two flights worth of passengers stuck.  We were put on a plane that left at 2:00pm, so we had about 5 hours to kill.  At least they gave us food vouchers.  Altogether we had $28 to spend on food.  My family from Saskatchewan got stuck overnight in Toronto, and they didn't get so much as a pack of free peanuts!  They had to get their own hotel and everything.  So Air Canada is not in the good books right now.  My mum and I flew Delta.

We finally got on our plane at 2:00.  It was as a man on a cell phone near us said a "puddle jumper" that should come with "WD-40 and a shoehorn".  It was a Greyhound bus with wings.  With less leg room.  Luckily that was for our short flight. 

In Salt Lake City, we were delayed some more due to storms in the States, but this time only for 45 minutes or so.  The plane to Atlanta was much bigger, but we didn't have much more leg room than in the puddle jumper.  When we finally got to Atlanta, we had to circle over the city for 30-45 minutes because air traffic was severely backed up due to thunderstorms earlier in the day.  We touched down, and then began the tedious process of finding our luggage.  There were numerous flights all coming in at the same time, so it was a bit of a gong show.  My cousin Frances picked us up.  She'd been waiting since 10:00pm - the time our flight was supposed to land.  By the time we left the airport it was 12:30 Atlanta time.  It was then another hour to the Bowdens' house. 

It was a long, tedious day that lasted about 17 hours.  But we made it safely, and were grateful.

 
Atlanta Adventure - Day Two: Thursday, August 11, 2005
When my mum woke me up on Thursday morning, the rest of my family had arrived: the DeGirolamos, the Zulkoskeys, and Granny. 

The D's and Z's went off and toured an old plantation while my Aunt Martha, Granny, my mum, James and I all went off to see the Bowdens' church, St. Catherine's, and to go shopping. 

The church has recently been renovated, and is really gorgeous.

Our shopping destination was a bookstore called Borders, but before we went in, Granny and Aunt Martha went off to the Pottery Barn so Granny could buy a wedding gift.  My mum and I took James to Baby Gap to buy a sun hat seeing how I'd forgotten his (the only thing I forgot I hasten to add).  We got him a hat for $0.97, and swim trunks for $2.97. 

While we were in the Gap, it started to rain.  Rain in Atlanta is vastly different from rain in Lethbridge.  The thunder made the store light flicker, and the rain made puddles in the parking lot within seconds.  We waited it out a little bit, but we didn't know how long it would last, and we knew Granny and Aunt Martha would be waiting for us.  When it lightened a little, we ran for it.  Unlike here in Alberta, the rain was warm.  It was still raining quite hard, so we tried to stay as close to the buildings as we could, but we still needed to borrow a blanket from James' diaper bag to dry off.  Granny and Aunt Martha had been at the car when the rain started, and so they were much wetter than we were. 

That night, we had a nice family dinner that my Aunt Martha had made the night before, expecting all of us to be there in time for supper. 

Pictures: Vanessa and James
 
Atlanta Adventure - Day Three: Friday, August 12, 2005
On Friday, we drove to Nashville.  The scenery in that part of the world is quite something.  I couldn't get over the height of the trees and the density of the foliage.  The trees are so tall and close together that the billboards along the interstate are on incredibly long posts so they can be visible.

Once in Nashville, we went straight to our hotel where the majority of rooms weren't ready.  It was a very nice hotel with valet parking and everything.  Even James got free samples of Baby Magic stuff in his crib.  The other free hotel stuff was quite nice, although the coffee apparently wasn't great :o) 

For supper that night, we each went our separate ways.  Granny and my mum and I decided to walk to a restaurant that was nearby.  It was incredibly hot, even by suppertime, and we ended up eating back at the hotel for supper anyway because we couldn't find the one we'd been told about.  It was nice to stretch our legs after the car ride though.  James was not his usual happy-go-lucky self in the restaurant.  He decided he was crabby, and made eating rather difficult.  I ended up leaving right after I was finished so I could go to my room and feed him.

That night, we met up with the rest of the family in the hotel lounge.  It was a chance to hang out with big James a bit before the wedding.  The underage crowd (namely my cousins Vanessa, Mark and Emma) stayed behind in my room and looked after James while the adults partied. 

Pictures: Highway to Nashville, View from hotel
 
Atlanta Adventure - Day Four: Saturday, August 13, 2005
Saturday was the day of the wedding, but it wasn't until 6:00pm, so various combinations of people went off sightseeing.  My mum and I walked to the Parthenon.  It was built as part of Tennessee's centennial celebration in 1897 along with many other replications of famous sites like the pyramids.  If I remember correctly, the Parthenon was the only one built to scale, and is the only one still standing in its original place.  Most of the other structures were torn down.  Over the years, the Parthenon was finished inside (it was originally built as a temporary structure), and they added a scale model of Athena.  There's also an art gallery in the lower level.  They were showing William Wegman's prints of his weimeraners.  It was a pretty cool outing.  James wasn't overly thrilled.  He got kind of crabby so while we were looking at Athena, my mum draped a blanket over him like a parrot and put him to sleep while I looked around.  Then I watched him while she looked.

The walk home from the Parthenon was something else.  It was lunchtime, so very hot.  We stopped at a deli for lunch and some much needed air conditioning, then it was back into the heat and humidity for the remaining few blocks.  We figure it was about a 5 or 6 block trip one way. 

Back at the hotel, I went up to my room so I could put James down for a nap, and so I could shower.  My mum, who is more used to humidity having lived in St. Catharine's, Ont. went for a cool drink with her sisters. 

The wedding was a lot of fun.  It was at Cheekwood Botanical Garden.  It was supposed to be outside, but there were chances of thunderstorms so they moved it into a kind of courtyard underneath some tents.  It was still very beautiful.  Before the ceremony, there was a brass ensemble playing, and the trumpets made James cry when they played high notes. 

The ceremony was very nice, a combination of both James' and Emily's denominations.  The reception was fun.  James and Emily only had a limited amount of time because they had a plane to catch.  They were driven to the airport in a 1961 (I think) Rolls Royce.  Pretty snazzy. 

After the wedding, we all met up it my Aunt Janet and Uncle Marc's room where I had my first alcoholic beverage in a year (don't worry, I had just fed James and put him down for the night, so I knew that he wouldn't be eating for several hours).  We were highly entertained by my Uncle David and Aunt Margaret's stories of their schizophrenic neighbour and his "severely mongoloid" girlfriend.  My cousin David and I were horrified that Uncle David had used that expression, and it became the catchphrase for the rest of the week.

Pictures: Parthenon, Athena, Mini frieze, James at deli, James and James, James and David, Vows, Cutting cake, James' speech, Jen and James, 1st dance, James w/ Uncle D's cigar, Me and James, Vanessa w/ Emily's bouquet, Rolls, J and E in Rolls
 
Atlanta Adventure - Day Five: Sunday, August 14, 2005
We returned to Atlanta from Nashville on Sunday.  This time, I drove with my cousin David.  On the way home, David and I, and my mum, Aunt Martha, Frances, and her boyfriend Doug all stopped in Chattanooga for lunch at a place called the Tortilla Factory (I think).  We learned later that Mexican food doesn't sit very well with James.  He was quite gassy.  After that, we stopped at the Tennessee Aquarium which is also in Chattanooga.  There were two buildings you could go into: the Ocean exhibit, and the River exhibit.  We went into the Ocean one first, and the first things we saw were large fish and rays that you could pet (I think everyone did but me).  We went from there into a butterfly garden.  People who know me know about my difficulty shall we say with creatures that fly.  Butterflies don't bother me too much (not nearly as much as moths - yuck!!), but there were lots of people in the garden, which didn't leave me enough room to step back quickly if I needed to.  So I took a look around, took some pictures, and then James and I waited for the others outside.  The rest of the visit was really cool.  We got a couple of souvenirs in the gift shop which was incredibly well priced for a place like that.  Aunt Martha bought James a stuffed otter which he loved immediately.  By the time we got back to David's car, three out of the four paws, the nose and the tip of the tail were soaking wet!  We decided to call the otter Chattanooga.  It will be interesting to see what James calls it when he starts talking! 

That night for supper my uncle Bill grilled hamburgers (this is not called barbequing in the south - see Tuesday for a description of southern BBQ).  The D's and the Z's stayed at their hotel for supper.  I think we were all a little wiped from the 4 hour drive and our sightseeing.

Pictures: Catfish car, rays, Butterfly garden, looking at fish, shark, jellyfish, ceiling, largest sea turtle shell, alligator, Mum petting fish, David and huge fish
 
Atlanta Adventure - Day Six: Monday, August 15, 2005
Monday was a very relaxed day.  I didn't get up until noon, and then my mum, granny and I all ended up having a mid-afternoon snooze. 

Late that afternoon, the D's and Z's arrived, and a whole crew of us went swimming.  James got to try out his trunks and swimming diapers for the first time ever.  He enjoyed the pool.  I'd started bathing him by lying him down in the bathtub, and he discovered he loved kicking in water, which is exactly what he did at the pool.  It was quite fun.

Pictures: Ready to go swim
 
Atlanta Adventure - Day Seven: Tuesday, August 16, 2005
On Tuesday morning we explored some local history.  My mum, Granny, Aunt Martha, Aunt Janet and Uncle Marc and James and I visited a pre-Civil War mansion called Bulloch Hall. The mother of President Theodore Roosevelt was Mittie Bulloch and grew up in the house.  Also on the site was a reconstructed slave quarter.  James was kind of fussy during the tour, but I think that's because he was ready for a nap and wasn't able to sleep because we couldn't bring the stroller in and so had to lug him around.

That afternoon, we went to Target.  I'd never been to a Target before, and my aunt thought I was missing out on a cultural experience, so off we went.  I bought some picture frames, and a very cool Superman shirt for Jose and some incredibly cute sandals for James. 

When we returned from our shopping spree, my cousin Emma and I played with my Aunt Martha's American Girl doll.  She is an 18th century girl because my Aunt Martha's specialty is 18th century literature (that's what she got her PhD in).  Aunt Martha has a ton of cool stuff for Felicity including a bed with curtains, a table and chairs, a school desk, and a wardrobe full of clothes and knickknacks.  Emma and I had a lot of fun going through all the miniature stuff (she has a mandolin!).

For our last supper in the south, we had barbeque.  As I mentioned before, southern BBQ is different from our BBQ.  Our meal consisted of pulled pork with BBQ sauce that you ate on a bun (or roll), baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad, and ribs.  It was really delicious. 

My Uncle Bill gave rides in his new Honda S 2000.  I had my ride Monday night, and several others had theirs on Tuesday night.  Uncle Bill says that he never has a bad day at work anymore because he gets to drive home in his car.  And I can understand that.  It's a great deal of fun to go zooming around at high speed with the top down, whipping around corners and taking off like a shot.  On my ride, we drove through some neighbourhoods with the biggest houses I've ever seen in my life.  Gargantuan houses that could hold an army, but are home to only one family.  They were quite something.  I just wish I'd taken my camera with me.

Pictures: Bulloch Hall, James under a tree, playing with Felicity, the four sisters, Mum in the Honda S 2000, Honda rear view, James doing his bowing routine
 
Atlanta Adventure - Day Eight: Wednesday, August 17, 2005
It was unbelievable how fast the last day arrived.  Our plane left at 11:55 Atlanta time, and so my Aunt Martha drove us to the airport around 10:00.  Before we left, we took some pictures.  I'd been wanting to get some pictures of the foliage in Atlanta, especially the kudzu.  We just don't have plants like that here. 

Our flight home was the opposite of the one to Atlanta.  There was nothing wrong with either of the planes we flew on, and we left both airports on time.  James was a perfect flier once again.  He sat quietly for most of the trip.  In fact, he slept most of the way from Atlanta to Salt Lake City.  When he was awake, he sat for awhile in my lap playing with Chatanooga's whiskers.  He held the neck with one hand and very gently stroked the whiskers with the other.  He did it for quite awhile too, it was terribly cute. 

When we landed in Calgary, I think we set a record for time.  It took us maybe half an hour to get off the plane, go to the bathroom, go through customs and claim our luggage.  We thought it was rather funny that the only person to ask for my letter of authorization to take James out of the country was the Canadian customs agent.  Rather ironic seeing how we were bringing him back!  Jose thought it would take us much longer, so he didn't rush away from Lethbridge.  I called him around 5:30, and he was only at Claresholm, so I went with my mum and Miguel back to my mum's house to wait.   

The last leg of the journey began when Jose and his dad arrived to pick me up.  The drive back to Lethbridge was uneventful, which is always a good thing.  I would love to go back for another visit, and to see more of the tourist attractions that we didn't have time for.  I'd also love for Jose to be able to go.  I know he'd love the heat and humidity being from a tropical climate.  It was also a great opportunity to visit with family that I haven't seen in awhile, and for them to meet James.  Hopefully we don't have to wait for someone else to get married before we see each other again!

Pictures: The Bowdens' house, the three travelers, the Bowdens' neighbourhood sign, kudzu, more kudzu