Atlanta: Part IV

We finished up at the Aquarium earlier than we had expected so we decided to start with our list of activities for the next day.  We headed to Sweet Auburn.  Here we are in front of a beautiful mural depicting the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

We went on a tour of the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  We learned that the King family ate dinner together every night.  The children came to the table after memorizing a verse of scripture to recite to the family.

The Ebenezer Baptist Church is the church that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his father both preached from.  I didn't realize that it is also the place where his mother was assassinated.

After touring several of the museums on site in Sweet Auburn, we made a stop at Thelma's Kitchen for some Southern cooking.  We didn't realize it was just a lunch place but made it in just before they closed.  We got some friend chicken and red velvet cake to go.  We drove over to Piedmont Park and enjoyed our dinner on a park bench.

The next morning we decided to go to the Atlanta Cyclorama.  They cyclorama is the world's largest oil painting and it depicts the Battle of Atlanta during the Civil War.  We entered a theater to view the painting, as the battle was narrated the seats moved in a circular motion so we could see all 360 degrees of the painting.   We toured the museum after and saw one of the trains from the Great Locomotive race.

Our next stop was the Atlanta History Center located in the ritzy Buckhead suburb of Atlanta.  We visited the Smith Family Farm an 1840s plantation house.

Here Seth is checking out the well.

Check out the cotton growing in the background.

This place also had a triple seated outhouse...a huge thing in the 1840s

Our next stop was the Swan House a mansion built in 1928 for the Inman family.  We couldn't take pictures inside...wish we could so you could see the amazing black and white marble floor and the woodwork in the library.

This is a shot of the front of the house...it was a grand entry with fountains and gardens.

We also found a house we would like to purchase.  We know it's not much but this little house is about all we can afford right now.  It looks bigger from the inside, you'll just have to trust us.  Seriously...I always wanted a little playhouse like this.  I know our nieces and nephews would have loved playing in it.

They also would have fit into the chairs a little better than Seth did.

We also visited several museum displays inside the Atlanta History Center.  It was a lot to see and we became slightly overwhelmed.  We visited the Centennial Olympic Games Exhibition, Down the Fairway with Bobby Jones Exhibition, The American Civil War Exhibition, Metropolitan Frontiers Exhibition, and Southern Folk Art Exhibition.  Then we drove home...after sitting in traffic.

We both agreed that Atlanta was fabulous...as long as you didn't want to be where everyone else wanted to be.  Which often involved getting up early and going home late.  We will see if the traffic treats us any better on our next trip to Atlanta.