Atlanta's Museum of Natural History

Atlanta, Georgia... I had to travel back to Atlanta for the second time in two weeks. The drive was made more difficult by large stretches of construction on the interstate. It is always amazing to me that so many drivers ignore the construction signs and blast past the road crews just feet from melding chrome bumpers and tire tread with soft tissue and human skulls.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g60898-Activities-Atlanta_Georgia.html

Trying to stay awake , I popped in a book on CD. Though an interesting book, blending fiction and history of the 17th century, it lost a bit in translation from Spanish to English.

At times I felt my head drop just in time to jolt me awake. Fortunately I made it to Atlanta safely with no damage to me or anyone else.

Fernbank Museum of Natural History

Once again I found myself with time to fill. The Fernbank was only 10 minutes from the hotel and two hours would be more than enough time to see the entire museum.


http://www.fernbankmuseum.org/

Although it bills itself as "Smithsonian South" it does not quite pull it off where the bones hit the proverbial road. As you enter the octagon shaped great hall a 123 foot long Argentinosaurus dinosaur stands as the overseer of the Fernbank. Hanging from the ceiling is a flock of Pterodaustro and Anhanguera are tucked into three corners.

Of the three levels of the museum the Entry Level has the most interesting exhibit. "A Walk Through Time In Georgia" is a journey through lifelike geographic regions and prehistoric times of Georgia. The exhibit includes, the modern day sights and sounds of the Okefenokee swamp, a cave, a giant sloth and a dinosaur gallery. A group of wild turkeys first caught my curiosity with their life like appearance. Not to mention it was getting close to lunch time and the thought of turkey only tantalized my pallet. Much of the exhibit was educational in nature and is excellent for younger students.

There is also an I Max Theatre with a five story high by 72 feet wide screen, a cafe and a museum store. The Fernbank Museum of Natural History is a great place to take the younger kids, but I think your older teenagers may be a little bored.

Atlanta Zoo Is No Monkey Business

Atlanta, Georgia... I had several hours to between meetings and it was a beautiful cool spring day. Although I am in Atlanta quite often I had never been to the zoo.

( http://www.zooatlanta.org/home.htmme.htm ) So I used this opportunity to do the zoo. Most of the zoos around the world that I have been to, U.S., Canada, Germany even India each gave me one special memory. In Berlin it was baby lions that my kids were able to hold in their excited young hands, in New Delhi it was White Tigers, long before they became the rage in magic shows. For evermore Atlanta will be gorillas.

This particular day it could be said was bad timing on my part. Approximately 30,000 Atlanta school children were disembarking their yellow buses as I approached the front gates of the Atlanta zoo. My plan to beat the crowds was to go left since most were going right. I would miss herds of screaming snot nose kids. Wrong! The zoo is not all that big and the kids were overflowing the grounds. I swear they were multiplying as they yep and hollered at the meerkats and panda. It seemed like I had no escape. So I relented and pushed my way through the runts. Hey! I had a camera, I needed to get in close to animal enclosure. So as I attempted to balance against the fence in front of the gorilla enclosure small hands tugged at my pants legs and bumped my arm as I missed a great shot. But slowly my surroundings faded as I was totally immersed in the lives of the gorillas before me. I was up close and could almost reach out for a quick stroke of the course hair of a silverback male. He stood as a majestic overseer of their encampment. The Atlanta Zoo is probably not the highest ranking zoo in the country ( only my opinion) but the Gorilla Enclosure is more than meeting any one's expectation on how to manage animals in captivity. This is proven by the shear activity of the animals , male displays of running and beating their chest, the interaction of the females and their young and the shear joy of the young playing with each other and the adults. This was the most active group of gorillas I have ever seen.

The old silverback male was Ozoum, a Western Lowland Gorilla. At forty-eight years old he is nearing the end of the average life span of fifty years for a captive gorilla. As he made his way through the enclosure you could sense the respect the other 22 gorillas had for him.

The family interactions were remarkable to witness.

Kali practicing his karate moves.

The twins, Kali and Kazie were having great fun wrestling. Much of their play serves their education for the future. Hard to believe that cute playful Kali will grow to over three hundred pounds and could snap my neck with his pinkie finger.

Mom enjoying the moment.

While I have been to many zoos which in total are better than the Atlanta Zoo, I believe the Atlanta Zoo's gorilla exhibit is the best I have seen. Thank you for such a delight, Atlanta!

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

RICK-DA-SCALE

Here I will give my humble uneducated opinion of the places I have been. On a scale from 1-10 where 10 is nirvana and 1 is equal to having your right eye stuck with a hot poker while the left eye is forced to watch book reviews on C-Span.

Location_____________Rating____________________Comment

Atlanta______________ 6___________________Too many cars and people

Zoo_________________8___________________Gorilla Exhibit

Restaurants___________7___________________You can find any type

Accommodations_________7__________________Downtown Location

(Holiday Inn Select, Capitol Center)