Visiting the Atlanta Botanical Garden Part 2

On Monday I shared Part 1 of our visit to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Today I'm going to share the orchid house and the rest of the Alice's Wonderland exhibit! 

It's always interesting checking out the orchids at a botanical garden; it's amazing how many varieties there are! And the Alice's Wonderland sculptures were so fun! 

Visiting the Atlanta Botanical Garden Part 1

At the end of August me and my mom decided to take a short trip down to Atlanta. There was two different events going on that I had wanted to go to, and it was my mom's birthday, so we figured it was the perfect time for a quick trip! We have driven through Atlanta, but had never been to Atlanta, so we were interested in checking it out.

The first thing I wanted to go to was the Alice's Wonderland exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Both my mom and I enjoy visiting botanical gardens and miss visiting the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

There really wasn't too much in bloom this time of year but there was still plenty to look at. I had just a little too many pictures to put into one post, so I just decided to make two shorter posts, so I'll share the rest of our visit on Wednesday!

We visited the gardens on a Sunday in the late afternoon so the weather wasn't too bad. We had been having a miserably hot and humid summer, so I had wanted to wait until after the sun had started to go down a little bit before we visited. It was hot but not unbearable. And the garden had a fair amount of people but wasn't crowded, which was nice. 

We had never seen garden sculptures before (like the Earth Goddess and the Alice exhibits) so those were very interesting to see! They're made of steel framing and annuals.

Do you enjoy visiting botanical gardens?

Visiting the Harvest Festival at Dollywood

Last month, me, my mom, and my sister decided to take a trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. At the beginning of September my sister had gotten back from living in Germany for the past year, and she was in between waiting to get into her new apartment so she decided to come down to visit. She wanted to take a trip so we discussed a few ideas before deciding on Pigeon Forge. She had visited the area a couple of summers ago and liked it so much she recommended it to me and my parents, and we visited last year. 

For some reason me and my mom thought it was farther away than it actually was but it's only about a 2 1/2 hour drive. (Longer right now because a large section of I-40 is closed due to Hurricane Helene. But we visited before that happened.)

Anyways, my sister had started checking out Dollywood and decided she wanted to go so we did that! There was a pretty good discount going on so we were able to take advantage of that. We went on a Thursday (Sept 12 to be exact.) and it was not very busy at all. There was very few people there which made it very nice.

We arrived shortly after the park opened and started to wander through the park. We really enjoyed seeing all of the fall decorations! All of the pumpkin decorations were so fun and cute!

We stopped off for a loaf of their famous cinnamon bread with a side of apple butter then sat at a table and enjoyed it. We then continued on our way, enjoying exploring the park and the fun decorations. My sister was excited about the roller coasters, so she would ride on those while me and my mom waited for her. Being that there was so few people there my sister was able to go on a roller coaster and then get right back on again! I think the longest she waited was maybe one or two ride rotations before she could go again. My sister's favorite roller coasters were the Big Bear Mountain and the Wild Eagle. I think she rode each of those 3 or 4 times!

Once my sister decided she had had enough of the roller coasters it was about time for lunch, so we stopped at Red's Drive In. They had several restaurants but we just wanted something quick and the restaurants didn't really serve food we were interested in (mostly Southern cooking.). But Red's was good. We got burgers and fries which weren't too bad. Prices weren't too bad either for an amusement park.

After lunch it had started sprinkling, so it was the perfect time to visit the Dolly Parton Experience, which was an interactive experience that walked you through her career. Also in the park was Dolly's tour bus and a replica of her childhood home. There was also plenty of shops to walk through which we did as well.

We arrived at the park at about 10am and left around 4pm, so we spent a good chunk of the day there. We enjoyed the park. We definitely picked the perfect time to visit, I would not want to go during the summer! One lady we talked to while we were there said that it is absolutely insane during the summertime! So I'm glad we were able to visit when we did!

Have you ever been to Dollywood? Or do you like visiting amusement parks?