A Case of the Mondays

I often feel that Mondays are catch up days. Somehow over the weekends, everything around here goes to hell in a handbasket. Laundry goes undone. Dishes aren't kept up as well as during the week. The kids' room is a disaster. And if we were on the go all weekend, even though I can have the car on Mondays, I crave staying home and putting things back in order.

It was a busy weekend. On Saturday we made our farmer's market run and brought back a fridge full of fruits and veggies. There were other errands to run, and we did some swimming in the pool. At some point we got to talking about what the plan would be for Sunday, and an impromptu trip to Callaway Gardens and Atlanta was born.

So, our Sunday Adventures! On the way out we met our duck friends, looking for food as usual. These are the same ducks that loiter outside our breezeway, probably because we almost always feed them. Not wanting to drive over them, I ended up getting out of the car and luring them away while Eric backed out.

Callaway Gardens is about 30 minutes from Columbus, near Pine Mountain, GA. It's a huge place, complete with a resort and spa, several lakes, biking trails, a nice beach, and a bunch of other stuff. It would be a great place for visitors, hint hint. This is the Discovery Center, and behind us is one of the lakes.

We happened to be just in time for the Raptor Show. It was kind of short, but the presenter explained that it's hard to get the birds to do much of anything because it's so hot. We did get to see and learn about a red tailed hawk, a great horned owl, and this big guy, a vulture. The presenter did a nice job, we learned a lot. For example, do you know why the vulture's legs look white? Their legs are actually black like the rest of their feathers, but they pee all over themselves and the uric acid stains their legs white. Don't worry, their pee also cools their legs down as it evaporates. Yay!

Lunch break! I packed us some goodies, and it's a good thing because by lunchtime we were starving. I should mention, it's nearly impossible to get these two yahoos to stand together, both look at the camera at the same time, and smile. This would be why there are so many pictures of the backs of their heads.

After lunch, we went to what was probably Reese's favorite part of the trip, the Butterfly House. You can see cocoons in the main building, and then there's a greenhouse where you can hang out with many different kinds of butterflies, including Reese's favorite, the Blue Morpho. Callaway Gardens hosts a Blue Morpho Butterfly month in September, so I'm sure we'll be going back for that.

We found a butterfly!!! They were all over the place, and of course the kids really got into it. This is why I often say that Reese is hard on clothes.

After the butterfly house, we made our way to Robin Lake, where there is a really nice white sand beach. And when I say beach, I mean it's a freaking huge beach. On one part of the beach there were a bunch of inflatable water bounce houses, a slide, great stuff for older kids. The part of the beach we swam at had a huge fountain. If you got tired of swimming, you could go up the hill and play shuffle board, ping pong, or horseshoes. I think it would be easy to find a patch of grass to set up Kubb.

Reese and Eli, always ready for anything!

After we finished up at the beach, we continued on to Atlanta. The main purpose for the trip was Trader Joes and Whole Foods. There are some things I just can't find in Columbus, and Eric is nice enough to indulge me with a trip to Atlanta for vegan food stuffs now and then. After I got all my vegan goodies, we decided to find a restaurant. And find one we did! Green Sprout is a vegetarian Asian restaurant: www.greensproutga.com Everything on the menu is vegetarian, and most items are easily made vegan if they aren't already. It's a mock meat paradise! I can't even recall a restaurant that I've eaten at since going vegan where I could order nearly anything off the menu. The food was delicious, and it was a nice, laid back place to take rowdy, sweaty children. I'll definitely be back as I was geekily excited about the menu.

All in all, an excellent trip! We counted 10 dead armadillos, one dead bobcat, and a dead coyote, in case anyone wanted to keep track of carnage. No pictures...I might be able to get Eric to pull over on a residental street, but neither of us is going to be pulling over on a highway. Kids were exhausted and sleep came pretty fast. I can't wait until our next trip!