Friday, October 17, 2008

All The Way To Georgia

My wife and I are on a brief excursion to the state of Georgia to attend the Deeper Conference (check out this post to learn more about Deeper. Also, NOTE: check out these pics from our trip. I'll be updating them each day as the trip continues.).

After leaving Saint Paul at 2:30 PM Tuesday afternoon, we arrived in Canton, Georgia at about 8:30 AM Wednesday morning. We slept for a good portion of the day on Wednesday and then we took the day today (Thursday) to check out a couple of Georgia's tourist offerings, and we had the opportunity to sit in on a live taping of Wretched, a TV show on the Family Network. Here's some brief info on each of our experiences today:

1. We started off the day at the Georgia Aquarium. Before coming to the aquarium, I had heard a lot about it: the fact that it's the biggest in the world, and boasts over 10,000 animals. Before going further, I should mention that I'm somewhat of an aquarium snob - I really like to visit aquariums for some reason. I find them very interesting. That being said, I was really disappointed in the Georgia Aquarium, probably for two reasons: a) it had been too hyped up to me - I was expecting to be blown away; b) I've been to other really nice aquariums, so I was expecting the Georgia Aquarium to surpass them. It didn't happen. The aquarium in Cincinnati is still tops on my list.

2. We then moved on to attend a live taping of Wretched. I was interested in this because I've been a fan of Way of the Master radio since its inception, and a fan of Todd Friel since even before that. Todd Friel used to be based in the Twin Cities, but then moved to Atlanta in order to do the TV show. A couple weeks ago, I received an email from the folks who were putting on the Deeper conference, and they offered Deeper attendees an opportunity to attend a taping of the show, and also a tour of the radio studios. We accepted. The taping was a lot of fun, and really interesting to watch. The show consisted of three segments, all of which Friel was able to film in one take each! He's very talented, creative, and humorous.

3. Our final stop of the day was at Stone Mountain - the largest tourist attraction in Georgia. Stone Mountain is an extremely large granite deposit - the largest exposed deposite on earth. And in the center of the mountain is carved a large relief of a few key Confederate Civil War generals. The relief is informally considered to be the Mt. Rushmore of the South. The Stone Mountain was absolutely amazing and awe inspiring. I was reminded of my visit to Devil's Tower in Wyoming, as the two attractions are very similar - a gigantic rock sticking up out of the ground for no apparent reason. Yeah, I know, that doesn't sound too amazing, but it really was incredible. There was also a lot of interesting Civil War information at the park.

The night was topped off by hanging out with one of my friends who has moved on to Greenville, South Carolina. Greenville is about 2 hours away from Atlanta, so we met in between and had a good time (my first, and probably last, experience at a sushi bar!)

As of right now, I have finally found some free time to post some pictures from the trip so far, and I am eagerly anticipating the start of the Deeper conference, which starts tomorrow (actually today!) at 1:00 PM. I can't wait (and then the 17 hour drive home!) Check back tomorrow for more pics of the conference.

P.S. This is the first time we've been away from the Fergeson for so long. We can't wait to see him! We're coming, Fergie!

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