Spring Break ~ Atlanta! ~ Day 2

We're continuing on Day 2 of our Spring Break trip, where we visited the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum and the Georgia Capitol.

Here is part of our tour group arriving at Atlanta’s Historic Grant Park on a beautiful spring morning:Our group gathered by the stone wall to listen to a lecture by historian, Bill Potter, before we continued on to the Cyclorama:Bill Potter speaks on the Battle of Atlanta to our group:Just before we left this area, one of the tour participants set the stage by singing Dixie: Below, we're headed into the Cyclorama, which is located right next door to the Atlanta Zoo. The  lines for the Zoo were filled with moms and children on spring break and were extremely long...but not a problem at the Cyclorama, and we were able to walk right in:Here's a closer picture below of the entrance to the Cyclorama:Inside the museum we experienced an amazing cylindrical panoramic painting of the Civil War Battle of Atlanta. You can read more about it here.

Sarah wanted to take a picture by a cannon inside the museum to send to Jonathan since he wasn't with us on this trip: On display...this steam locomotive known as the Texas, made famous by the Great Locomotive Chase of 1862. Tom is a Civil War history buff, and I'm sure he enjoyed himself on this tour! Okay, time for lunch break! We headed back to our cars and joined the downtown Atlanta traffic to make our way to the Georgia Capitol: Here we are walking through Liberty Plaza. The day could not have been more beautiful! We made our way to Capitol Commons, a cafeteria located across from the State Capitol, and used by legislators, lobbyists, state employees, downtown employees and visitors to Capitol Hill every day--over 9,400 people each week! We enjoyed a new-to-us Southwestern Grill--Barberitos! Yummy Mexican food!After lunch we all gathered on the front lawn of the Capitol for the afternoon lecture by Mr. Potter:I wish I had taken notes, but I was too busy taking pictures! Mr. Potter tells so many interesting stories in his talks.

Here he is in front of John Brown Gordon's statue, and you can learn more about John B. Gordon, one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted Confederate generals, here and here:Tom and the girls enjoying the afternoon outside:All the families on the tour had their picture taken in front of John Gordon's statue, and here's ours: This statue below of Joe Brown (42nd governor of Georgia) and his wife holding a Bible on her lap is one of the few husband-and-wife statues in the world. You can read about him here and here:Okay, let's go inside the Capitol for some history lessons there: Here's the group learning about the various pictures and statues inside the halls of the Capitol. The portrait on the left is of John Gordon, mentioned above as being on the horse statue on the lawn: You would think that after being a home-schooling mom for 17 years that I would be familiar with history studies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, but I'd never heard of this Georgia legislator below. Now I don't think I'll ever forget him because of his unusual first name!

We learned about Button Gwinnett, whose signature is one of the rarest and most valuable of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Here's his bust in the Georgia Capitol:At the conclusion of the tour, we were free to explore the Capitol on our own. Mostly, we gathered in groups to chat and say our goodbyes to others we had met on the tour:All in all, it was a wonderful two touring days full of history!

~Deb

Also in this series: Spring Break ~ Atlanta! ~ Day 1

Next Up: Spring Break ~ Atlanta! ~ Day 3

Comments

[victoria]

Deb, you and Hannah took some great photos! I'm enjoying looking at all these and remembering the fun week.

Victoria

[Toni]

Hi Deb!
Love the photos from your trip. I especially like the staircase at the Capitol. Looks like it's completely marble. Beautiful! Have a great weekend!

[Dawn]

What a wonderful day for history lovers!!! I had not heard of Gwinnett either! Interesting. Enjoy the rest of your trip!

[Tammy C]

We had never heard of Button Gwinnett until moving here.A well kept Georgia secret.