8-30-17  Atlanta Botanical Garden:

Most people don't look forward to driving into Atlanta, but I don't mind having an excuse to go there.  So when Angie made flight arrangements for a Wed. afternoon, I volunteered to take her to the airport.  The Atlanta Botanical gardens happens to be pretty close to the airport.  Makes a nice diversion on the way back from dropping people off at the airport.   So we dropped her off at about 11am and headed to the gardens.  Always a nice place to take a walk---especially since my Missouri Botanical Gardens membership gets me in free here, too.
It was quite lush.  The late summer flowers were blooming.

 Last time I was here, the walkway to the chihuli light by the reflection pool was closed, so I headed that was to see if it was open now.   It's on the other side of the entrance road, so I took the bridge over.

 There's a good view of the flower lady from the bridge.

 The "curious garden" decor was still up.

 Looking down over part of the garden from part of the bridge.

 distant zoomed in view of the chihuli light.

 more summer flowers along the way

 one of the many resting areas along the way.  It was a pretty nice day today---cool and cloudy.  There were a lot of people taking advantage of the resting areas.

 The path to the chihuli was open

 The painted gourds were still all over the place around there, too.  A sign said they'll be left to deteriorate naturally.  These ones were set up to be picked up and examined.

 Love the design of this boardwalk.

 Love the mosaic design around this sitting area, too.

 a close up of the flower lady from the path below the bridge.

 more botanicals

 love these leaves.

 another sitting area.

 I headed up to the Children's garden.  Wonder if children appreciate how pretty this is?

 or this.

 some weird little things in the children's garden.

 Entrance to the children's garden.

 Love the mosaic snake on the walkway.

 I missed this the other time I was in the children's garden.   The sign said to use fingers, brushes, and water to paint on the wall.  Looks like some people also used chalk. 

 a late summer sunflower.

 heading to the exit of the Children's garden.

 so long from the children's garden.

 love the colorful coleus leaves.

 About this time it was beginning to rain, so I called Ken to come pick me up.  On my way back to the entrance, I said hi to this gal.  She reminds me of our last dog---Roxy.  If Roxy was green, she would have looked just like this!

 don't remember seeing this statue before, either.

 another pretty sitting area.

 Love this old gate.

 I cut through the Japanese Garden----the smallest one I've ever seen in a big garden.

 Checked out the Chihuli in the fountain by the library.

 and was back on the main walkway towards the exit/entrance to the gardens.

 The rain was starting to accumulate on the leaves forming sparkling gems on them.

 One last flower picture with one of the painted trees in the background. 

So many great little restaurants in the area, too.  So after Ken got me, we headed to Mary Mac's Tea House.  It is a great southern restaurant and has earned quite the reputation.  We always end up there, even though there are a lot of other interesting looking places in the area.  It was great as always.

By the time we were done with lunch, it was really raining hard.  Won't complain about that, though, we do need the rain here in Georgia---unlike the poor people in Texas who are currently dealing with Hurricane Harvey and the tropical storm afterwards!  Worst tropical rainfall in history---about 50" right now in just a couple days.  Houston is flooded and 35,000 people have been rescued and 24 are known to be dead so far.