10-17-17  breakfast with our overnight guests and off to Atl Botanical Gardens with Angie:

Ken's brother Rick and his wife, Sue, made it here about 6 pm last night.  Just in time to meet up with Angie and Josh at Universal Joint for dinner.  Dinner and visiting was great.  Until we  went to drive away.  Ken noticed the side mirror was bent in, but didn't think too much about it.  He fixed it and we started to leave when a lady came over waving her arms.  Turned out she had backed into our car and left about a 5" long shallow dent in the drivers door.  We were in the 2009 Taurus instead of our new Edge only because Rick and Sue had parked behind the Edge.  Glad they did! She wants to pay to have it fixed and had someone she recommended.

 (We did take the car to the guy she recommended.  He said it would be over $350 and suggested having a paintless dent removal person look at it since he said the pearl paint is hard to match.  So we took it to a PDR place and was told because of where the dent is, he couldn't fix it.  Ultimately we called the gal back and thanked her for staying and telling us about the dent and we weren't going to have it fixed.  We suggested that if she wanted, she could make a donation to her favorite charity in whatever amount she wants.  Nice to know there are still people out there who take responsibility for their actions!  If it was our new car, it would be a different outcome, but fortunately we were in our 2009 Taurus that night).

Anyway----
Today we headed to Sugarhill Diner for breakfast with Rick and Sue.  They still had a 10 hour trip to get back to their place in Washington, Mo., so we visited over breakfast, then they took off from there.

 I took off shortly after that to play an hour of pickleball, then over to Angie's to head to South of Atlanta with her.  She won an auction for a piece of furniture and had to go there to pick it up.  Only problem was---the "buffet" was too large to fit into her Explorer!  (So she rented a van the next day and Ken went with her to pick it up.)



As long as we were going that far, we also planned to go to the Atl Botanical Gardens.   So we headed into the city and to the garden.

 Just like at their garden in Gainesville, there was a scarecrow exhibit in the garden.

 Plus we got in free with our memberships. 

 The first scarecrow to greet us.

 Cute

 I thought there hanging ornaments were really cute.

 cute witch face.

 Game of Bones scarecrow---

 girl scout?  or boy scout?  or scout?  or ????

 Love the way these flowers cluster.

 We got to see them setting up lights for Xmas time.

 There were even workers hanging around in the trees putting up lights.

 The painted gourds from an earlier exhibit.  They're to be left there to deteriorate.  Looks like they're starting to do that.

 One of the permanent Chihuly pieces.

 a different view of the Chihuly piece.

 still a lot of green in the garden.

 the flowers were all gone from this gal.

 pretty leaves.

 I was surprised to see these blooming.  I thought they just bloomed in the late spring.

 back to the area where the scarecrows are.

 Had to include this one---Neptune.

 cute doggie skeletons

 can't believe this would take 1st place out of all the scarecrows.

 Loved this one

 even these Potatoe Heads were cute.

 Angie told me who these were, but I forgot---some movie I've never seen.

 looking towards the orchid building with the city in the background.

 walkway to the new city view area (even though there really isn't a city view here!)  Love the way the walkway was lined with pumpkins.

 These remind me of the stacked rocks all over Hawaii.

 another view of the orchid house.

 There are a ton of these insect eating plants in front of the orchid house.

 more inset eating plants on our way up to the orchid house.

 love the way this grass grows.

 inside the orchid house.   They still have the orchid decorated chandeliers hanging around.

 heading into the orchid room.

 such unique species.

 a wide angle view on the orchid room.

 more unique orchids

 Love the markings on these plants!  REmind me of painted Mexican pottery.

 more interestingly marked leaves.

 Love the color of this orchid.

 and these

 and these.

 never seen these blooming before---I didn't know they were a flower.

 wonder what these are?!

 back out to the lawn in front of the orchid house.  Wonder if these painted trees from the Curious Garden exhibit are going to remain as permanent features.

 water lily in front of the orchid house.

 heading into the covered walkway

 I found it really interesting how these vine flowers are growing up on the painted trees.  Makes it look like they're blooming.

 2 different focuses of the same thing.

 Love her hair and face.

 another cute name---"scared crow"

Nice to finally get to walk through the garden when the weather is so nice.  Usually it's really hot and humid.  Today our high was about 68, but with the full sunshine it felt great.  Only thing that would have made it better is if we'd had our hats with us!