botanical garden blackout

this weekend, with our friends from out of town staying with us, we did something we rarely do. We went to a “tourist locale” on a weekend. Not only that, we went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. While in the past we would journey to the gardens on a weekly basis, we would never go on a weekend. And never past 11am on a weekday. Parking was just too complicated, and public transit near impossible.

However, the garden was finally able to accomplish the extremely controversial proposal of building a parking deck. The parking problem is now no longer an issue. But the garden was not without its problems on Sunday morning. After we parked (hello, people, learn how to drive in a parking deck — why hold up a line of ten cars waiting for a parking place that is 6 spaces closer to the elevator?), we were greeted by an elevator that was out of service.

As we approached the new-to-us entrance, the line was surprisingly long. Was this a sign that the garden was going to be overcrowded already? We soon learned that the computers were down, so they were writing out credit card receipts by hand. Rob had enough cash for us to renew our membership without having to wait in the slow moving line. Inside, we saw a sign advertising a show in the children’s ampitheatre, so we made our way over there, only to find out that the show had happened the previous day. Bad signage.

The girls enjoyed the children’s garden, which has seen a few minor updates since the last time we had visited. We spotted some frogs, gnomes, radishes and Georgia Power workers, among other things. From there, we explored more of the garden, but then the littles started to get hungry and we had to run over to the cafe. Where we found that they were not cooking food. Or accepting credit cards. And, as we got to the front of the line, not selling any food or drinks at all. In the end, we were able to buy some packaged snacks and drinks from the nearby concessions stand, but really, chips and granola bars were not what we had been hoping to have for lunch!

Despite the lack of certain amenities, being in the garden during a blown transformer induced blackout was annoying, but not all that inconvenient.