Travels in the South

Welcome back my friends to another edition of Travels in the South.  We have been talking about our visit with our great friends Bill and Jean from Canadian Cats.  If you have missed the previous editions, please check them out here:  Red Lobster; Fogo de Chao; Stately Oaks; Spa Day.

Have you been having fun enjoying our visit together?  We had so much fun visiting and we hope that fun is showing through our weekly postings.  Today, we are going to share a tour that we went on at the World of Coca-Cola right here in Atlanta, Georgia.

Can you believe that mom/dad grew up here in the south and had never been to this facility and tour?  Shakes piggy head.  It takes visitors to visit all of our local places.  So funny!

And check out the picture to the left of the entrance to the World of Coca-Cola.  That’s a giant top of a coke bottle that is on the outside.  we thought that was totally cool.

After the tickets were purchases, mom and Jean kind of got side-tracked.  They saw one of the trash
receptacles that I do believe Jean wanted to take home with her to put in her garden.  Snorts with piggy laughter.  It is kind of neat huh?

Now with the admission of the facility, you really do get a lot of “bonuses”.  For instance, as soon as  you pay admission and go into the waiting room for the tour, you get free coke (diet, regular, sprite or coke zero).

Now that is so totally cool.  These freebies were in aluminum type bottles – even more neat.

Once the tour starts, you enter into the ‘loft’ area of the building.  This houses history items of Coca-Cola throughout the ages.  Funny story – while we were waiting for the young man to begin his speech in the loft area, Jean opened her free coke – you know the ones we got when coming on the tour.  Unfortunately when she opened her bottle, it spewed all over a man in front of us.  Lowers head – we were so embarrassed.  Of course, we all apologized profusely and began talking to the man and his family.  They were visiting all the way from Saudi Arabia – can you believe that?

Do you recognize some of these older advertisements with Coke?  There are signs in the loft area from all over the world that advertises Coke.  Some we had seen and some we had no idea about.  It was so totally cool to see these.

And do you remember the advertising with the Coca-Cola polar bear?  Do you know the history of the bear?  The polar bear first debuted in a Coca‑Cola advertisement in France in 1922.

And you ask yourself – why a polar bear?  It was to let people know that even if the weather was cool outside, coke was still the right choice in their drinking delight.  Did you know that?

After a short speech from a Coca-Cola associate in the loft, then you go into one of the theaters where you see a short movie on Moments of Happiness.  After this movie, it’s on to the Vault of the Secret Formula.  Bring it on my friends – we are here to find it.  I’m leaving you today with some assorted pictures from the vault.  And then next week, I will continue with the tour.

Hope you enjoyed it my friends!

 

Shopping Around the World

This month we are highlighting appetizers or snacks.  

This gives us so many choices to pick from and it was really hard for us to pick one.  But after I thought long and hard about it, I had to go with dad’s crack.  Snorts – no not that kind of crack.  Dad actually has a snack treat that we call crack.  Why crack?  Because he can’t keep his hands out of the container when mom fixes it – snorts with piggy laughter.  And when mom makes this, she fixes a whole bunch because it goes fast.  You can use it as a snack or bring it to a party.  So now, all of you can fix it and get hooked to on it.  Enjoy my friends.

Dad’s Crack

1 bag of short pretzels (dad prefers these but you can use any kind of pretzel you want).  For a bag of pretzels, we pay $1.29

2 bags of peanut butter morsels.  You find these on the baking aisle.  We paid $1.50 for each bag on this shopping trip.

2 boxes of movie theater sized Reeses Pieces (you know the kind they showed in the movie E.T – ha)  These were $1.00 each in the store

Optional – a bag of toasted coconut.  Sometimes dad likes this and other times he doesn’t.  A bag of coconut costs $2.49 in the store.

Now, first up.  If you are going to do the coconut you need to do this first.  Put the coconut on a tray and stick it in the oven.  Mom puts it under the broiler for a few minutes.  Keep an eye on it because it will burn quickly.  Toast the coconut and then set it aside to cool.

While your coconut is cooling, get a BIG bowl.  Yep the bigger the better in this case.  Pour in your entire bag of pretzels followed by your Reeses Pieces and peanut butter morsels.  When your coconut is cool, throw it into the party as well.  Then stir everything together and make sure it is nicely mingled.  Mom then packages the crack into individual containers for dad’s destruction.

So you see, it’s an easy snack that goes a long way and peeps love it!  The final cost for this snack is less than $9.00 (with coconut) and that should last either a couple of weeks,  one night at a party or two days with dad – snorts.  And never fear, if you don’t like peanut butter, just substitute items for what you do love.  For example any kind of chocolate candy and any kind of baking morsels.  Happy crack my friends.