Believe it... or not!

Believe it or not... we made it through Henry County without stopping in traffic.  But that's not the real purpose of our title today.  The real purpose is Madison's first visit to Ripley's Believe it or Not!

We stopped by the first location, the one in St. Augustine.  We'd been there some time ago, Mommy and Daddy, but haven't gotten around to taking Madison to one of these places yet.  Part of the reason may be some of the more macabre exhibits on display, but she's certainly older now and although may think certain things are gross (as we do), she took it all in stride.  She had no idea what she was in for, of course.  So we advertised it ahead of time to her as Stan Pines' Mystery Shack, with a little bit of PT Barnum in there too.  Here's the Barnum part below.

Ah, a reproduction of the famous Fiji Mermaid!  Madison was in for a whole new world of weird, and it was a lot of fun to see her walk through.  Here she is with Mommy, posing with one of those ladies with a super long neck.

Oh, and here below is an exhibit that Madison and Daddy were pretty impressed by, a reproduction of a spaceship made entirely from match sticks.

In fact, you can see another even greater recreation of the space station, also entirely made from match sticks.  That would be in the picture at the very top, the one Madison and Mommy are posing beneath.  There were many places to stop and pose for a picture, including an exhibit that was all about contortionists, one that gave visitors a chance to contort themselves enough to fit into a smaller box:

Madison didn't have any trouble at all with that.  But here's one thing she was super tentative about, a spinning tunnel of doom!

Okay, that's not the official title.  But she was not sure about this one, and getting through was actually difficult to do if you have your eyes open  The reason for this is the swirling motion that makes you a bit dizzy, giving you a tendency to be off balance and to the right.

But Madison - and the rest of us - made it through just fine.  This would be one thing she talked about a lot.  Another thing we don't have a picture of, but there was a balcony that overlooked some of "Florida's most dangerous creatures."  Those who went up to look over the ledge were in for a surprise, because suddenly the entire platform shifts forward.  This of course got Madison, and she couldn't wait to see it happen to others as well.  Right next door was a small theater where various movies were played of Ripley's visits to China, or the best ways to kill a vampire.  Meanwhile, in the background, you can hear in the next room this platform falling forward, people screaming, and Madison's laughter.

Here's a picture of the three of us in a tribal mask room, all of us on screen there - but with masks superimposed on our faces.  Or, in Mommy's case, some sort of spiky thing!

That was new.  There were a lot of creepy tribal things there, the unusual items collected from areas one would typically not ever want to visit.  There were also these other classic exhibits:

Here's the tallest man in the world, standing next to Madison.  The heaviest man exhibit was there, along with the skinniest and all sorts of other unusual oddities.  But there were other exhibits that showed some amazing talent too.  On a penny, someone was able to etch the Lord's Prayer completely.  Or look at this picture of Frank Sinatra, using just crayon tops.

You can go on and on with this sort of place, listing this or that.  Towards the end, we were drawn to a pirate themed shooting gallery.  Anyone who knows Daddy knows that this sort of thing is mandatory.

It was interesting assuming that Madison just knew how to do this - she did not.  So Daddy got to sit and show her how to properly hold a rifle, and how to aim one too.  And sure enough, she got the hang of it pretty well, nailing targets and watching things spin, make noises or hoist the Jolly Roger flag.

Mommy got in on the action too, as did Daddy.  The three of us actually hit every target there is.  In fact, the amount of shots you get for fifty cents gives you enough "ammo" to hit each target at least one time.

Ah, Mike the Headless Chicken.  He was in the barnyard area there, along with a cow that had a few extra legs.  It wasn't Octavia the cow, the one seen in "Gravity Falls," but they might be related.

There's one place where visitors are encouraged to try and make their tongues curl, or attempt to do other things with their faces that are unusual.  A video nearby shows some unusual talents of others doing odd things with their faces, and so with a mirror there and lighting, you can try to do the same weird faces.

And later on, there's the joke.  It's a mirror that we could see through later on, and watch people doing the same weird faces.  Madison had a great time watching unsuspecting folks come up and make silly faces, completely unaware of the fact that they had a secret audience!

Soon afterwards, we were on our way back home.  This was just a short stop on the way home, and it was a pretty fun one for all of us.

We spent most of the day on the road, listening to Riders Radio Theater and moving along fairly quickly.  I think the one hiccup was construction on the Macon bypass.  With all those fancy signs, you'd think the GDOT could have warned us to not take the bypass and instead stay on I-75.  But instead, I think they just wanted a whole lot of us to sit in traffic an extra half-hour.  We don't exactly have the brightest DOT in the nation.  Just look at what they did in Henry County to see an example of that.

But the rest of the journey home was nice - except it was Sunday.  That meant no Chick-Fil-A in Cordele.  Instead, we went to the McDonald's there in Cordele.  Fun Fact:  DO NOT GO TO THE MCDONALD'S IN CORDELE.  EVER.  You sort of lower the quality bar when you go to a McDonald's, meaning you're not expecting the greatest service, or at least you simply don't know what to expect.  But as low as the bar was, the staff here at the Cordel McDonald's managed to go even lower.

We're not impatient people.  But sloths riding glaciers move faster.  They had all these workers in the kitchen, so you'd think there was this efficient machine at work.  But time and again, they got Madison's order wrong.  In fact, they never got it right at all.   This is amazing because it was a happy meal.  Four chicken nuggets and fries.  How can you mess that up?  Go to Cordele's McDonald's and see for yourself!  But again, I recommend being prepared to spend some extra time there, something around four extra hours perhaps.  I considered going back to correct the order (again), but we wanted to get home sometime before midnight.

Anyway, rant over.  The point is, don't go to McDondald's in Cordele.

We got home a little later today, although not just because of that one "fast" food stop.  The later arrival was obviously because of our extended visit to Ripley's in St. Augustine, which was so much fun.  It made the day a memorable one, a great visit that will set up another future visit to perhaps the location in Gatlinburg, or elsewhere.  It was Madison's first visit to a Ripley's Believe it or Not, and it was pretty fun.