OK, I personally am not bored, but my mum is visiting from SoCal and I don’t want her to sit around my sister’s apartment all day. She’s here for a month and I need stuff her and my wife to do and see.
The limitations are as follows; my oldest just started Kindergarten and my wife has to be home at 3:20 to meet her at the bus stop. We’re in the Duluth/Norcross area and they (mum, wife, and youngest daughter) have from about 8:30 to 3:20 (including drive time) to do whatever. My mum is in her mid-sixties and my youngest is three and a half, so not to much walking without “rest stops” is prefered. Saturdays are the only days we have for any serious traveling as my wife works Sundays (11:00AM to 8:00PM usually.) Free or cheap would be prefered, but not essential. We’d like to stay away from typical tourist stuff but that’s negotiatable.
When I visited Atlanta for a family funeral, I really enjoyed the Cyclorama. While people in Atlanta may think it’s hokey, I thought it was really cool. I’d never seen anything like it. Well worth a visit for an out-of-towner.
Southeastern Railway Museum is right there in Duluth. For a weekend type thing, the Civil War Naval Museum is in Columbus, Pasaquan is in Buena Vista and both Providence Canyon (“the Southern Grand Canyon” or “see what poor farming practices can do to your property values”) and Westville are both near Columbus.
For day trips in the Atlanta area there’s always the Zoo, Sci-Teck, the High Museum…
North Georgia is beautiful in the autumn. The Tallulah Gorge is worth the drive - check out the Tallulah Falls Gallery - and there is some real good eatin’ in those parts.
Don’t forget about Stone Mountain. The train ride is enjoyable, albeit a bit hokey. The 3-d movie is also rather hokey, but the kids will love it. The petting zoo is a bit of a walk, but there’s also an okay restaurant on the premises (actually a few eateries). There’s also a tram car that will take you to the top of the mountain so that you don’t have to walk.
About two hours north of here is Chattanooga where you can go see the Aquarium and Rock City among other things (I’ll be going up this weekend with the wife and kid).
An hour or two south is Warm Springs with some cheesy/quaint shops but also the Wild Animal Safari where you can ride a bus or drive your car through an animal reserve and feed various camels/buffalo/giraffes. I’m trying to convince the wife that we can drive through in the convertible, but she’s not going for it (we have done it in my pickup truck years ago).
go to Helen and go rafting on the Chattahoochee. There’s a raft rental fee, but it’s not much. If you get up early you can be rafting by 10:30 and eating lunch in Helen by 1. Still plenty of time to get back home by 3:20. Excellent fun. And don’t worry about the river, the Chattahoochee in Dahlonega is mostly knee deep, at places ankle deep, which makes for a bumpy ride when the water is low (no danger of that right now). Folks of all ages take the trip.
Also, I tend to view the notion that Warm Springs is “just an hour or two south” with a VERY jaundiced eye. South means through Atlanta.
'Nother fun thing, go to the Weinman Mineral Museum in Cartersville off I-75 (and by that we mean, a stone’s throw off I-75).
Atlanta Botanical Gardens are cheap and fun.
I’ll second Fernbank, though I don’t know how much a kid of 3 1/2 will get out of it.
Hokey or not, that looks cool to me. And the site you linked to is a gold mine of info about the area. Kalhoun, somehow I can’t see my 66 year old mum and 3 1/2 year old daughter enjoying the Cove. However, after my mum’s gone, it sounds like an interesting place to check out.
Thanks to everybody who posted for their help
DeKalb County Farmers market is a fun/interesting place to wander about. My kids liked watching the fresh crab in their bin, also ethnic foods (Chicken feet-my Nigerian friend went nuts when I told her about seeing them: “OooH, get me some- they are GREAT! Bake them and they are a crunchy snack!”
Also loved Stone Mountain, and drove north to the beginning of the Appalachian Trail.
“shootin’ the Hooch”-rafting on Chattahoochie River-sound more daring than it is, but fun
However, after my mum’s gone, it sounds like an interesting place to check out.