10th Stop - Cartersville (GA) - Tellus Science Museum

Blog Post #17 - Written Jun 7, 2025

Stay: May 23-24, 2025


From Bama Bison, we stopped in Cartersville, GA (NW of Atlanta) on our way up to Blue Ridge. We boondocked in the Walmart parking lot, which was our first time doing that. It was an . . . interesting experience, to say the least. Lots of Walmart people haha. Tons of people meeting up in the parking lot for random things (giving away puppies, racing RC cars around, street car racing, etc). Plus the semi-permanent occupants that appeared to live in their cars in the back corner full-time. Let's just say we survived and hope to not stay at any Walmarts in the future.

While there, we went to the Tellus Science Museum (again, one of the reciprocal museums we get into for free with our science center pass!). Not gonna lie, it was a pretty cool museum. My favorite exhibit was the Geology: Gems and Minerals. The variety of gemstones and mineral and their superpowers is insane. Almost makes we want to study geology more, afterall, according to my college geology 101 professor, Geology is the major of the Gods! You know, world formation and all that good stuff.  :)   I just love the crazy colors and patterns and structures and check out the phosphorescence in the pics below. Absolutely wild!
These two pictures are of the same set of rocks. The pic on the right is under normal light, the left is under UV light.

Malachite is one of my favorite minerals. The vibrant green and various forms fascinate me.       This Boulangerite formed into tiny strands of hair-like crystals. So cool!


The kids' favorite part was probably the fossil dig and gem mining sluice.  Megan and I enjoyed them too :)

They also had a fascinating exhibit on the evolution of automobiles, and I was surprised to see this GM EV1 that I recognized from a documentary I watched in high school, called "Who Killed The Electric Car?"  GM produced approximately 1,100 of these electric vehicles in 1996-8 and leased them out to southern CA and AZ residents. While most of the drivers loved them and feedback was positive, for some reason GM recalled them all and destroyed them. Several drivers tried to keep their cars and even offered to buy them, but GM wouldn't allow it and they were all crushed (or disabled and donated to museums like this one). 


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