I had a five-day weekend over my birthday last week, and decided to go somewhere I’d never been before, so I hopped a plane and flew to Atlanta, GA, spent a couple days there, then rented a car and roamed the Carolinas and Chesapeake Bay area for a few days. First installment here will cover the capital of Georgia…
Here was the view from my hotel room on the 10th floor of the Holiday Inn in downtown Atlanta. I’m not even sure I want to know how much the rooms went for in the mighty Peachtree Tower across the way, but I got a pretty decent deal at HI for $115 a night. The location was perfect because it was so close to most of the attractions I wanted to hit in Atlanta, and three blocks from the subway for the rest, thus I didn’t even need a car until I headed out on Sunday morning for the Carolinas.
The Varsity is Atlanta’s legendary eatery that I’ve heard so much about over the years. Claiming to be the world’s largest fast-food joint in the world, it’s about the size of an old A&P grocery store. The place is definitely unique, but after all the expectations, I was a bit let-down once I ate there. Apart from the onion rings, the portions were awfully small, and the DOUBLE cheeseburger I had was actually smaller than an Egg McMuffin. The food was inexpensive, not unlike at White Castle, but I was rather unimpressed by it. If I were a local, I don’t know that I would eat there all that often, other than for detox-ing purposes after a night of drinking. One Varsity feature I did find rather cool was the curb service where an actual human takes your order as opposed to having to talk through a speaker like at Sonic.
Philips Arena is a rather unique sports venue, especially its layout with all the corporate muckety-muck luxury suites dominating an entire side of the building, similar to Ford Field in Detroit. I attended the WNBA chick bassit-ball game there between the dreaded Atlanta Dream and San Antonio Silver Stars, which attracted about 4,000 diehards on a Friday night. Sadly, the crowd looked to be about 400 in this 20,000-seat joint—perhaps a smaller venue might be more appropriate for a niche sport like women’s b-ball. I also could’ve done without the P.A. announcer, who sounded a bit unprofessional at times by dissing the opposing team, which I thought was rather classless. The arena itself looked like a great place to watch a hockey game—unfortunately, they don’t have a team anymore since the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg last year. Another thing I found curious about Philips was how they posted out-of-town baseball scores throughout the night, but never once did they show the score of the Atlanta Braves game going on right down the road at Turner Field. Sour grapes because Los Bravos draw more fans, maybe?
I love it when new arenas honor the ones they replace, and in Atlanta the main scoreboard from the old Omni Coliseum is preserved in the atrium lobby of Philips Arena, which was built right on the Omni site, sandwiched between CNN Center to the east and the Georgia Dome just to the west. The old Daktronics (or Dak-O-Matic, as I like to call them) board from The Omni is still fully functional, and is usually in operation during Atlanta Hawks games from what I hear, but it was off during the WNBA game I attended.
CNN Center and Philips Arena are literally joined at the hip, thus when I exited the basketball game, I entered Ted Turner’s broadcasting realm. CNN Center was a trip within a trip, and it reminded me of a Las Vegas theme hotel, only minus the casino. The atrium area is gi-normous, and it contains a large food court and shopping area on the main floor, with all the various CNN offices and studios, along with the hoity-toity Omni Hotel rising above it. The escalator (on the right heading into the globe) is allegedly the tallest in the world (so the tour guide said, anyway), and it takes you to the starting point of the CNN studio tour. By the way, I do hope the security guys didn’t catch me drawing that moustache on the big Nancy Grace poster…
This place was just down the block from my hotel, and it made me chuckle. We can only hope that the ice cream and cigars are SEPARATE operations—don’t nobody want no vanilla laced with White Owl…
That pretty much summed up World of Coca-Cola for me. Coke is headquartered in Atlanta, and even though Diet Coke is my favorite carbonated beverage, I had my doubts heading in about whether this thing was worth checking out. But, since it was two blocks from my hotel just across the way from CNN Center and adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park (where the infamous bombing took place in ’96), I took a chance. I wound up pretty underwhelmed by W of C-C—there’s only so many ways to pay homage to a soft drink! I was expecting something more along the lines of the Budweiser brewery tour in St. Louis, where you could see how the product is manufactured, bottled and packaged, but this place was more of hodge-podge of exhibits, most of them aimed at kids. I made the mistake of visiting on a Saturday afternoon, too, and the place was like a damn zoo. I looked forward to the area where you can sample the various beverages that Coca-Cola produces around the world, but after trying the Italian version of Coke (which tasted like Kiwi shoe polish), I felt like I’d been slimed. Apart from the video featuring the vintage nostalgic TV ads for Coke from back in the day, the place didn’t really honk my hooter all that much, and it certainly wasn’t worth the 16 bucks it cost me to get in.
Once again honoring the past, I made it a point before heading in to the Braves game at Turner Field to stroll over to the site of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (aka, “The Launching Pad”) next door. The exact spot where Hank Aaron’s record-breaking 715th career home run landed in 1974 is preserved in what is now a parking lot, although that is not the original fence it sailed over. Just for realism, they should add likenesses of Braves pitcher Tom House catching the ball in the bullpen and Dodgers outfielder Bill Buckner scaling the fence trying to snag it. The original ball diamond is outlined in brick in the parking lot, and a good portion of the original foundation wall from the stadium (the blue wall in the background) circles the lot. Oddly enough, the Launching Pad was imploded just a week after The Omni was.
Turner Field has never come across to me on TV as being all that exciting a place, but after attending a game in person there, my opinion changed a bit—it’s not a bad ballpark at all. I had a similar experience with New York’s Citi Field last September, and I liked what I saw when I roamed what was originally known as “Olympic Stadium” for the 1996 Summer Games. I caught a break too, with the weather for this late-afternoon game—it was overcast and in the mid-80s with a nice breeze, so things never approached “Hot-lanta” level as it so often does during Braves day games. The Braves did a fine job honoring their past (not just in Atlanta, but Milwaukee and Boston as well) with their Hall of Fame in the left field stands, as well as with statues of Aaron, Niekro, Mathews, etc. in the plaza area beyond left field where the Olympic part of the stadium stood briefly. And thankfully, "Chief Noc-A-Homa" was nowhere to be found…
NOT PICTURED, BUT WORTH MENTIONING...
--I found the Atlanta Underground to be largely underwhelming. I always thought it was like a hip drinking/dining district, when in fact it’s a predominately black-themed shopping mall below street level with a mediocre food court in it. Not trying to sound racist or anything here, but I just know that I and the three other white people I spotted there definitely stood out like turds in a punch bowl, and I didn’t feel terribly welcome, so I skedaddled my honky ass out of there tout-de-sweet.
--The MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) trains were quite handy for getting around the city in. I rode the train straight from the airport to downtown, landing just three blocks from my hotel. MARTA trains got me within walking distance of pretty much everything I wanted to see, apart from Turner Field and the Braves game, but even then they provide a shuttle bus to the stadium near the Five Points station downtown. When I was ready for a car, I just rode the train back down to the airport and picked up my rental car, after navigating my way through the labyrinth that is Hartsfield International Airport. When I arrived on Friday, I made the mistake of walking damn near two miles from my gate to the baggage claim, not realizing the whole time that they have a train that takes you there. D’oh! Then when you want to get your rental car, you have to ride yet ANOTHER train to the complex that houses the rental car companies two miles away! Damn airport’s too big for its own good—it’s almost like a separate city in and of itself.
--I damn near didn’t make it back to Atlanta on Tuesday in time to make my return flight home. I allowed plenty of time to get from Richmond, VA to Atlanta, but had issues when I got past Charlotte. NC. Some nasty little thunderstorms rolled through across I-85 with downpours so heavy that you almost couldn’t see to drive. At one point, I stopped at a QuikTrip for gas and ended up waiting over 20 minutes for another nasty cell to pass through. Then there was an accident near Spartanburg, SC that backed traffic up for five miles. I still got to the aeroport with plenty of time to spare, but I wasn’t anticipating such a stressful ride to get there. By the way, if you want cheap gasoline, go to South Carolina. I saw it as low as $2.95 a gallon, compared with $3.59 somewhere in North Carolina…
--Folks in that part of the country don't seem to understand the concept of highway etiquette, especially the unwritten rule that slower traffic should stay to the right on the Interstates. That also contributed to my stress level getting back to Atlanta because every time I'd break free from the traffic, I'd come upon some Aunt Bee pokin' along in the left lane, and even the truckers—who oughtta know better—were doing the same damn thing. Very frustrating...
--I had never flown AirTran airlines before, but I came away fairly impressed with them. For both of my flights, they offered me a seat upgrade for an additional $15 (on top of the baggage fees I had to pay anyhow) to ride in the business class section in the second row, which made boarding and unboarding a snap.
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