Not-So-Hotlanta

After finding the best retractable roof stadium in baseball, I flew from Seattle to Atlanta.  By getting to Turner Field, I finished off my first division.  I only have three more stadiums to get to in the National League (St. Louis, Cincinnati, and San Francisco).  Ideally, I'll finish them off next year.  I still have a lot of work to do on the American League.  This was my second trip to Atlanta.  I was there in 2006 for Notre Dame's season opener against Georgia Tech.  Wilhelm drove Jon, Dennis, Chris, and me.  On the way down there, we all wore suits except for Wilhelm (I won't get into that story, but it was worth it).  It was about 12 hours to get there and 11 hours back.  Dennis sat in the trunk of Wilhelm's SUV on the way back.  Oh, college.  This trip ended up being fun.  The weather was good, mostly sunny and in the low 80s.  When I came back to New York (completing approximately 15,000 miles of traveling in 19 days), it was in the 90s for the whole next week.

Anyway, Dennis lives in Atlanta now and he was my host for the weekend.  I arrived on Thursday and the first thing we did was go to the original Chick-fil-A.  It was a combination of a diner and a fast food restaurant.  They also served hamburgers, which you don't usually find at Chick-fil-A.  At night we went to a barbecue place that was very good.  My favorite meal came the next day when we went to the Voodoo Bar and Grill.  Yes, Adam Richman went there on Man vs. Food.  He sampled several burgers and then had one called the Double Bypass Burger.  I had a much simpler burger that had blue cheese on it that was really good.

This is the original Chick-fil-A.  There's a tiny door that you're supposed to go through if it's your first time there, hence the name.

This doesn't look like a place I would go to, but they have some really good burgers.

Before going to Voodoo, we went to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.  Now, I think Jimmy Carter was a terrible president, but I'm glad we went.  There was a replica of the Oval Office, so that was cool.  The best part was an exhibit on presidential photography that went from Lincoln to the present.  Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize was there.  It's ridiculous that he won it, but they once gave it to a terrorist, so whatever.  I definitely hope to get to a few more presidential libraries.

Jimmy Carter's Oval Office

There were lots of famous pictures, but I thought this one was the funniest.

Later on we went to the World of Coca-Cola.  If I could drink any beverage constantly without any negative health repercussions, obviously my drink would be Sam Adams Summer Ale, but Coke would be the first non-alcoholic beverage on the list.  These days I very rarely drink regular Coke, but I will drink a Coke Zero from time to time.  So I was pretty excited about this part of the trip.  There were lots of old advertisements and stuff.  All there Coke Santa artwork was cool.  One of the most interesting parts was their thing on New Coke, which lasted for 79 days in 1985 (actually it did last longer than that, it was 79 days without the original Coke).  There was a lawsuit filed by the Coca-Cola Drinkers of America against the Coca-Cola Corporation.  The highlight of the World of Coca-Cola was the tasting room, but the disappointing part was that they don't have New Coke in there.  I would have liked to try it.  They did have soft drinks from around the world.  I did some research and found out that a drink from Italy called Beverly is widely considered to be the worst one.  According to wikipedia, an employee estimated that 5 out of every 2,000 people that visit like the taste of Beverly.  Armed with this knowledge, I had no interest in trying it.  Dennis tried it and didn't like it.  He compared it to bad beer.  Our trip to the World of Coca-Cola ended with a free 8-ounce bottle of Coke.

Just a small sample of what you find at the World of Coca-Cola.

From the World of Coca-Cola, we headed to Turner Field.  Dennis's girlfriend and her brother were doing the same things we were, but they were ahead of our schedule.  She texted Dennis that they had their Coke bottles confiscated at Turner Field.  Dennis and I put our Coke bottles in our bags so that you'd have to dig through the bags to find them and we were able to get them in.  I enjoyed my free Coke the next day.  Before going in, we saw some statues of Hank Aaron and other famous Braves outside the stadium.  Once inside, we walked around for a little bit before going up to our seats.  It was pretty nice where we entered the stadium in center field, but on the whole, Turner Field was not that impressive.  On the lower concouse, the only place you can see the field as you walk around is the outfield.  You can see the field from the middle concourse, but you can't see it from the upper concourse.  We were sitting up high, just to the first base side of home plate.  The other disappointing part of Turner Field was the food and beer selection was very underwhelming.  I had to go down to the middle concourse to get whatever the Blue Moon summer beer is.  As for the game, the Reds jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning.  Bronson Arroyo (Mike Francesa's favorite pitcher) cruised for the Reds, allowing one run on three hits in seven innings.  Aroldis Chapman pitched the 9th and consistently hit 100+ on the gun.  His fastest pitch was 104.  He gave up a run, but got the save and the Reds won 4-2.

The True Home Run King.

Me, Dennis, and Dennis's roommate James

After the game, we stayed for fireworks.  It was a good show.  We saw more fireworks the next night at Stone Mountain.  Stone Mountain is the Confederate version of Mount Rushmore (it's smaller, but it has Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee).  I like Atlanta, but it is weird and disconcerting that the Confederacy is celebrated.  In the middle of the fireworks/laser light show at Stone Mountain, there was a tribute to the Confederacy.  I definitely didn't like that.  But it did end with a longer tribute to the United States.  That was good.  After missing the Fourth of July, I enjoyed the two nights of fireworks.

You can kind of see the carvings below the fireworks.

With that, it seems like I've made it to my last new stadium of the season.  I still have 12 more stadiums to get to (but really 10, I'm not going to Tampa or Oakland until they get new stadiums).  I still have a few things I hope to do before the summer is over, but I'll save that for later.  Football season is coming up and I have tickets to the Notre Dame games against Oklahoma, Arizona State (in JerryWorld), USC, and Navy.  Hopefully this season at least comes close to matching the awesomeness of last season.

I'll end with an updated list ranking the stadiums I've been to:

1.  Fenway Park

2.  Dodger Stadium

3.  Old Yankee Stadium

4.  Petco Park

5.  Wrigley Field (although if Hanley Ramirez is going back on the DL, that might warrant moving Wrigley Field down on this list)

6.  PNC Park

7.  Citizens Bank Park

8.  New Yankee Stadium

9.  Safeco Field

10.  Citi Field

11.  Nationals Park

12.  Oriole Park at Camden Yards

13.  Shea Stadium

14.  Coors Field

15.  Miller Park

16.  Chase Field

17.  Turner Field

18.  Minute Maid Park

19.  Marlins Park

20.  US Cellular Field