Atlanta, the beginning

Bob Evans - my mush, Clay's Sr. breakfast and a side of sausage

When we originally planned this trip, we did not know that Clay would be in India for the previous week and a half! (See the link to the right for Clay's solo trips.) So, we had originally planned to head out after he got off work. Since he was so jetlagged already, and with a cold/cough, that he took off Friday and we left early. That meant Bob Evans breakfast! That's right our first stop was at the 15/501 exit in Durham.

We had a couple of more stops for gas and the restroom. But, we were heading for the Georgia welcome center on I-85 to get a new map. This was a really worthwhile stop. We each got a complimentary pack of Georgia peanuts, which made a timely snack since we were skipping lunch. Also, we picked up an Atlanta Street Map & Visitor's Guide and it had coupons on it! So, we saved $3 each off the price of our admission at Zoo Atlanta.

I-85 GA Visitor's Center

Hilton Garden Inn Room 1213

We arrived at our hotel, the Downtown Atlanta Hilton Garden Inn after checkin time, so after a bit of a wait for the line to clear, we were in our room 1213 and unpacked. ($157 per night/1 King bed city view/nonrefundable rate + $43 or so in taxes + $18 per night self-parking) The main goal of our trip was to go to the GA Aquarium and those were the only tickets we had purchased online in advance. (Adult general admission $24.95pp + $3.99 tax + $2.50 processing fee) (Side Note here: both the Aquarium and World of Coca-Cola had self-service kiosks for purchasing tickets onsite!)

GA Aquarium opened in 2005. I don't know whether this hotel was here before that or built after, but it was aquarium, under-the-sea themed. Nice or creepy, you decide. I say, keep away from the water!

Hilton Garden Inn Room 1213

View from #1213 - GA Aquarium & World of Coca-Cola

Another view from #1213 - Centennial Olympic Park

A few words here about Downtown Atlanta's Hilton Garden Inn. I chose it based on location, pricing and availability. It was a good enough choice without benefit of hindsight. The Holiday Inn a bit further away might have been a better choice. HGI was clean and a great location, just across the street from the aquarium and World of Coca-Cola. Downsides were the alarmingly loud AC unit under the window, the lack of soundproofing at the door (though we heard nothing from our side or upper or lower neighbors!). We were in the next to the last room on our section of hall, so by all rights there should not have been much traffic by our door. I don't know what to say, other than they skimped here on soundproofing, it sounded like people were just inside the room stomping, hollering, screaming, etc. Not good. We liked the minifridge, as oppossed to minibar which is just a hassle! There was a coffee maker, ice bucket and even a microwave. Wireless Internet worked well and was complimentary in the room, as well as a couple of public stations on the 1st floor. The HGI had a display at the checkin desk about their comfortable, adjustable beds. That seemed promising! Not. Our bed was broken, permanently set on firm. It was supposedly serviced on Saturday, my dial was fixed but the bed was still very firm even when I changed it to the softest possible setting. Even worse, though was that apparently because of the bulge of the controls at the side of the head of the bed, the fitted sheets did not fit and during the night they would pop off and you would be left on bare mattress. In this case, the mattress top was sheepskin, so weird and gross! Between the noise, the bed among other things, we did not get much rest. The real downside was that our room was not cleaned/made up during our day out on Saturday. We came back hot and sweaty and Clay really wanted a nap, but our room had not been serviced. That was a bit of unpleasantness that we had to handle and within 45 minutes it was resolved and Clay was napping, but really not what we expected. I will only say that I have probably not stayed in a Hilton since a 3-night stay at Chicago's Palmer House in the 1980's when our room did not get made up once! To the best of my recollection, Hilton is the only hotel chain where I have ever experienced this housekeeping dereliction. I guess given the amount of choice in hotels it will be another 20 years before I give another Hilton a shot.


Um.... Bob?

 We freshened up and unpacked and Clay decided since he could see the World of Coca-Cola that we should go there this afternoon. We set out. Now, notwithstanding my previous post about the highlight of the trip happening in the World of Coca-Cola with the polar bear photo interaction, I was a little disappointed and not all that happy with the experience overall. It was very crowded and extremely noisy! You are herded through in huge groups. After a brief wait in a lobby area, you are herded into a display of historical artifacts, but you are packed in there and can't wander and look at any of it. A woman with a microphone blares over the roar of the crowd describing what is on display, until the film in the auditorium lets out its previous group and we move in. It is a rather disgusting cartoon imagining of life in a Coke machine. If I thought it was anything like that, I would never buy another Coke from a vending machine again! Eeuuw! By the way, the big kissy lips dog above is one of the characters from the film. It was not that long, I am going to guess between 6 and 10 minutes. But, it was mandatory when it would have been better to be optional!

Clay in World of Coca-Cola

Bob & Debbie in World of Coca-Cola

They released us from the bottom of the theater (we entered from the top) and into a big open space where the polar bear makes an appearance at quarter past the hour. We got out there too late and the line was roped off. We had to come back and get in line for the next quarter hour. Our hostess had earlier announced that we were one of the last groups of the day. They closed at 6:30pm and last admission was 5pm. We arrived about 4:30pm and we checked out of the store at the exit at 6:27pm. Admission was $16pp. There is a working production line, but we got there after they had ended production for the day. We did get to see the last capped bottles still moving, but everything before capping was already shut down. That was disappointing. There were a couple of more theaters, both optional. One had Coca-Cola products commercials from around the world airing continuously. One was scheduled showings of an imagined flavor/essence of Coke laboratory in a 4-D theater. Clay said it was very rough. I sat in one of the 8 non-moving seats in the back and got only the water sprays and wind puffs and watched the heads in front bumping around. The other big attraction was the tasting room with over 60 different Coca-Cola products from around the world. This might have been cool if we hadn't done it at no extra charge in Epcot at WDW in Orlando in the last couple of years. In Epcot, it is in an enclosed and air conditioned room to take a break for some refreshing beverages and get out of the FL sunshine. Here it was a loud, hot, sticky-floored room right before you pick up your cool souvenir short Coke in a bottle and exit through the store.

Souvenir bottles traveling overhead in the tasting room

Pick up souvenir bottle of Coke & exit through store

Clay got a retro-styled T-shirt that lists the 63 tasting flavors with their countries of origin on the back. It was cool and it cost $18.95+tax. I bought the photo of the polar bear chomping Bob show in the previous post and it was $21.59. (Oh, BTW during the polar bear photo op, there is a professional photographer there taking photos, but there is another guy there that will take a photo with your camera if you give it to him. So, the photos on the previous post are the After one we purchased and I scanned in here and the Before one that was taken with our camera!)  I also got a red Coca-Cola apron for $19+tax.

We exited and walked back up to our room. We put our little Cokes in our fridge, dropped off our sack, picked up a map and headed out to eat.

Dinner at The Varsity

Clay has had a hankering... been on a quest for... a good chili dog. Go figure. It has been harder to satisfy this yen than you might imagine and we have eaten a lot of chili dogs in the last quarter. So, tonight we are off with the top down on the SLK to The Varsity, the world's largest drive-in, serving chili dogs since 1928. They sell their chili in a can. Clay got one and a t-shirt (mainly so I could justify the shipping charges!) for Valentine's Day. That weekend he had 3 different cans of chili open and in a blind taste test, we both picked The Varsity as the best. So, you know that we are eating our first meal here if not multiple meals here.

I should mention that we had glorious weather on this trip. It was hot, but not humid, with rarely a cloud in the sky. I would say 60s at night and 80s during the day with lots of sunshine. It turned cooler and overcast on Sunday, but still very pleasant weather.

The Varsity - Drive-In!

Back to The Varsity. It was very easy to get to from the HGI downtown and we were there in about 10 to 15 minutes. Traffic was crazy! So, it turns out that on arrival in addition to being a drive-in, there is also inside seating. We wound up parked in the area of drive-in only/cash only dining and since it was so nice out, we decided to stay put and we paid cash and ate in the car. It was fun. They brought us each paper hats to go with! What did we have? I had a chili dog with fries. (Bad, bad fries! Blech!) I also had a chocolate shake. Clay had a chili dog and a grilled pimento cheese sandwich and a chocolate shake. (Clay did not like the pimento cheese sandwich or the fries. He wished he had just ordered 2 chili dogs.) Oh, and the onions. I think their deal is that they serve Vidalia onions. I ordered my dog without and Clay ordered his with. They brought about a cup of diced onions wrapped in a couple sheets of wax paper! Clay couldn't possibly eat them all. I don't know what that was about, if they always serve onions that way or if it was because they weren't sure whose dog got onions and whose didn't. But, anyway they came on the side, a lot of them! I don't have our receipt, but if you're interested in prices, you can check the website's menu from the above links.

There was an amazing, enormous full moon out that night. Unfortunately, none of Clay's night photos turned out very all, all pretty blurry, so I will spare you night time photos. We went to bed pretty early. Clay was exhausted from his jetlag and cold/cough and from his exertions today. I was exhausted from the drive and the overheated, crowded World of Coca-Cola. So, we headed to bed pretty early. I read for awhile and then tried to sleep. Between getting up in the middle of the night to try to get the fitted sheet back on the bed and my gas, I only slept about 3 hours. Clay was out of it except for remaking the bed around 3:30am. What gas you say? It was like something out of science fiction... I was farting like respiration, about 1 fart per every 6 breaths all night long! It should not have been a physical possiblity for any human to have that much gas inside them. Clay asked at the 3:30am bed remaking and I couldn't explain it. I still can't explain it. But, we did decide that Clay's chili dog quest notwithstanding and the excellent chili dogs, I was not eating at The Varsity again this trip!

Well, tomorrow morning we have tickets for 9am at the Georgia Aquarium. So, I will break here and start a new entry for Saturday.