Atlanta, GA (August 2024)

An extended weekend trip to Atlanta to play tourist for the first time in 20 years while visiting friends.

August 22-26, 2024

August 22, 2024: from MCO to ATL and then aboard MARTA to Midtown. Atlanta’s MARTA Red & Gold lines begin at the arrivals part of the terminal, and the ride into Midtown was only $2.50, a bargain in 2024. The train cars themselves are like a poorly maintained version of those on DC Metro but still pretty decent, with ample seating.

Friday, August 23: Georgia Aquarium, located just beyond the bounds of Centennial Olympic Park, opened as the world’s largest aquarium in 2005 (it’s since been passed). Spent 4 hours here exploring, including the Sea Lion show, the Dolphin show, plus lunch (but, disappointingly, the shows prohibited photos and videos). The aquarium’s most impressive area was the “Ocean Voyager” which included an enormous tank that housed species including whale sharks that looked to be each bigger than a school bus. One part of the area had a slow-moving sidewalk through the tank where you’re surrounded by it—it’s included in the videos below (sped up to just 30 seconds). World of Coca-Cola is also just beyond Centennial Olympic Park, pretty much next door to the aquarium. This museum and souvenir shop moved here from its former location at The Underground in 2007. (I only visited the former location back in 2004, and based on my memory of enjoying that visit, I was rather disappointed in the new location. For $26.14 (including tax), there’s an extended video commercial for the brand that the hosts described as emotional (and I actually can imagine that for a Coke commercial but this wasn’t), followed by entry into the museum which includes The Vault—a space decorated like a giant bank vault complete with a multimedia reveal of another vault within where they claim the secret formula is kept; a section of artifacts and other Coke memorabilia; The Lab—which had some interactive tools for learning about flavor combinations but the beverage stations all served up a fountain version of 1985’s “New Coke” which I disliked every bit as much as I remembered; and “Taste it!”—which is an extended version of EPCOT’s Club Cool where everyone can taste samples of Coke beverages from around the world, including Italy’s infamous Beverley. Then comes the souvenir shop, which isn’t significantly different from what I could tell from the World of Coke at Disney Springs. The Civil Rights museum that is also on this same campus, but I did not have time to visit on this trip. Back through Centennial Olympic Park heading for the Five Points MARTA station to head back to Midtown, I discovered that CNN departed what’s now known only as The Center (and before it was CNN Center, it was The Omni Center) for its current HQ in Midtown (with most of its news operations in New York). Ted Turner Drive is still there, of course. State Farm Arena and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, best known to sports fans for NBA’s Hawks and NFL’s Falcons, respectively, are also practically next door. The Five Points MARTA station is the only point where all four mass transit lines cross, and, the station connects to other regional rail lines — there’s a historical marker out front discussing past train stations in Atlanta that no longer stand. The most interesting feature about the station is that it contains the terra cotta facade of the former Eiseman building that once stood nearby but was torn down to construct the station. The station itself is undergoing a multiyear massive redesign. (I forgot to go see the giant neon Coca-Cola sign at the actual Five Points intersection.) In the evening, a visit to The Krog District with local friends, including dinner at a mano. Later, a photo of a Chicagoland pizza remnant in an Atlanta neighborhood, and then, some late night improv at Dan’s Garage, a former church converted to a theater.

Saturday, August 24: a festival in Atlanta’s Grant Park, some neighborhood places and tastes, experiencing Atlanta traffic (though, not for the first or last time in my life), and seeing the Aurora Theatre production of The Color Purple in Lawrenceville, GA (a local friend was the show’s scenic designer).

Sunday, August 25: out the window of my hotel is the current Atlanta HQ for CNN and many of its related entities; pretty much next door to the hotel was TBS itself. Headed back to the Majestic Diner, this time for breakfast in the art deco style restaurant that says it’s been serving since 1929. In its parking lot, I also got a close look at how Atlanta parking works and am thankful that I wasn’t renting a car on this trip. Then, a definite highlight of this trip that I didn’t know about during prior visits to Atlanta—Center for Puppetry Arts. It has a very large collection donated by the family of Jim Henson, including puppets from Sesame Street and The Muppets. It also has some Henson puppets from Dark Crystal and a big Fraggle Rock collection. The museum itself has an assortment of other puppet collections as well. Final cultural stop of the trip—High Museum of Art. The highlights I’ve posted here are a work by Anish Kapoor (who also created “Cloud Gate” aka The Bean for Chicago’s Millennium Park), some interesting modern sculpture, the museum’s interior architecture, the quilt that inspired the design for the intermission scrim of The Color Purple, and some Frank Lloyd Wright.

Monday, August 26–departing Atlanta: MARTA from Midtown back to ATL. Spent some time in the main terminal building before TSA — and then, even with pre-check, the new “self service” scanning trays were even less efficient at moving folks through the line than any other airport I’ve been through. But, I had plenty of time until my flight — took the Plane Train to the C Concourse—did you know it’s 1000 steps from one end of the C gates to the other? I checked and it took me my usual 10 min/1000 steps. Checking the map, I spotted Spivey Splash Water Park and Atlanta Motor Speedway out the window on the way up to cruising altitude