On the Road - Atlanta
I'm now in Atlanta. First time ever. Everyone always calls it Hotlanta, but I gotta tell you, it's more like Chillylanta or Windylanta today. It's brisk and windy outside. Nothing hot about it. I'm on a quest to see if I can find a place that serves Pepsi. I don't give myself very good odds seeing how I am in the land of Coke. In fact, it appears that the Coca-Cola headquarters are just behind me past the Georgia Tech campus.
Here's a shot from my hotel room balcony. You can see the Georgia Tech football stadium in the background.
The traffic here looks horrendous. It's only gotten worse since I've been here. But with a population approaching 5 million, what would you expect.
I went out looking for a place to eat, and I didn't get very far from my hotel when I smelled what could only be that unmistakable combination of deep fried oil and french fries. It was like there was a forest fire and you could smell the smoke for miles. Well it turns out, I was approaching an Atlanta institution known as The Varsity. Apparently, the downtown Atlanta location is responsible for more retail sales of Coca-Cola on an annual basis than any other single location in the world, a record which has stood for many years running. If you look towards the bottom center of the picture above, you can see The Varsity. It's huge. The parking lot, including the drive in area, was completely full. Maybe I'll have to stop in before I leave town.
I couldn't bring myself to stay in there tough. I just got rid of that BBQ smell from Mobile and didn't want to replace it with the unmistakable, if not somewhat appetizing, smell of french fries.
Off to dinner soon with Jim DiVitale. He lives here in Atlanta ya know. I'm looking forward to catching up with him.
Image copyright Mike Wong