HOTlanta

*** Note to self. Back to back trips are not condusive to finding any time to actually blog about what happened on the trips :) ***

Over two weeks ago I set out from Blacksburg on what was supposed to be an uneventful trip down to Atlanta to watch the Hokies stomp on the Yellow Jackets. Hmmm... uneventful flying in the fall NRV fog... yeah right :) Sooo.. the plane we were supposed to fly out on tried landing twice in ROA, couldn't see due to the fog and was diverted to Lynchburg. Sooo... flight one was canceled. Luckily I was already in line to ask them what our options were if it didn't land on it's final attempt when they announced the flight was canceled... so I was second in line trying to book a new flight. I was eavesdropping on the guy in front of me trying to find out our options. The best one seemed to be a flight out of Lynshburg (another 45 min drive away from home) that left there at 3:30, but would get us to Atlanta by 5:30, plenty of time for kick off. There was a chance once this original pilot got to Lynchburg he would decide to turn around and come back to pick us up and the flight would just be late... but this decision wouldn't be made for over an hour. So we booked seats on the Lynchburg flight, went out to an early lunch (who knows when we will eat again on a day like this!), and came back in a hour to find out that our original flight was not coming back for us. We collected our luggage, changed my return flight to end up in Lynchburg since now my car would be there, and took off for Lynchburg. An airport which surprisingly is smalled then ROA. Maybe 7 flights a day, your only options are Atlanta or Charlotte. The security isn't even open all day, so we sat outside security for a couple hours, me sewing, J watching the military helicopters across the way at the private plane airport. So now we are finally checked through security ready to board our flight when it starts getting delayed due to weather in Atlanta. Up til this point I'm cool, we missed a day in Atlanta, A has been down there all by herself all day (the flights from Norfolk had no problems), but we haven't missed the game. Yet. So I'm starting to get frustrated... but really what can I do?? So we were supposed to leave ROA at 10:20AM and finally end up leaving Lynchburg at 4:45PM.

We land, grab our luggage, buy our weeklong MARTA passes, find the hotel, drop luggage in the sauna, catch the MARTA to the game, pick up some boiled peanuts on the way to the game (gotta love the south!), make it the the stadium in time to hear kickoff from the outside. Climb, climb, climb, climb and finally find Angela in our seats. Randomly one of our sorority sisters and her husband who didn't buy their tickets with us were seated right next to us. SO...... I used to kinda laugh at the visitors who sit in the top deck of the south endzome... I'm not laughing anymore. That's exactly where we were at their stadium. They were still good seats though. Of course you know.. the first three quarters weren't all that. But the fourth quarter was amazing!! The GA Tech fans were nice. Kinda surpirsed they need to jumbotron to tell them exactly what to cheer.. and even at that it takes them a while to all catch on.. by the time the crowd seems to be into it the jumbotron takes the words away! ;) After the game we follow Angela to find the 'coaches wives' and 'players parents'. Apparently this is the trick to finding out where the players will be boarding the bus so you can chat with them. Or just stand and watch this as was our case :) I did get a hug from by BHS Hokie :)

We chose to rely mainly on the MARTA as our form of transportation, which stopped running about 1:45 every night. And the trains didn't run very often which meant we wanted to be waiting for it by 1 whereever we were so we could make it home. After the game ended up heading back to the hotel, we were all worn out after such a long day!!

So the hotel. Or the sauna. Really one in the same. Apparently the air had been busted since tues or something. The hotel lobby. 85 degrees. Our room.. between 75 and 80 all weekend. Luckily we didn't spend much time in there, I don't think any of us got a decents nights sleep though. Oh well... it's made all better (almost) by the fact at check-out when I asked what our "we had to sleep in hell for three nights discount was" they said... "not 100% satisfied, we cover your room 100%". Woohoo. But wait... free room vs air conditioning. It's a toss up. If they'd asked when we'd arrived I'dve been all about the free room, after the fact, I'm not so sure I'd jump at that offer. Gives whole new meaning to the term HOTLANTA :)

The MARTA. We weren't really sure what to think of it. Definitely not the METRO. Only runs about every 15 minutes, so it feels like you are always waiting! The stations seem empty. Like I wouldn't be comfortable riding it by myself. Very confusing where one train only runs on half the track after 9pm. Which is not very well posted! Even a bunch of kids who grew up in Atlanta were confused and we had to straighten them out.. and we had only been there 48 hours! Plus every station and train have advertisements for the 13 area STEAK N SHAKES, yet not one local could actually point us to a close one. OR one that was close to a MARTA station. We find out later they are all in the suburbs. Darn false advertising! I was craving S-N-S everyday!

CNN Center was by far my favorite tourist attraction. I wasn't all that exciting going in, you know how much I watch the news. It was cool to see how it all goes together though. And to see the live studios, and all the people working away gathering the news. That morning CNN guy was a cutie too, I might start liking the news if he tells it to me every morning ;)

Next stop was the GA DOME. I was a little disappointed they wouldn't let me kick a feild goal. BUT... we did get to go into the locker room, and sit in Michael Vick's chair!!! :) Yes I know he's probably sat in it necked... I don't care. It was very cool. I recognized another guy's name too.. from some no name school. I think his name is Shaub ;)

The Underground was just like I remember it. Overrated. I don't recommend wasting your time there if you ever go to Atlanta. Coca Cola was neat. Some of those sodas from overseas are GROSS! :) Some are very yummy :) They do have a great gift shop :)

Saturday we had lunch at ESPNzone in Buckhead and left J there watching college football all day while A and I spent the day at they mall :) Believe it or not all I bought was a game boy game. Not or lack of trying though!

Sunday we sat in hours of traffic.. but made it to our seats at the race just in time for the national anthem! We could see the whole race track from our seats, and they were covered by boxes so we weren't in the sun all day!! It was a good race. A couple blown engines and only one wreck which was little e spinning out in front of us. It was fun, but not my favorite racetrack. They sold out of dippin dots before I could buy any :( Jimmie won the race which was very cool... especially considering all the tragedy of the week before.

After the race we hit up a STEAK n SHAKE :) We had seen it on the way to the race track and made our plans then :) Man was it tastey after a weekend of craving it!!! Then it was off to the airport to watch some football while we waited for R and our flight to New Orleans :)