This weekend Danielle and I headed south to Atlanta to watch our beloved Hokies take on Alabama. I didn't have the best feeling about the game but I knew we would have a great time down there. We were both able to get off work early to get on the road. As you can imagine, hotels were difficult to come by when you are looking in an area that is having a big football game (along with a ton of other events) on a holiday weekend so we were happy to find something outside of the city that we could afford. All that to say, we still weren't happy with that situation so as Danielle drove I looked and looked to find us something better. Can you believe that we were able to get into the team hotel for the same price!? We were really excited and the place was awesome.
Once we got there, we quickly dropped our stuff in the room and went to hang out with Jed and the rest of the video crew. One of the old students that use to work in the office, Lauren, lives in Atlanta and came to meet for drinks and dessert.
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| Mark, Lauren, Brian, Jed & Tom |
Game day we slept in a bit and took our time getting ready. We made it out the door to go to lunch before the big lunch rush. Danielle is from this area so she knew the perfect area to check out, Little Five Points. It is the home of an awesome restaurant called the Vortex. We had a fantastic time at lunch and hanging out in the neighborhood for a while.
But before long, it was time to head towards the stadium. There was a lot going on downtown and we wanted to get down there before the traffic got really bad. After our walk from the parking area, we made a stop at the CNN Center. It was nice to get in the AC as it was very hot outside.
After walking around in there for a while, it was time to brave the heat again. We headed straight for the World of Coca-Cola. The line was long and we really didn't care about the museum part, we had both experienced that. We wanted to taste sodas from around the world. Unfortunately, you can't taste the soda's without going through the museum so we settled for the gift shop and a regular coke and orange fanta.
We considered the World of Coca-Cola a success so we decided to go check out the gift shop at the Georgia Aquarium across the way. Unfortunately, you can't go to the gift shop with out paying for general admission. As the manager was telling us that she then immediately said, "But if you follow, Anthony he will take you in." We were so excited. We slide right past the ticket area, security and a few fish tanks where Anthony let us shop in the gift shop while we looked on. He was so nice that Danielle was going to offer him our extra ticket but then we learned he had just graduated from Alabama so the deal was off.
As we wondered around Centennial Park, we came upon the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game Concert starring Uncle Cracker and Sheryl Crow. We caught Uncle Cracker's last song before we went to met up with Tim & Wendy.
The four of us walked around in search for food for Tim & Wendy and wandered passed DragonCon. This is a site to see and I wish I would have had more time to just sit and watch. This is how it is described on the website, "We are the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction & fantasy, games, comics, literature, arts, music and film in the universe." They had people dressed up in all kinds of things and different themed parties all the time. We saw someone dressed as Mario, Jack Sparrow, and a many others. It was like a huge Halloween party with crazy good costumes!
On our way back around the block, we saw an incredibly amazing tailgating vehicle. Maybe one day we will have something like this.
But today, we settled with just walking around the city, finding a Vietnamese food truck, Viet-Nomie's and watching/listening to Sheryl Crow. Time flew by and before long we were headed into the stadium.
We all had a great time at the game, made some new friends and cheered on our Hokies. We lost 35-10 but our defense looked great and we had a fantastic running game against the #1 team in the country right now. I was pretty worried about our team this year but after there performance in this game, I have a renewed faith in our team. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty to work on but I think we can do it.
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| Steve, Brad, Danielle & I |
After the game, Danielle and I hopped in the car and started the drive home. It was a little challenging with traffic, late night, shady gas stations, disgusting bathrooms, and lots of loud music but we made it home at 4:30am on Sunday morning, very happy that we had made the trip.
We are hoping for a great rest of the season and look forward to our first home game next week.
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