6/12/07 Hotlanta

With all the fried cheese goodness overwhelming my senses yesterday, I forgot to tell ya'll about my weekend trip to Atlanta! Tony's sister just moved down there a few months ago, and we decided that it'd be nice to visit her. (Actually, we decided that we'd go watch the Cubs play the Braves, and were like, "Who do we know down there where we can crash at their place for free? But we also got to see Mary, which was nice, because I don't think we've seen her since last Thanksgiving). Tony's parents also had the same idea, so Mary had a lot of visitors show up on her doorstep this weekend. Tony wanted to get an early start down there on Saturday morning, so he woke me up at 7am. 7am! As in, in the morning! On a Saturday! The sun was just barely up. The only reason he still breathes is because I knew I could go back to sleep in the car. Anyway, by 7:30 we had gathered up our overnight bags and Garmin, and were on the road. We got the Garmin for Christmas last year, and it's one of Tony's most beloved possessions. He loves that it tells him exactly where to go and when in its soothing Garmin voice (I did the same thing before Garmin with a map, but apparently it's not the same. Garmin does it better). I wasn't even allowed to hold Garmin until about a month ago. This is how cool Garmin is. Tony and Garmin are BFF. Unfortunately, Garmin neglected to tell Tony that he had forgotten the tickets to the game back at home, so an hour into the trip, we had to turn around and go back to get them. That delayed us a few hours, which Garmin very helpfully factored in to our arrival time. It was after 1pm when we got to Atlanta, so we had a quick bite to eat and then headed to the Atlanta Zoo. (Ever since his stint as a zookeeper, Tony has factored zoo trips in for each city we travel to. A lot of the zoos have partnerships where because we're members of the Knoxville Zoo, we can get in free or at a reduced costs to other zoos. We've seen the zoos in Chicago, Nashville, Nassau, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and now Atlanta). It's a nice zoo with lots of monkey exhibits and some really awesome baby otters (one of which only eats canned cat food because she doesn't like fish), but according to Tony the petting zoo isn't as neat as Knoxville's. Right across the street from the zoo parking lot is Hank's Ice Cream Shop, which seemed like the perfect treat after a day of zoo safari. I highly recommend it if you're ever in the area. They give you massive scoops of ice cream. Anyway, Turner Field was right down the street from the zoo and the ice cream shop, so we just headed on over. You may have heard that the Cubs lose because of the Curse of the Goat. In reality, it's the Curse of the Goose that makes them lose. I have never seen the Cubs win in person. Every year we get tickets and go to a few games, and every year, they lose all the games we've come to watch. It makes Tony crazy. Sometimes they'll lose just because I'm watching them on TV. (And you just thought it was due to their lousy bull pen). Saturday night was no different, and despite all our cheering, the Cubs blew a beautiful 4 run lead. That's okay though. I was fully expecting it. We ate $6 hot dogs and $5 slices of pizza and drank $5 cokes and generally had lots of fun anyway. It was a near record crowd for Turner Field...most were Braves fans, but a pretty good showing were Cubs fans too. The rest were girls who had no team affiliation at all, but seemed to think that baseball games were the new club scene, and were wearing as little as possible. On the way out, I was even verbally heckled by what I can only assume was a drunk prostitute. (I know she was falling down drunk...the clothes lead me to believe that she was a hooker. If she wasn't, she did an really good impression. Didn't her momma ever teach her how to dress herself better? And not get stupid drunk in crowds? And not yell out that Prior sucks while surrounded by Cubs fans?) I thought about tripping her just to watch her fall, but I'm a gracious loser, so I just ignored her. (A beacon of good sportsmanship, I am). All in all, we had a fabulous time. Special thanks to Mary for allowing us to crash on her airbed and eat all of her Sunchips while we were down there. You're welcome up to Knoxville to return the favor anytime. We'll go to the zoo and eat ice cream and see a Smokies game. If we're lucky, we might even heckle some intoxicated Braves fans.