Day 56: World of Coca Cola

On July 14, 2009, one of the things we did in Atlanta was go to the World of Coca Cola. The World of Coca Cola experience began with a movie that included queuing up in a lobby decorated with a bunch of Coca Cola memorabilia. The movie was kind of silly and not that interesting in my opinion. It had great graphics and unique fantasy characters that work inside a vending machine, but it is just kind of makes what could have been fine statements from workers at the company into something kind of stupid with rather odd animated characters.

After the movie we went through the exhibit that shows Coca Cola being bottled. This is pretty interesting, especially since this is the mini bottling plant that produces the bottles given out at the end of the World of Coca Cola and I also believe the ones in the shop. It was also interesting to see all the special Coca Cola bottles related to Atlanta that they had in a window near the end of the exhibit.

The next exhibit we saw was called Milestones of Refreshment. This exhibit starts with a recreation of an old fashioned soda fountain. The exhibit tells the history of the Coca Cola Company from the inventor Pembleton to him selling the secret recipe and it becoming a massively advertised product that led to it being the most recognized brand in the world. There is a lot of items on display as part of telling the company’s history. This includes various coca cola bottle designs, Olympic Coca Cola pins, Olympic torches from the 1996 to 2008 games, a truck used to distribute Coca Cola in Argentina, and a display of all the current Coca Cola Company brand products. There were even some baseball related items such as ads featuring ballplayers and a special edition Boston Red Sox World Series 2007 can.

Next we went up to the second floor. The first thing we did here was see the 4D movie called In Search of the Secret Formula. It is just a stupid sappy movie about what the secret ingredient is in Coca Cola and has rather incoherent dialogue. Not to mention it was not even 4D because the handicap row has the non moving seats. Not that I would want the stupid whiplash seats that were jerking all over the place in front of us and half of the time the movement did not really correlate to what was going on in the movie. The 3D was there, but really you got to go beyond the wow factor of 3D and 4D and have an actual plot to a movie even if it is just a short one.

After the movie we went through the Pop Culture Gallery. This exhibit had some interesting art including a Mona Lisa with a Coca Cola bottle. There were also things made out of the aluminum from Coca Cola cans, such as a ship with sails. One of the walls was covered with Coca Cola Santa paintings. The other cool thing was a Coca Cola living room design with a big red couch and a bunch of Coca Cola collectibles on display.

The next thing we saw was the Perfect Pauses Theater. This was actually a theater that played things worth seeing and not crappy trying to show off great animation or 3D/4D effects. This theater plays different Coca Cola ads from over the years including international ones, which are sometimes quite odd seeming, but are an interesting look into how advertising to different cultures works.

The final part of the World of Coca Cola is the Taste It! part where you can taste test a variety of Coca Cola products from around the world. Mik actually put his PSP away for this part and enjoyed going through and tasting different things, although he did not find anything new that he liked. He did enjoy getting some Classic Coca Cola, though. There were some other good ones in my opinion, though, such as Smart Watermelon from China and Inca Cola from Peru.

As we left the taste testing room for the gift shop we each got a free Coca Cola bottled at the World of Coca Cola. Of course, we got some souvenirs at the shop, but that is for another post.

Game 26: Chicago Cubs 6 @ Washington Nationals 5

Tonight was the third game in three days, which is the third time it has happened on the trip even though it was originally planned to only happen twice. We left the campground around 11am after getting there around 8:30am and setting up camp. We parked the car at the end of the Green line and took the Metro into D.C. to go to the National Museum of American History before heading to the game. That did not really kill much time as it was too crowded to enjoy and I am spoiled from experiencing the D.C. museums mostly in the off season in the middle of the week. Thus we still got to the game about an hour before the gates opened, but that gave us time to hit the gift shop before the park opened.

Once the park opened we waited another hour for the part of the park where our seats were to open up. Mik was surprisingly really into this game from the start and it only got better. For one someone gave him a ball during batting practice, which is his third of the trip. Then not long after we got to our seats the lady that manages the Diamond Club, Marj Hopkins, came to tell us she had passes for us and reserved us a table there for the game. She had seen the stickers on the car while we were driving to the Metro earlier in the day and asked us where we were sitting for the game. She said she worked at the park and would come and see us at the game, but I never imagined it would lead to such an awesome experience, which of course meant even more to me being a Nats fan, although both Mik and Dad enjoyed it as well.

The Diamond Club seats included an all you can eat buffet until the end of the 5th inning and drinks. It was amazing and way better than the normal ballpark food. More on it later in a Mik’s Food Scrapbook post, but for now I will say my favorite was the salads that included a variety of tomatoes and Mik loved the cookies and pot pie.

The buffet part and drinks were cool and probably Mik’s favorite, but the seats themselves were totally awesome. We had a table located behind home plate. It was a perfect place to see the whole game, scoreboard, and the President's Race (Lincoln won by the way). It was also great for scoring the game because I could have the scorebook on the table rather than balancing it on my lap. Even Mik enjoyed watching some of the game between innings on his PSP baseball game, which believe me has not happened much on this trip except the first game when we saw the Diamondbacks.

You would think the awesome seat upgrades to the Diamond Club would have been the end to our surprises for the day, but it was not. We were also presented with two Nationals backpacks. Both had a t-shirt and a beach towel in them. One had a ball signed by Christian Guzman and the other had a bat signed by Austin Kearns.

The game itself was also an exciting one with a lot of hitting by both teams. The Nats had the lead first with two runs in the first and two more in the second. The Cubs began to come back with two runs in the third. They then took the lead with three runs in the 6th and padded their lead with another run in the 8th. The Nats had several chance to come back included several bases loaded situations, but they only managed to score one more run in the 8th and ended up losing 5 to 6. It was sad to see the Nats lose, but at the same time it is not that sad because I am still partially a Cubs fan and Dad and Mik were both rooting for the Cubs. At least the Nats put effort into it and did not make it an easy win for the Cubs.

Overall today was an awesome experience at Nationals Park. It was certainly an experience I never expected. I definitely did not expect it to happen on this trip and never expected to get the opportunity to sit where we did, although I have seen the Diamond Club on the park tour before. It is not the same to see it on the tour, as to actually get to experience the game from it. Obviously experiencing the game from here is way better. Getting the bat and ball signed by two great Nats players was also a wonderful surprise.

Any Nats game makes the game one of my favorites on the trip even though they lost, but the experience we had made it near the top of the list in experiences on this trip for all of us. It not the same as seeing Hank Aaron or the Greg Maddux number retirement, but those are historical things everyone at the game experienced. This, however, was an unique experience that made the game extra special just for us and that makes it up there on the same level of highlights of the trip.

Thanks Marj for a fun, unique, and very memorable experience at Nationals Park!

Day 59/Game 25.5: Greg Maddux’s Number 31 Retired at Turner Field

Today we originally planned to spend the day driving to the D.C. area to be there for the Nationals game tomorrow night. However, I found out that today they were retiring Maddux’s number 31 at the Atlanta Braves and earlier this month we decided to get tickets to see the pre-game ceremony. We never planned to stay the whole game, but we ended up staying until 9pm and seeing 3 and ½ innings of the game before leaving to head to the D.C. area. We got the best handicap seats available for this game and they were way better than last night. They were so good Mik actually did not want to go when we said it was time to go.

We got to the ballpark very early today (3 hours before the gates even opened at 5pm). We got in line and were among the first into the park. As soon as we got in the park we rushed to get in line to get an autograph from Dale Murphy. We then had to wait over 45 minutes for him to show up. He was not supposed to start until 5:30pm, so the wait was not that delayed. Anyways it was worth it and we got our Braves Hall of Fame tickets signed by him since he is in the Hall of Fame. The usher handing the stuff to Dale was like you sure this is what you want signed and not a Braves bumper sticker, which they were giving out. Of course, we did not want a bumper sticker, I had thought long and hard on what to get signed and if I do say so myself I came up with a brilliant thing to get signed.

After getting the autographs we headed to our seats to be ready for when the pre game ceremony began. The pre game ceremony was cooler than yesterday’s Coca Cola Bottle unveiling, but no Hank Aaron, so I really got to say the two things tie in coolness to see in person. Sure seeing Greg Maddux and some other great Braves like Dale Murphy and Phil Nierko was cool and we were closer to the field today, but the unexpected seeing Hank Aaron ranks it up to just as awesome of an experience.

The pre game ceremony began with them introducing the important people up on the stage they wheeled out in front of the pitcher’s mound. They presented Maddux with the last official 31 Braves jersey. They then unveiled the number 31 up with the other retired numbers up near the giant Coca Cola bottle.

Overall tonight was a cool game to go to. It was fun to get the autograph of Dale Murphy even if I never heard of him until I looked him up yesterday when I heard about the opportunity to get his autography today. Seeing a number’s retirement and the retired number unveiled at the stadium was also a great historical event to add to our ballpark road trip experience. Plus the Braves got a great ballpark worth experiencing more than once. It would have been nice to stay for the whole game, but with a Cubs @ Nationals game on the schedule tomorrow I want to make sure we get to the D.C. area for that.

Kj’s Baseball Collection: Ty Cobb Museum

They had two different baseballs at the Ty Cobb Museum. Both basically looked the same, but one was just a cheaper vinyl one and the other was an actual leather Rawlings ball. I just went with the cheaper one, since the only thing on the leather one was the Rawlings logo that would end up hidden when I put the ball on my display rack. The ball has the museum’s logo in black ink. The black ink logo is of a bat with a ribbon around it that says Ty Cobb Museum. Below the bat logo it says Royston, GA.