Dale Jr makes his way around the track

The drive to the race was fairly quick, but we did hit some stop and go traffic once we got on the main highway that led to the speedway. We passed several “need tickets?”  signs. Guys were in the street selling tickets and t-shirts.
 
It probably took us about an hour to an hour and a half to get to the track, which was about 30 miles away. Once we got there, things went quickly. Parking, walking to the track, and getting in didn’t take long at all. Atlanta Motor Speedway was built for large crowds. It was much better than Richmond International Raceway, where we had to walk almost two miles just to get to the track itself.
 
The crowd was pretty much what you would expect at a NASCAR race. There were a fair share of shirtless rednecks. There were also quite a few minorities there – mostly blacks and Latinos. Of course we were seated next to two smokers who lit up ever chance they got. They were smoking Pall Mall’s. It bothered Nadia much more than it bothered me. But, the wind from the cars on the track kept the air flowing so it wasn’t unbearable.

The race was fun, and leaving the track was easy. I was really impressed with the AMS staff, and the local police, as they really prevented a logjam at the exits. It took us about 20 minutes to get off of the track lot. At Richmond, it took almost two hours just to get out of the lot.

We got back to the hotel and called it a night, after all it was 1 a.m.

Monday morning, we packed up and checked out of the hotel. We wanted to try the aquarium one last time before our flight. On Monday, the line was short, so we went in. Nadia says the Georgia Aquarium is much better than the Baltimore Aquarium. I’ve been to both but I went to the Baltimore Aquarium more than a decade ago, so I don’t remember it.
 
Every part of the Georgia Aquarium is brought to us by some company. I guess without Home Depot, Georgia Pacific, Southern Company and AirTran, there would be no aquarium because their logos are displayed with the names of each experience. UPS helped ship some of whales, too. Don’t worry, they weren’t put in huge cardboard boxes and shipped by truck. You can find out more about how they were shipped here.

Also, the aquarium taught me about plurals. Apparently, fish is a word that is singular and plural. For example, “I saw a fish.” and “We caught five fish.” But, the signs in the aquarium say “fishes.” Fishes is used when you’re talking about several different species of fish. Didn’t know that.

We walked around the aquarium checking out all the different fishes (could have used fish here and it would have been correct) and watched a couple of videos. Most of the videos encouraged us to help through donations.

We got to touch a stingray, and some other types of marine life. I wonder if fish need to worry about swine flu. I wonder if swine flu can be transmitted by an infected person touching a fish, then an uninfected person touching that fish. Hmmm.

Anyway, once we visited all of the different experiences, we headed out. We walked over to CNN HQ because it was only a few blocks from the aquarium. I would have liked to take the tour, but we didn’t have enough time. We had to make our flight.
 
We walked around the lobby, gift shop, and food court, but we didn’t see any famous anchors dining at the food court. There were a bunch of cardboard cut outs of them, though. Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Sanjay Gupta, and Soledad O’Brien all had cut-outs on display. O’Brien was the only one people were taking pictures of.

After seeing all there was to see for free in CNN, we headed out. We got the car and headed back to the airport. Atlanta airport is pretty cool. It has a train system, so you don’t have to walk. Of course, we walked because Nadia wants to be healthy. We cheated, though, and took the moving sidewalk.

The flight home was almost as uneventful as the flight there. I declined the exit row because I didn’t want to perform the duties if something goes wrong. It seems pretty easy, but I don’t know. I’d rather panic than be relied on to be calm.

We sat in the very last row of the plane. It wasn’t too bad. No one stunk up the bathroom, so we didn’t have to smell it. The engine was loud, but it wasn’t deafening. Sucked not to have a window, but I could sort of see out of the window in the row in front of us.

We were in a holding pattern near Charlotte, NC for about 20 minutes due to the traffic into Dulles. But, once we got the go-ahead, we were back in track.

Going from sunny and 80s to rainy and 70s sucked. It could have been worse, we could have come back to snow, but still.

All in all, it was a fun trip. I had a good time and enjoyed the aquarium and the World of Coke. The race was fun too, but next time, I might buy seats in a box, so I don’t have to deal with smokers. I guess NASCAR figures that if you’re okay inhaling race car fumes, then you won’t mind smoke.