O.K. So I’ve now seen the Mets play at the ball park of every team in their division.
I do not wish to comment on the specifics of the two games I saw this past weekend in Atlanta other than to say that as obnoxious as I find that tomahawk chop watching a game at Turner Field on TV, trust me, it is WAY more annoying live and in person.
And, by the way, I did not find much in the form of southern hospitality OUTSIDE the ball park either.
AND the weather sucked.
I DO highly recommend the Atlanta Aquarium. Particularly noteworthy are its whale sharks and beluga whales.
And going to the MLK Visitor Center and National Historic Site was definitely time well spent while in Atlanta.
I wish the Mets’ time at Turner Field had been time well spent.
After Sunday afternoon’s game, my family and I drove from the stadium south of town to the area near the airport. We had previously checked out of the hotel we had stayed at the previous two days, located in the downtown area. Because we had a very early flight out of Atlanta on Monday morning, we had made arrangements to stay in a hotel near the airport for our final night in the Atlanta area.
After checking into this airport hotel, we did some research on nearby eating establishments and, although we found the results somewhat limited and not altogether tantalizing, we managed to find something decent.
In order to expedite getting to our morning flight, we then drove to the airport and returned our rental car and took the hotel shuttle back to the hotel.
It was over a somewhat bland Mexican dinner in a slightly run-down, vintage-1970’s decor restaurant on some forgotten byway inhabitated by people who seemed to be having far too good of a time on this Sunday night than the surroundings warranted that I hit upon it and said it aloud to my family:
“What IS it about airport hotels and the surrounding area that is SO depressing?!”
This immediately resonated with my family. For the sake of convenience, we had found ourselves in this scenario more than a few times, and I guess I was just the first one to articulate what we had all been feeling.
There’s something about the staff at these hotels. It’s like they don’t really care. This particular hotel had a pool that was being fixed…sometime. They had a Business Center that was totally taken over by young children in bathing suits yelling to one another. They were playing host to some seemingly unorganized convention of some small gathering of people belonging to some sort of group with some sort of seemingly ambiguous agenda that seemed rather like an excuse to get together at a hotel airport, jam the lobbies and elevator, and drink, eat and talk excessively.
But the sort of people who work in local establishments are also often somewhat detached or unhurried or uncommitted or something as are the area clientele.
And then, because of most airports’ location on the outskirts of town, almost every airport hotel’s surroundings look like another’s: you could be anywhere.
And NOWHERE!
My husband said it reminded him of how Norman Bates mentioned how after “the highway” was built, no one travelled the backroads to the Bates Motel anymore.
~
So, while the weather certainly didn’t cooperate, the first game was postponed, we suffered that painful Kelly Johnson pinch-hit grand slam and Mets loss on Saturday, and on Sunday couldn’t get enough hitting to support the awesome pitching of Santana and lost that game as well, perhaps my family and I have discovered something about road trips and travel.
Next time, regardless of whatever else happens, at least we know we can arrange to have our final night’s stay a “winner”!
Perfect Pitch 