Rough night.  The Hot Chicken lived up to it’s name and continued burning all night.  Didn’t get much sleep and what little sleep I did get was peppered with crazy dreams.

Georgia Aquarium entryway – they have painted dolphins too!

Underwater Tunnel – One of the better ones I’ve been to.

Wall o’ colourful fish.

The Georgia Aquarium might be the biggest in the world with the most variety of fish.  But it just felt less serious than the Lisbon Oceanarium.  Georgia has a much higher level of polish, but something is lost with the kid friendly cartoons and the musical dolphin show.  Still very much worth visiting if you’re in town.

The land the Aquarium sits on was donated by Coca-Cola.  And as it is, the World of Coca Cola is next door.  Now, I’ve been to a few of these already – Las Vegas and Tokyo(I think), but since those have closed, this is the one to visit now.

The newest attraction is the Vault with the ‘real’ secret recipe.  Big fake vault and security checkpoints with trappings of hollywood spy stuff.   Eventually, you end up in a circular room with a video that opens up to reveal the real safe:

I guess there is some real controversy about whether or not the actual recipe is in there.  But I suppose given the continuing changing of their recipe under political/health pressure, I don’t know how important it really is now.  Coke is an insane brand, aside from it’s origins and taste.  As they say, the secret is part of the magic of Coke – why wouldn’t you leverage it for publicity?

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One of the things I found interesting was that Coke is up in space!  I’m sure some ridiculous amount of engineering went into transport and design of the dispensers and cups.  I wonder if someone from coke got to taste test in zero-g?

Giant wall o’ Coke pins.

More giant Coke bottle art.

There were 4D exhibits at both the Coke and Aquarium.  Best one yet is still the Insect Museum in New Orleans.  I suspect my natural sensitivity to creepy crawlies may have something to do with it.   And as usual, there is a tasting center where you get to try flavours from around the world.  I got plenty of sugar and bubbles before heading out through the gift shop.

The plan was to go for Chicken & Waffles at Gladys And Ron’s.  I circled around downtown looking for parking.  Unfortunately, the damage done by the Hot Chicken was not complete yet.   The thought of putting food into the system was making my system churn(the excess amount of pop probably didn’t help).

The plan was to stop in Forsyth to save myself Atlanta traffic the next day, but since I didn’t burn any hours eating chicken & waffles, I pushed on.   I’d still like to make it to Key West by Friday – make the trip on a weekday.  Stopping when I ran out of gas, I ended up in Ashburn, Georgia.   Not a small part because the motels were reasonably priced.