Atlanta Braves - March 31, 2018

We had a really wonderful trip to Atlanta.  It started off with a visit with family, who were nice enough to meet us at the Marietta Diner with almost no notice.

Since we had some time before the night game, we visited Stone Mountain and rented electric bikes.  This was a godsend for Aliyah because she was cruising, without flaring her arthritis.

Finally, it was off to the new Braves stadium.  It is built into a beautiful area of restaurants, bars, etc.  We parked a ways away and made our way through the streets that were hopping with people.  There was some EXCELLENT people watching.  There was a marching band that proceeded across the walkway before the gates opened.  It included some awesome drumline riffs and dancers.

There is a really cool museum in the ballpark, including the #755 made out of bats to honor Hank Aaron. The scoreboard is GORGEOUS, but content on it was really lame.  It was like building a crazy-awesome TV room and then using it to watch Ishtar.  They also had an old-fashioned organ, which I really like, which played a crazy variety of stuff, including Grease Lightning, Ode to Joy and Here Comes the Bride.

Foodwise, there was pretty basic ballpark fare.  One exception was the gigante burrito that Aliyah ordered.  She had no idea how gigantic it would really be.  There was no way she could finish it.  Even Aliyah and Lee together couldn't take it down.

Aliyah made a mistake in not realizing how truly gigante, the Gigante Burrito was.

 

Nice view.  Nice stadium.

Unfortunately, we were sitting right behind a group of twenty-somethings who were super into flirting with each other, drinking, taking selfies, and playing with their hair (both girls and guys).  Aliyah was going to LOSE HER MIND if the girl in front of her tossed her hair over Aliyah's knee one more time.  When they finally left in the 8th inning, Aliyah said under her breath, "Please use Uber.  And protection!"  I laughed out loud.

I know lots of places do it, but I can NOT get behind the tomahawk chop.  We never joined in.  I turned to the kids and said, "On a scale of 1 to racist..."  They immediately knew what I meant.  Not my thing, dude.  Why does this still exist?

Our overall impression of the Atlanta Braves was that the stadium was nice, but nothing super special. (The area just outside the stadium is top notch, though.)  We would give it a solid B+.  (Aliyah feels that I should state for the record that I have hated the Atlanta Braves ever since I moved to Chicago in 1991 and thus my opinion may not be totally unbiased.)