Things Go Better With Coke????

Now that the big adventure is done, it is back to the regular RV life. Next stop Atlanta. I have decided that Chicago traffic doesn't even come close to Atlanta traffic. It is insane here. We decided to take the bypass (285) around Atlanta to get to the RV park thinking that there would be less traffic than if we had decided to go through central Atlanta. Holy cow!!! My side of the freeway had seven lanes of traffic all either moving along at 70 mph or crawling. It could change at any second. Nobody seems to like the lane that they are in – much much lane changing.

Staying at the Jones RV park which has maybe 20 sites for short timers like me. Counting the attached trailer park, there have got to be about 300 sites. Us temporary people are scrunched in tight and I am nestled right up next to the bath house. At least it has full hookups and wifi. Quite a change from the lake.

First up it one of the top rated attractions in Atlanta. WORLD OF COCA-COLA. It is in downtown Atlanta, right in the middle of Olympic Square. I paid $14 entrance fee for basically a three hour coke commercial. Parts of it were almost impressive though. They allow 215 people to enter every nine minutes and we had to wait in line perhaps a half hour before we got to go through security and were allowed to enter. The first room we were in had a lot of old Coke print ads and Coke paraphernalia and a young woman leading us along who used to be a cheerleader in a past life.

 

World of Coca-Cola

We then all shuffled into a movie theater and watched an emotionally manipulative movie about how good life is with coke. Then we were set free to wander around the complex and experience all that the World of Coke had to offer.

 

See how crowded and how weird?

 

I guess the new Coke mascot is a polar bear. They had a sad looking polar bear standing there that you could take your picture with. He really looked like he might slap down the next little kid who hugged him.

 

 

There was one room where they had a mini bottling line and they explained how Coke is bottled. I have always been a sucker for automated manufacturing lines and this was really cool with conveyor belts pushing and pulling coke bottles all over and then filling them. They said this particular bottling line would fill 20 bottles a minute. They had slowed it down so that we could really see how the process worked. A bottling line out in the real world would do 2,200 cans in a minute.

Moving on to the 4D movie that I got to watch. The story was hokie about some scientist trying to figure out the Coke secret formula is. You had to wear the 3D glasses, there was lots of 3D action and then the seats in the theater would move and water would spray on you. Sort of fun.  

 

The tasting room was where you could taste every flavor that Coke has around the world. More than 100 different beverages. I tasted one from Italy – vile, vile, vile stuff. Lou and Davey seemed to like the African products the best. They were hanging out with some kiwi-mango concoction. The floor was incredibly sticky. You really had to work at un-attaching your feet from the floor.

 

 

Extra Large Bottles representing Coke packaging from around the world

 

Fun facts: Pemberton, a chemist, created the Coke formula in Atlanta in 1886. A guy named Chandler bought the rights in 1888 for $2,300. He sold the rights in 1919 for $25 million. Not a bad investment. Also, it is rather common knowledge that Pemberton used cocaine in creating his formula for Coca-Cola. No where in the World of Coca-Cola was that fact mentioned.

World of Coca-Cola was an experience that assaulted the senses. Extremely loud, extremely in your face. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I might be getting into my senior years where I can no longer appreciate this type of sensory overload.