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01/09/2006 Entry: "Sugar Bowl, Atlanta, GA"

I really enjoy driving for longer trips that take me to areas of the country I don't see very often. I recently returned from Atlanta, GA, where I took a local band to play as part of the pre-game and halftime entertainment at the Nokia Sugar Bowl -- more than 74,000 screaming people crammed into the Georgia Dome. It was my first college football game, and first bowl game. Very exciting! And different in many ways from the pro football games I've attended. I really enjoyed it. That's one of the great things about this job -- you get to see places and do things you'd probably never otherwise get to see or do. I ended up rooting for Georgia, because I had these very nice, very polite Georgia fans sitting beside me, and some very obnoxious West Virginia fans constantly standing in front of me, blocking my view half the time! Unfortunately Georgia lost, 38-35, but it was a great game.

We stayed at an Embassy Suites hotel on the north side of Atlanta -- one of the most bus-unfriendly hotels I've stayed at. The hotel itself was nice (see my review in the forums, Places to Stay). But we always had to back up this ramp to park the coaches -- see the photo at right. And if other coaches beat us there (six coaches at the hotel, parking for four), we had to back past them to park. Fortunately most of the three nights there, we were the first parked, and made sure we left as much room as we could for the others -- but they had to back past us to park themselves. Lots of fun at night! It was good experience, but not a good place to send a new driver. Fortunately, I kind of like backing up, and I think I'm pretty good at it (tip: if you have passengers, make sure they're seated so you can see out the back window). I got plenty of practice on this trip.

It was my fourth trip to Atlanta in three years. The group did a little sightseeing (Stone Mountain, Coca Cola), and the previous experience made this trip easier. Nice trip -- I'm ready to go back anytime -- but I'll take a different hotel, please!