Saturday we had a grand city adventure day, heading into downtown Atlanta. There were multiple large events going on, and the traffic was worse than I'd ever seen it. It was a relief to rendezvous with family and head to our first destination -- the Sundial restaurant atop the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel.
Up, up, up in the glass elevator to the top of the 723-foot tower...
A serene space to look over the world from 50 stories up...
The seating area for the restaurant is placed on a ring around a central core kitchen. The ring slowly rotates so that diners have a 360-degree view of Atlanta over the course of an hour. Eli was fascinated with the seam. If you stand with one foot on each side, you find your feet slowly sliding apart. I remember doing the same thing when I was a kid!
After a couple of pleasant hours in the lounge while chatting, sharing appetizers, and enjoying the view, it was off to our next destination -- Monster Jam 2013 in the circus tent-like Georgia Dome.
How do I explain the roaring, sparking, thunderous-yet-carefully-controlled chaos that is Monster Jam?
I expected multiple loud trucks jacked high up off the ground on huge wheels, all racing around a dirt track. I just didn't realize what a spectacle it can be. It is car racing plus a demolition derby taking place on black marshmallow-tire stilts. On TV, I'd seen images of monster trucks flipping over, but I had no idea that was...well...no big deal. Upside down wreck? Bring out the heavy construction equipment and just flip it back over. Still running? Then back into the action! No? Ah, well. Just haul it over to the side and maybe another truck won't crash into it before the evening is over. Maybe.
I'll admit I went to Monster Jam simply to enjoy a family outing and please my guys. I didn't know I'd love it and spend the night laughing out loud at the sheer daring and the crazy antics. More than one truck jumped so high that an axle broke. The 63-inch tires (over 5 feet tall) are super thick and weigh almost a half ton each, yet we saw several pop. One tire completely broke off, speeding towards the crowd where it hit the arena wall and skittered away. A bulldozer had to shove it to the side before the action could continue.
See this? A few minutes before I snapped this photo, this was a tidy square of old cars parked side by side along with a RV. There's something so shocking about seeing them not just ruined, but actually obliterated, run over repeatedly, pieces flying, until the whole pile is beyond recognition. You can't help but cheer.
Talk about defying gravity...
On the way home (just before he fell deep asleep), Eli said, "Let's go again next year!" Sounds good to me.
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