The Short-but-Epic Trip to USA for DragonCon 2014! (Part 3 – A Large Coke)

Thursday was the first official day in Atlanta and first task of the day was to grab our passes for the convention. This was a relatively painless process of lining up, presenting our blue passes and exchanging them for the bit of plastic that would provide safe passage through all the hotels during the con. Without those passes on (at all times), you were seriously rooted if you wanted to get anywhere.

Then we headed out to the Georgia Aquarium for a bit of a sight-see, however, upon getting there we discovered that the cost of a couple tickets (PLUS TAX!) was insanely expensive. $40 per ticket was just a little much for everyone involved and we were reluctant to spend that much. Fortunately we were planning on going to the party being held at the aquarium on Saturday evening. Not only would we be there in the evening but the aquarium would be open to the party goers for the bargain price of $30 even. With that in mind, we turned towards the Coke Museum.

For my readers who are not familiar with Coca-Cola history, Coke was born in Atlanta and as a result, there’s a big-assed museum with all sorts of Coke-themed paraphernalia housed within.

Rather than bore you with talking about it, here’s a collection of my favourite pictures from the day. It was actually more interesting than I thought it was going to be. There was some very, very cool retro stuff to be found…

Wise words.

A collection of Coca-Cola signage spanning decades.

Toothy purple frogman in a hat that looks like a boob… I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.

The original Cola!

Pretty colours!

Vintage Cola!

Fast cars and even faster women. Maybe.

I don’t know, I just thought the sign was funny.

Possibly the fabled Machine That Goes PING!? No? Oh well.

Contemporary Cola.

I fell in love with these bottles, the one made from computer boards in particular. They were huge!

Ah, the room where you could taste all the flavours of all the Coca-Cola softdrinks of the world… Whatever you do, do NOT drink the Beverley. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.

So yes. Coca-Cola Land was certainly an adventure. Funniest moment of the day was awarded to my friend Grant who declared (as he fairly buzzed from a massive sugar overload), “I’ve only tried 87 of the 60 flavours!”