Our trip to Atlantis

Yes, Atlantis, or so Sam called it. Having heard about Atlantis in various cartoon shows, he was happy to hear he'd finally be visiting. He didn't seem too disappointed when it turned out to be above water.

The last week we three went to Atlanta for the annual American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics meeting. It was a real treat being able to go as a family. And we feel blessed it worked out--after all, Sam's doctor thinks he came down with H1N1 last week, and got over it quickly because he received the vaccine 1.5 weeks before.

Unfortunately, Susan came down with something shortly after our arrival. She's taken it like a trooper, though.
Some highlights of the trip:

• The hotel, a Hyatt, is built around a huge, light, 22-story atrium: The rooms all circle the atrium off of balcony-corridors and look out over the huge interior. And, to quote Susan,
  

  One of the cool things about having a little boy is you can ride the super-cool glass elevator to the top floor, then all the way down again, and act excited the whole time, and people just think you're being a good mom.

• Atlanta is home to the Georgia Aquarium which bills itself as the largest in the world. It has a huge tank containing two huge manta rays (the only in captivity in the U.S.), and four gigantic whale sharks, in addition to numerous other large fish, such as several hammer-head sharks. Susan asked whether they all eat one another, and was told they are kept well fed to avoid this; but as is only natural, the bigger ones do snack on others from time to time. The colorful and aptly named "porkfish" are considered the snacks of the tank! In fact, the docent said she had recently seen a hammerhead shark swim by with a fin sticking out of its mouth, not looking at all guilty.
• The Aquarium, however, was not free. It cost over $100 for all three of us (ugh). This included a 15-minute movie with 3-D glasses (the polarized-light kind, not the blue-red kind) in which cute fish preached about the importance of not killing the oceans, etc. etc. We were delighted to see they nonetheless sold tuna fish sandwiches in the cafeteria. The movie, in an attempt to drive home the 3-D effects, even sprayed the audience with water and blew puffs of air at us when appropriate, and dropped streamers on our heads at the end. Shown here is Sam standing with Domino the Whale Shark. Sam was truly delighted to hug Domino, and confided in me afterwards that Domino had stepped on his foot. I said, At least it was a soft foot, right? Nope. A valuable lesson learned: sharks are dangerous. (Btw, only grainy photos from this trip: forgot the real camera. So this is what it's like to be "in the moment" and not see the world through the view-finder!)
  
• A legacy of the Atlanta Olympics is the pleasantly sculpted Centennial Park in the center of town, just a few blocks away. We made several trips there to avail ourselves of the play equipment, run through the programmed water jets (stayed mostly dry!) and enjoy the stream and waterfalls. Sam also made some new playmates. Tonight it was a pair of Hispanic kids and their family. Sam asked them if he could play with them and they ended up chasing one another around pretending to be tigers. At one point Sam changed into a T-Rex and the other boy happily told him about T-Rex's "talons" and how they can sink into you.
  
• Also within a few blocks is a little children's "museum" (i.e. creative indoor play area) called Imagine It! It was, again, quite expensive. More expensive, in fact, than Rochester's Museum of Play, and a tiny fraction of the size. Susan wants to raise money to fly school groups from Atlanta up to Rochester's PM. Her goal is to forever spoil them for their own children's museum. Once you've tasted the real thing, you can never go back.
• We didn't go to the Coke Museum--not enough time, I suppose--but did enjoy the tower-sized coke bottle with the spectrally shifting lights. Maybe next time. Seemed cruel to take him there and not just let him chug caffeinated liquid, which I think might not have been the best idea.
• Even more than the aquarium and the other sights, Sam enjoyed a game of his own invention called "vomit" (we used parental discretion to change it to "bomb"). In this game two opponents try to toss a repurposed suction cup at each other. (There are more rules--you can't be too close, etc.). Yes, Sam's a three-year-old boy.
  
• The weather. While it was rainy/snowy/40s/cold/cloudy (i.e. "seasonable") in Rochester, we were enjoying mid 60s and sunny. Ahh...
  

This evening while taking the elevator up to the room, a plasma physicist remarked that we need more energy like Sam's in plasma physics. (I added that his is a non-thermal energy source. Ha! Ha! I should take it on the road--literally.)

Next year, Chicago.