We've reached the dreaded dog days of summer, a time when even dogs are dazed from Atlanta's unrelenting heat and humidity. It's also the point at which anyone responsible for keeping children or grandchildren occupied has run out of ideas.
Facing a similar code red crisis, we tried to think of diversions so obvious that only a tourist would go for them. Then it hit us like a real thing in the back of our minds: How about visiting museums that celebrate our hometown corporations? What could be more "Atlanta" in a city that's all about doing business?
Delta Air Transport Heritage Museum
For such a high-flying airline, Delta's nonprofit museum, located on the company's campus near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, has kept a low profile since its 1995 founding.
That's by design: The small-staffed museum, housed in side-by-side 1940s-era aircraft hangars, primarily serves Delta "family." But it is open to the public, hosting some 35,000 visitors last year.
One hangar is focused on early propeller planes and gives a clear sense of Delta's roots as a crop-dusting operation based in Louisiana in the 1920s.
An eye-catcher is the Travel Air 6B Sedan, with which Delta launched its first passenger service in 1929. With a steel-frame construction covered by a linen and epoxy skin, the single-engine monoplane flew along Delta's pioneer route from Dallas to Jackson, Miss. (The airline, in fact, took its name from the Mississippi Delta.)
By 1930, the Travel Air was carrying customers into Atlanta, Delta's future base. The five passengers sat in wicker chairs, covered in velvet, that were bolted to the wooden floorboard.
"It was for the most adventurous travelers," said museum director Tiffany Meng.
Dominating the second hangar is the B-767, known as "The Spirit of Delta," which was purchased for $30 million by employees and retirees as a gift to the company in 1982 as the airline was emerging from from a turbulent time, due to a weak economy, industry deregulation and high fuel prices).
The rear of the Boeing aircraft has been converted into exhibit space exploring Delta's jet age starting in 1959. The displays of black boxes and food-service wares and the model of the ordered-but-never-built Boeing Supersonic Transport are fascinating. But most visitors are especially drawn to the display of stewardess garb, including a still-fashionable 1959 "honey beige" dress and handbag designed by famed movie costumer Edith Head.
9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays by reservation only (contact 404-715-7886 or museum.delta@delta.com). Tour groups limited to 20. 1940 Douglas DC-3 interior is open for tours at noon on the second Tuesday of each month. The Spirit of Delta interior is open for tours noon-2 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. Suggested donation: $5 per person. 1060 Delta Blvd., Atlanta. www.deltamuseum.org.
Original Dwarf House
Chick-fil-A offers a Home Office Backstage Tour weekdays at its Atlanta headquarters, but the chain's charming first location in Hapeville, 15 minutes away, is a museum unto itself.
Opened as the Dwarf Grill by Truett Cathy in 1946, the diner still offers table service and decor inspired by the Seven Dwarfs. There's a diminutive arched red door for dwarfs and other small fry at the entrance and a large animated mural at the rear of the restaurant showing the dwarfs heading out from their cottage to mine in the morning, returning with a wheelbarrow and pan overflowing with gold.
The menu presents all the Chick-fil-A staples but also includes a dish called Hot Brown (a variation on chicken pot pie), Southern-style fresh vegetables (the sweet potato souffle could double as pie filling) and, oh my, even burgers. As the menu smartly suggests: "Don't tell the cows!"
The vibe is throwback Deep South, with waitresses expert at laying on the sugar, greeting customers with compliments such as "You look nice!" and subsequently calling you "My love."
Open 24 hours Mondays-Saturdays (closed Sundays). 461 N. Central Ave., Hapeville. 404-762-1746, www.chick-fil-a.com.
World of Coca-Cola
This downtown mega-attraction opened the exhibit "Vault of the Secret Formula" last December, giving new emphasis to the "genius" of John S. Pemberton, who created the original (and still beloved, 126 years later) Coke mix.
The holographic history exhibits, ominous voice-overs about accessing the vault, pressurized doors that pop open and 360-degree video that make you feel like you're swimming in a glass of the fizzy stuff seem more of the moment than anything else in the museum, but it all leads to a bank-like vault that's, well, just not that exciting.
Little is illuminated throughout the two-story museum about the marketing genius that has made Coke perhaps the world's most recognizable brand. Yet the joint is jammed with clever advertising that, no matter the language, makes you increasingly thirsty for a Coke.
The payoff, of course, comes at the final stop, the "Taste It!" area that boasts more than 60 Coke-family beverages from around the world. After we sampled everything from Sparletta Sparberry from Zimbabwe (like fakey-fake Jolly Ranchers that had been liquefied) to Beverly, an Italian drink that tasted like rancid salty vinegar, we had to laugh when a fellow museum-goer spotted a dispenser of the stuff that had brought us all here in the first place and exclaimed, "Finally, American Coke!"
Hours vary daily. $16, $14 ages 65 and up, $12 ages 3-12. 121 Baker St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-676-5151, www.worldofcoca-cola.com.
Inside CNN Studio Tour
Check out the news gathering and production in action at the network's global headquarters.
9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. $15, $14 ages 65 and older and students ages 13--18 or with college ID, $12 ages 4-12. One CNN Center, Atlanta. 404-827-2300, www.cnn.com/tour.
Waffle House Museum
The Atlanta-based chain of more than 1,600 restaurants started at this humble diner, where memorabilia is now on the menu, in 1955. Though Waffle House restaurants never close, the museum is open to the public only for a scattering of days each year (though it can be visited by appointment).
Noon-3 p.m. Aug. 4 and Sept. 8. Free. 2719 E. College Ave., Decatur. 770-729-5700, www.wafflehouse.com (click "Our Story").
Ivan Allen Jr. Braves Museum & Hall of Fame
Hank Aaron's 715th home run bat and ball. The 1995 World Series trophy. A 26-foot cross section of a 1954 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad car of the sort that transported the Milwaukee Braves on road trips. Video of Otis Nixon's famed over-the-outfield-wall catch and Sid Bream's even more famous slide. It's all here at the Braves Museum, at Turner Field's Aisle 134, which traces the team from its Boston beginnings in 1871.
Hours during baseball season: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, 1-3 p.m. Sundays. Also open two and a half hours before each home game. Admission during games: $2. Non-game admission: $5. Tours of the museum and Turner Field: $12 adults, $7 children. 755 Hank Aaron Drive S.E., Atlanta. 404-614-2311, www.braves.com (click "Turner Field," then "Museum and HOF").
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