Well, our first experience at Truist Park was an interesting one, that’s for sure!

A couple of months ago we started planning a trip to see family, both in the mountains of North Carolina and back home in Michigan. I of course figured that it would be best to try to see a few ballgames along the way, so we booked a flight into Atlanta, where we would rent a car and drive toward Charlotte and Asheville. On Friday night we’d check out the Braves, who were hosting the Phillies in the first of a big weekend series.

Our Thursday night flight was a red-eye from Oakland, and the first leg was delayed. So we were all fairly loopy when we finally arrived in Atlanta around 6:30 a.m. on Friday. We had a full day to kill (and try to stay awake) before the game, so we decided to try to find as many “Walking Dead” sites as we could.

This included seeing the spot where Glenn was trapped under the dumpster (kind of a dud), the house where Carol stayed outside of the Kingdom (a definite dud), and the real town of Senoia, which was the basis for the fictional towns of Woodbury and Alexandria (much cooler). We also had a nice lunch at Nic and Norman’s, which is a restaurant owned by Norman Reedus (Daryl on the show) and Greg Nicotero (special effects guy, director and producer). All in all, a fun morning wandering around the small towns and lush rolling hills of the Atlanta outskirts.

Our hotel was about a mile-and-a-half from the ballpark, but there is, supposedly, a bus that you can take to eliminate the walk. One of the hotel desk clerks explained it pretty clearly as we checked in, but by the time we had napped and headed back down to get to the game, the new desk clerks had no idea how the bus worked, or even that there WAS a bus. We tried to find the stop anyway but failed, and ended up trudging along to the Battery on foot, alongside a nice family with kids in both Braves and Phillies gear.

This snafu probably should have been our first warning sign that the evening was going to be a little off. OK, more than just a little.

It was hot, of course, because it’s Atlanta at the end of June. So were were inevitably pretty sweaty once we made it to the Battery, a district of shops and restaurants that sprang up as part of the whole ballpark complex. The area is clean and family-friendly, but fairly antiseptic and without much in the way of character. Picture one of those non-descript MLB store that they have in every ballpark then multiply it by five thousand and add a few corporate-style restaurants and you’ve pretty much got it. There’s nothing wrong with the district, exactly, but there’s not a ton to actually do unless you are either (a) adults without kids looking for beverages, or (b) adults with small kids who are excited about literally anything. With two teenagers in tow, I think all of us were mostly just bored.

The restaurants might be good but we weren’t able to get into any of them before the game started; the Battery didn’t seem overly packed but it was a Friday night and the lines were long. We tried putting our name in at the Yard House, where we were told it would be about 45 minutes before we could get a table. This is in spite of the fact that you could SEE that about half of the outdoor tables were unoccupied. We were OK with wandering around for a while before the table was ready, but when we strolled back after about an hour, the nice guy at the host stand explained that we still had a ways to go. At this point even MORE of the tables were empty. Puzzled, we gave up on eating in the Battery and headed into the game. I received the Yard House text that our table was ready another hour later.

Getting into the stadium was a breeze, and everyone we met was super nice and full of that famous southern hospitality. I was OK with not getting food outside of the ballpark once I found Bona Fide Deluxe, which serves delicious sausages, including a ‘Beyond’ sausage for plant-eaters. (Side note: people always love that hilarious old joke about how you can tell if someone’s a vegan because they’ll tell you in about 10 seconds. So I’m not going to tell you that I’m vegan. But I am going to tell you that I ate the vegan sausage). The roll was nicely toasted, the peppers contained the precisely right amount of spice, the sauce was dynamite, and the sausage almost tasted like real sausage. The perfect $15 ballpark meal. Leigh and the kids found some excellent chicken nachos at the stall next door, and we were all thoroughly satisfied.

Everything seemed to be going great!

And then it started raining.

The game was slated to start at 7:15. So of course, at 7:14, the sky unleashed. We thought it was raining hard right off the bat (baseball pun alert), but then it just got worse. And after that we thought we were lucky because at least we were in the cheap seats, protected under an overhang. For about five minutes, we were, but then it started raining sidewise, meaning the protective roof was not protective in the least. Everyone started to scramble for cover. The game was, obviously, going to be delayed.

Being from the Bay Area, where it doesn’t rain from March until November and both thunder and lightning are non-existent, we were a little overwhelmed with just how crazy the weather was getting. And Truist Park, while immaculate, doesn’t exactly have a ton of places for shelter; we spent the next 90 minutes in the restroom with dozens of other people. It was honestly pretty disconcerting, to the point where even if the game WERE to start, we were probably going to have to leave anyway. We were drenched and surrounded by thousands of other soaked fans, some of who were starting to panic. It wasn’t a fun situation in the least.

That kind of ends the review of the ballpark. It now heads the list of ballparks that I’ve been to but not actually seen a pitch. Does that count? I’m counting it. By the time it started to let up a bit, we were making our way back to the hotel. They did eventually start the game, and I briefly considering walking back to catch some of it. But it never did stop raining, and the Braves were down 11-0 after a couple of innings. It just didn’t quite seem worth it. I did miss a chance to see Trea Turner nearly become the first four-cycle player in baseball history (fun story here). But he didn’t quite make it happen anyway.

So there it is: Truist Park is checked off the list. Next time I’ll (hopefully) be able to see some baseball.