Biggs Cross Country 2017: Day 16 - Convention and Delta

Another unsatisfactory shuttle bus ride to the Convention Center - it took over and hour for us to get to the auditorium so we missed the opening. No big deal, it was caused by a traffic jam with all the buses!

This convention complex is amazing. Its the 3rd biggest in the country! It includes: 1.5 million square feet of exhibition space, 100+ meeting rooms, 2 fixed seat auditoriums. Also included is the Georgia Aquarium, The Georgia Dome/Mercedes Benz Stadium (Falcons play here), Philips Arena (home of Hawks basketball), Centennial Olympic Park, College Football Hall of Fame, Directly adjacent is the Coca Cola Museum, the CNN Center, and three major hotels! Wow!

After this incredible walk through the hallways and down at least four sets of escalators, we finally reach the main hall (tomorrow I'm going to measure it). Its just a huge room with 20,000 folding chairs and 20 big TV screens. The topic today was the fight to eradicate Polio. MC was John Cena who introduced RI President John Germ, Mayor Kasim Reed, a polio survivor extreme athlete, and others (sorry, can't recall names!)

The featured speaker was Bill Gates! He did a great job leading us through the history of the effort, going back to 1980, and the story of the many partnerships that have been developed over the years that have allowed a tremendous amount of money to be invested in the program. As of now, there are only 3 countries left where polio appears. In 2017 so far, only 5 cases have appeared! But there is still a lot to do. They figure the funding shortfall is $1.5 Billion.

It was hinted that they might change the slogan from "This Close" to "Drop to Zero"?

The discussion then turned into a fundraiser! President Germ announced that The Rotary Foundation had committed $50 million for the next 3 years. Gates then announced that the Gates Foundation would match that 2 to 1, for $300 million. Then, various other countries stepped up and made commitments as well. By the time the offers were tabulated, we saw commitments totaling $1.2 BILLION!

The second session of the morning had to do with child trafficking, but we didn't stay for that. We had to grab a bite to eat (we found an awesome sausage with peppers and onions) then walk all the way back outside to catch the bus to the Delta Airlines Museum.

The Delta museum is in an old hanger out by Hartsfield Airport. Delta has an interesting history, starting as a crop duster in the Mississippi delta, and growing to become the largest airline in the world (maybe #2?) There were some interesting airplanes on display and they cleverly used luggage carts as display cabinets. Its amazing how air travel has changed over the years! Overall, it wasn't very impressive, but interesting.

When the bus arrived back at the convention center it had started to rain. We hustled into the main concourse and the skies opened! Our bus back to the hotel was far distance outside, so after the rain subsided a bit, we walked out there to catch the bus. Good thing its warm - we got pretty well soaked!

We wanted to have dinner tonight at Trader Vic's, but we couldn't get in (after the hotel concierge said reservations were no necessary). We made a reservation for tomorrow. So we dined at the same place we were at yesterday, which is awesome!!