There are often trade-offs in travel. You can do something educational and intellectually stimulating, such as going to a museum, or you can do something frivolous and fun, like letting loose at a cocktail bar, but you can't do both at the same time. Or can you? The Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta is bridging the gap between brainy and breezy with its special Martinis & IMAX events, which add an extra element of fun and mischief to the normally cerebral museum experience. Every Friday at 5:30 p.m., visitors can enjoy cool cocktails, tasty cuisine, amazing films, and live music beneath the world's largest dinosaurs in the museum's cavernous Great Hall. It's a unique perspective on the Giants of the Mesozoic and an amusing welcome to the weekend. In a special tribute to summer on Friday, June 20, (that's the solstice, for those who care to notice such things) the museum will offer special picnic packages with summer-inspired martinis, two IMAX tickets, and a picnic-style dinner for two. It's a fine way to celebrate the first day of summer and all the adventure and fun it represents. Starwood has hotels throughout the Atlanta region, including the stylish W Atlanta - Midtown, whose Whiskey Park lounge is the perfect place to enjoy one more martini before turning in for the night and dreaming of dinosaurs. Happy, friendly, vegetarian dinosaurs.
