Multi site - cannot visit from dashboard

The issue I am having is that I cannot visit my sites from the dashboard. I created a site called 'a' for the purpose of testing some PHP. When I attempt to vist the site by hitting 'visit' icon from page http://xx.xx.xx.xxx/wp-admin/network/sites.php the url changes to http://a.x.xxx.xx.xxx/a/. I x'ed the IP address out itentionallly. I am new to this and pretty clueless. Thanks