Our initial plan was to devote Saturday to our favorite Atlanta activity-- "Shooting the Hooch." (For those of you not in the know, the Hooch is short for the Chatahoochie--the river that runs behind Larry & Gaye's neighborhood.) Unfortunately the forecast wasn't cooperative and we decided instead to go to Stone Mountain.
The "trail" (I use the word loosely) to the top of Stone Mountain is 1.3 miles, and the constant incline makes it quite a workout. If you look closely you can see that Russ (wearing his green turtle shirt from Maui) is up for the challenge.
Larry brought a pack of gum so that everyone could have a piece to chew on the trail. The reason became obvious when we arrived at one of the grossest things I have ever seen. The Gum Pole. Everyone added their chewed gum to the collection. Except for me, I couldn't even look at it, it grossed me out so much. (Except to take these pictures so that you, too, could be grossed out.)
Larry looks for an open spot for his gum.
It was actually a strenuous walk. The little kids complained a lot for the last part of it, but they still all did it. Rachel takes a trail mix break.
The view from halfway up--Atlanta downtown and midtown in the distance.
A sweet sibling moment.
It was exciting to finally get to the top--a huge and windy expanse of granite. We sat for a few minutes catching our breath and cooling off, and then went over to the side to look at the view.
Everyone but Larry (who is taking the picture) at the summit.
The little kids were not at all excited about having to walk back down the mountain. In fact Jared decided that he was going to crawl down!
As we got to the bottom of the mountain to the train tracks we could hear the train whistling. I was walking with Larry and Jared, and Larry fished a penny out of his pocket and put it on the track. Jared plopped himself down on the ground to wait for his penny to be processed by the train. It was pretty cool--the train may have only been creeping along, but it smashed the penny totally flat.
After we were all back to the van we piled in and drove around to the other side of the park to see the bas relief sculpture in the side of Stone Mountain.
Do we have these kind of Blue Jays (Southern Blue Jays) in Durham?
The mountain looks like a huge granite egg rising out of the earth. It was really fascinating.
Here's an up close of the bas-relief---Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. Given the fact that I'm 2/3 through this month's book club book--Killer Angels--it made me sad.
Such a fun outing, and I totally had my exercise for the day!
Posts
I sure miss you guys!!!
ReplyDelete