Stone Mountain

Don’t take the easy way out. Tough it out and earn the braggin’ rights. Just climb it.

Late one afternoon, after our meetings were over, a few of us decided that we ought to try going out to see Stone Mountain. We were a group of four, two had been there before, and the others had not. It took quite a while to get there from where we were staying in Buckhead. Traffic was pretty heavy, and there didn’t seem to be much in the way of freeways between the two locations.

Luckily I had brought the girl with me. She knew how to get us there. Getting back was another issue though. (BTW, girl is a term that my traveling companions and I frequently use to mean GPS. It comes from the female-sounding voice that it uses to give directions. It’s pretty common to hear one of us ask something like, “Does your girl know if there’s a good Mexican restaurant near here?” or, “Does the girl want us to get off of the freeway at this exit, or the next one?”)

By the time we arrived at Stone Mountain, the visitor’s center, shops, and other amenities had all closed. We got out of the car and looked around a bit. Of course we were able to see the mountain itself and the enormous carving on the face of it. The area was beautiful, with its fragrant, verdant forests.

The carving on the mountain is impressive. The figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson can all be seen. The carving is decptively large. They said that the statue of Robert E. Lee was more than 90 feet high.

It is a very popular area. There were a lot of well-utilized walkways. Bicycles were everywhere. I’m sure that it would be great to live near this place.

We stopped and had an excellent meal at a German restaurant nearby and then headed back to Buckhead.

I hope to go back there again someday, especially during the daytime when everything is open.

Years ago, this park was the first place I tried and did go camping. While there, I took the nature thing a bit further, and hiked up to the top of the mountain. My first hike, alone, out in the ruff etc.

There were some hard places, and then almost at the top is it all smooth curved stone. I decided to take the short cut. Oh My GOSH! I was almost vertical laying on the stone going up. It got to a point my toes were bent my boobs were touching the stone along with my face..and nothing to hang on to..just smooth rock… I could not go forward and I could not go back..if I was to have slipped then, it was all smooth rock to over the side… Litterally to save myself… I then became Spider Woman! and inched sideways until I could find a little weeds coming out of the rock… I kept going sidways until I could get on the regular trail. Made it up and made it down… almost to the building where I could get my Climbing certificate…and I tripped and fell on the railroad tracks and cut up my knees! I did good! Nice park…

Took my daughters for a quick getaway trip to the spa and to Stone Mountain. They really enjoyed their first spa trip!

We thoroughly enjoyed our day at Stone Mountain. The park is beautiful, but it was a really hot Southern Saummer day and the kids couldn’t wait to get back and swim at the hotel pool!

I drove down to Stone Mountain GA for Atlantafest last week… the park was more amazing that I remember!