Before I pick up the pack to go out to the wilds of middle north Idaho, I thought I'd put up about my trip to Stone Mountain. An interesting park just outside of Atlanta. Now, I was on a work trip so I didn't rent a car. If you go to Atlanta there isn't much you can't do without the use of public transportation and bipedalism. We stayed in Buckhead so I caught the MARTA train to downtown, changed to a different train then changed to a bus to the village of Stone Mountain. It is best if you are visiting to just pony up the $13 bucks for a seven day visitor pass so you never have to think about transfers and such. Otherwise I would have had to pay for two passes for this trip: one for the train and one for the bus because the transfer was not viable. If anyone decides to do this on the low, wait until the bus gets to the 'shed stop' in the village rather than one of the street side stops. It saves you a couple of blocks to wander. I didn't know that so I left the bus at the first stop that was in Stone Mountain Village. The advantage was I got to explore the village a little bit. There really aren't any signs I could see to tell you which way to go, but I picked what looked like a main street with a sidewalk going towards the big rock in front of me. It worked. If you want to walk to the top of the rock, turn right when you walk through the park gate (free if walking, pay if driving). If you want to use the tram turn left and go to the parking lots. I chose the correct turn and went right. Although I do have to wonder about the wiseness of walking to the top of a stone of granite at 1100 in 98 degree weather when coming from the land of forever winter (it had snowed before I left home and it snowed when I came home). In all, I felt it was a worthy day trip. I did take the tram down so that I could experience that and then I wandered through the museum and the park grounds most of the day. I happened to be there during SoulFest, so some interesting outside music was playing. When I got tired of the whole thing I just retraced my steps back to the bus stop in the Village and went back to Buckhead.
There are 15 pictures from the top and side of the big rock.
I did find the carving awesome. Now I need to have Mt Rushmore on my list of trips to make so that I can see what the original carver might have done if he had stayed and finished. However the original vision might have been, the finished product is a sight to see!
I also went to the little theatre in the park that was 4 dimensional. I had not been to something like that before. Very interesting, one of the items was a big snake that hissed. It caused air to blow in my face, I nearly put in a skylight to their little theatre...
Anyway, I need to get on the move and cause more pictures. And get ready for my big trip. (I leave 14 weeks, 6 days from now: not that I'm counting or anything)
