Stone Mountain

 This past week was our school system's fall break, so we decided to head to the mountains.  On the way up, we stopped for two nights in Atlanta to visit Cassie and go to Stone Mountain.  Stone Mountain is actually not a mountain at all, but a large, exposed rock.  On the side of Stone Mountain is the world's largest relief carving.  This carving features confederate heroes Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson on horseback.  Brian and I have not been to Stone Mountain in a long time, and we were surprised by how much they have added.  We spent a full day in the park and were still not able to do everything.






First on the agenda was riding the "ducks"- military amphibious vehicles.  Our driver provided us all with whistles that made duck sounds so that we could get into the spirit of the tour.  These whistles, by the way, were blown almost non-stop by all children for the duration of the tour.  We drove around for a bit and learned about the history of the mountain.  Then it was time for the main attraction- driving into the lake. The kids thought that this was cool, and there were lots of "oohs" and "ahhs" when the vehicle took the plunge.  We cruised around for a bit and then the driver asked if anyone would like to try driving the duck.  Both Owen and Olivia tried their hand at it.  

After our tour on the ducks, we headed to the ropes courses.  The kids were both tall enough to do the high ropes course.  I don't have any pictures because they wouldn't let us have anything in our pockets when we did this.  The high ropes course was awesome.  We were strapped into a safety harness and then we completed four stories worth of obstacles.  We crossed narrow platforms, walked on tightropes, and did all sorts of fun things during our trek.  Olivia was a little nervous about the height at first, but she conquered her fear and was doing all of the hard stuff by the end.  We even completed the challenge level.  Afterwards, the kids did the same types of activities on the low ropes course.  Since these ropes were just a few feet off the ground, they didn't have to have a safety harness (and I could take pictures).

 After completing the ropes course, we had lunch and then took the train ride around the base of the mountain.  The train ride was nice, but it just made us want to get to the top.  So, once we got off the train, we walked over to the cable car and rode to the summit.  From the top, we could see the skyline of downtown Atlanta.  We walked around the top of the rock for a bit and took lots of silly pictures.  After coming back down we let the kids play in the "great barn" play area until it was time to go.  We all agree that Stone Mountain is a fun place to spend the day and we hope to return at some point in the future.