Another day in the ATL, we got up, got dressed with
bathing suits under the kids’ clothes, and I remembered the very important
towels, this time. We had a nice French toast
and sausage patty breakfast, except for Jory, whom I discovered quite enjoys
Lucky Charms, which he’s had at Miss Adina’s.
We got on the road and started on the thirty/forty some
mile trek to Stone Mountain. I had it
pegged as an all-day event. I still wasn’t
quite sure why Stone Mountain was famous or so overpriced, but we were about to
find out.
After what seemed like forever, we finally arrived.
The view of Stone Mountain from our parking spot.
I wanted to do our Ride the Duck tour first, but all the
tickets were sold out until the afternoon.
So I asked Jory what he wanted to do and he said, of course, ride the
train. Forget getting wet, it’s all
about the train. We walked around the
theme park and found the train depot.
There would be a forty minute wait until the next train, so we needed to
find something to do in the meantime.
Miniature golf was right behind the train depot, so I figured we could
do that.
Miniature golf never appealed to me. I never got why people liked it. The purpose of it. It’s equal as boring as real golf, except you
can talk in this version of golf. The
golf course was cute it was based on the real life adventures of the Great
Locomotive Chase. We were in hot pursuit
of the stolen General locomotive.
I tried to show Jory the right stance to hit a golf ball,
but when you have a group of people behind you waiting for their turn and two
other kiddos eager to hit their balls, the stance sort of gets lost in the
midst.
I tried to keep score, but because of the aforementioned
reasons and their excitement that became a dream from hole one. Time got short, so we jumped ahead to a hole
that was empty and tried to finish the game quickly but we could hear the train
coming so we ditched the game, turned in our balls and golf clubs and headed
across the tracks to the train depot.
We let the kids choose which train car to ride in. Jory wanted to be upfront. We found our seats, everyone had a bench to
him or herself. We settled in, only to
be old the car we were in was closed and we had to move. We moved back to another car and everyone
found a seat with a window view.
The full size locomotive with open air cars from the ‘40s
took off and off we went around the park.
We saw a lot of trees and more trees and more trees. Then we came to a cute fake Western town,
complete with a post office and Western Union.
And for the first time, we saw why Stone Mountain was called Stone
Mountain.
Stone Mountain is known as the largest exposed piece of
granite in the world. Only 1% of the granite
is above ground, the other 99% is below ground and stretches out through four
states. And besides those facts, Stone
Mountain is the South’s version of Mount Rushmore.
"The largest bas relief sculpture in the world, the
Confederate Memorial Carving depicts three Confederate leaders of the Civil
War, President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee
and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (and
their favorite horses, "Blackjack", "Traveller", and "Little Sorrel",
respectively). The entire carved surface measures 3 acres (12,000 m2),
about the size of two and a quarter football fields. The carving of the three
men towers 400 feet (120 m) above the ground, measures 90 by 190 feet
(58 m), and is recessed 42 feet (13 m) into the mountain. The deepest
point of the carving is at Lee's elbow, which is 12 feet (3.7 m) to the
mountain's surface."
Wow, a large depiction of a dude who was president of a country
that existed for like a half minute?
Between this sculpture and the Oakland Cemetery, I wondered if the South
knew they lost the war. A lot of proud
people who lost a war, it was like Australians being proud of the roots of
their country. But bygones.
The lake in front of the mountain.
After the pleasant train ride, we had enough time to kill
before Riding the Duck to go on the Summit Skyride.
Not happy that she couldn't sit on the railings, while we waited for the Summit Skyride.
Up, up, and away we went.
“This
high-speed Swiss cable car provides a stunning view of the Confederate Memorial
Carving as it transports guests more than 825 feet above ground to the top of
Stone Mountain. From the top, experience amazing views of the Atlanta skyline,
the Appalachian Mountains and more up to 60 miles away.”
After getting
to the top, it was picture time. I don’t
know what I was expecting, but not a gigantic rock that Jory jumped and ran
on. Maybe I thought the views would be
spectacular from every angle. Or that if
I took a picture of TTT that there would be a picturesque backdrop that you
could tell we were nearly 1700 feet above ground. But bygones.
Jory and I walked around, while the girls went back inside with
Oma. He wanted to go to the very edge,
so I let him. I was slightly
disappointed there was a fence around the top, but obviously there had to be or
people would go too far over and plummet to their deaths.
TTT on the top of Stone Mountain
Jory at the edge of the mountain
He's the king of the world
On a boat like Leo
We went back
down the mountain and it was time to Ride the Duck. We did this in Seattle, so the kids were
excited to do it again, complete with once again getting more duck
whistles.
Ride the Duck tours are “the
only tour where you go from land to water to land again and you never leave
your seat! The Duck vehicles are 1940's era Army DUKWs, converted into
comfortable open-air vehicles for your viewing and listening pleasure. “
Views from the Duck
The captain
of the Duck was funny and let all the kids onboard “drive” the boat in the
water. At first, Jory hid. He said he didn’t want to drive. Really?!
The boy obsessed with boats and cars, doesn’t want to drive a
boat?! I asked twice and he said, no, so
I let it go.
Of course, towards the end
of the water portion, he said, he wanted to drive. Luckily we were able to get him in the driver’s
seat.
There's a deer or a doe somewhere along the edge of that island. I never saw it, but everyone else said theydid.
And to make this Duck ride like
last time, Layla fell asleep once again.
Must be something about the soothing motions of the Army DUKWs in the
water that lulls her to sleep.
After Ride
the Duck, it was back into the park to get wet.
TTT stripped down to their bathing suits and were ready to go to Geyser
Towers. There was space to climb, water
fountains on the ground, and then I discovered you needed shoes in order to
climb the tower. I looked at the light
up Princess shoes the girls had on and thought yeah, them getting wet isn’t
worth them ruining these new shoes. Jory’s
tennis shoes were wash and wear so I told him to go in peace.
Then he was
stopped because he also needed to keep a shirt on to climb the tower. Are you kidding me?! I hadn’t brought an extra shirt for him
because boys don’t wear tops when they get wet.
Crap! Why wasn’t this info posted
on their website? Fine, I sucked it up
and let Jory climb and then I was told the girls could go barefoot as long as
they didn’t climb the tower. SCORE! Everyone’s happy. Though I did go check out the stand selling
gear for kids to play in Geyser Towers.
I was pleasantly surprised to find the price for children’s crocodile
shoes weren’t that much more than they would have been in the store, depending
on where you shopped. They were only
$9.99.
I couldn’t
even see Jory in the towers, but he seemed to have the time of his life, while
the girls had a rockin’ time on the ground floor while their mommy jumped back
to stop from getting too wet.
An hour
later, it was time to move on to the Sky Hike, which was just me and Jory while
the girls killed with Oma in the hot sun.
This park needed more shaded area.
It was like the designers didn’t know where the park was being built, in
Atlanta opened during the summer time.
“Visit Sky
Hike to trek through the treetops on one of the nation’s largest family
adventure course. No two hikes are the same! Your choices make each
hike a new challenge while secured to the patented overhead safety
system.
Explore the
quarter of a mile course with your kids. Master suspended wooden
bridges. Leap from one wooden slat to another. Balance on a single
rope high above the ground. Or climb to the top on vertical net
bridges.
You have
control of your trek as you pick from a 12 ft. trail for beginners, a 24 ft.
high trail for the somewhat courageous and the super challenge trail at nearly
40 ft. in the air (four stories high), for the true daredevil in
you. “
We went on
the beginners’ trail and that was fine.
Then we went on the high trail and I saw Oma and the girls and I told
Jory, this is our last trail we have to go back to Oma. I thought the trails would be quick and
easy. Well, they weren’t difficult, but
they definitely weren’t quick due to the fact that only one person at a time
could do the obstacle course thingy at a time and only four people could be on
a platform inbetween the course thingies at a time. This combined with super slow people made the
trek take a gazillion times longer, particularly for the family members waiting
out in the hot sun.
Jory was
ahead of me and when I finally got my chance to do my obstacle course thingy,
he had moved on to the super challenge trail.
Dude! Not only had he moved on
but he periodically would “fall” of the rope since we were attached and secured
to the metal bar overhead. It was like
he thought we were bungee jumping. I had
to keep reminding him we weren’t and that his doing that slowed down the
process.
We finally
finished the course and saw a mini the girls could have done, but by that time
Oma and the girls were on the move so we had to find them and Oma wasn’t in the
best of moves. It’s been a while since
she had been to a theme park and she had forgotten how much hurry up and wait
time existed in places like these. And
to add the happy, happy, joy, joy, Rowan forgot to mention to Oma that they
could take off their bathing suits because they had underwear and t-shirts in
the backpack, so now the girls’ clothes were wet from the bathing suits. Whatever, we were going home soon.
We found a
restaurant with open seating and sat down to eat. When had I turned into the mom from A
Christmas Story? I got the kids’ food
and Oma’s sat it down on the table, then went to get the drinks, brought those
back to the table, then went to go get my own food. When I got back to the table, the kids were
done and asking if they could have some
of my food. Are you kidding me?
It wasn’t as
late as I thought so I figured we could follow up dinner with the screening of Yogi
Bear 4-D Adventure. Yogi Bear was voiced
by Dan Aykroyd and Boo Boo by Justin Timberlake. Tom “Ed” Cavanaugh and Anna Farris were the
humans in it. Wow! Was Yogi always this stupid, along with the ranger
or was that something new added? Sitting
through these twelve minutes of film reminded me why I don’t take the kids to
see kids’ movies. Why do studios think
kids are the stupidest people in the world?
And poor Tom and Anna, really?
Really? Were these the only jobs
out there? I was embarrassed for
them. The movie concluded after a few
sprays of water and some shaking. Let me
tell you when you don’t have the glasses on, it hurts your eyes to watch a 4-D
movie. Obviously the movie wasn’t
intended for me because TTT had a blast.
Back into the
stroller and to this wonderful store that we saw on the way into the park. The store sold really cool Christian t-shirts. So we had to stock up on those. It was awesome seeing t-shirts for believers
being sold at a theme park. The South
rocks like that though.
As we were
exiting the park, people were coming in with their chairs, their coolers, to
watch the nighttime laser show. Off and
away we went tired, full, and happy from having enjoyed our time at Stone
Mountain Park. When we got to the Drury,
I knew Mona was in so we got her room number and knocked on the door. It was so great to see her, to see the boys,
to see Kayla. Oh, how I miss them.
I told the
kids, we could go swimming. Everyone
quickly grabbed their bathing suits and trunks and down to the basement we went
for some family swimming. We closed the
place down again though really 10PM because 10 PM is awfully early to close a
pool on vacation.
Not the best photo, but that's Jory catching the baby as she "dove" off the steps and Rowan is waiting her turn to do the same.
That's my big boy jumping into the pool.
TTT and my Tigger
Tigger's turn to help/watch Rowan swim
We got some drinks,
parted ways at our door, and then went inside our room, ending another busy day
in the ATL.
