As most of you know, I am often cold. During the winter, waking up
and getting out of bed in a 68°F house is hard. In my car, waking up to
44° or colder and getting out of my sleeping bag is also hard. I've
resorted to bribery. Having a full bladder and an interesting day
planned are helpful, but tasty bribes also help me get out of bed. My
current bribes are chocolate and precooked bacon. These are wonderful
options because they don't need refrigeration nor heated up. I put an
unopened box of bacon on the seat next to my bed, and in the morning,
I'm munching on bacon while getting dressed! It's effective!
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Stone Mt. carving
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There are three monadnocks near Atlanta. I visited two, Stone Mt. and Padoga Mt. A monadnock is formed by
land eroding, exposing harder materials like granite. Mountains are formed by tectonic plates colliding and pushing land
upwards. Both can be really tall. Stone Mt. is over 825" tall. I rode a gondola
to the top of Stone Mt. and walked the one mile down. It's a fast ride
to the top, and one short trip is was not enough time to enjoy my first gondola
ride, look at the surrounding scenery, mountain's carving, and listen to the
conductor's spiel about the mountain. A carving on the side of Stone Mt. depicts Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and their horses. It is larger than Mt. Rushmore by 30 feet, but I think that's including the oval area around the three men. (Mt. Rushmore is more impressive.) A section of Stone Mt. was quarried for granite, but Padoga Mt. has low quality granite and thus was never heavily quarried. I think it's neat hearing the mountain was quarried, and knowing from my visit to Vermont about the quarrying process!
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Lunar New Year
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My visit to Stone Mt. also coincided with a Lunar New Year celebration. 2023 is the year of the rabbit. A visitor could learn calligraphy, how to make a simple paper lantern, and knot tying. I learned to tie a peace knot for a basic bracelet, which now hangs from a hand hold in my car. I ate egg rolls and noodle bowls from a food truck and watched two dragons duel. After dark, a parade of three dragons, and people carrying cube paper lanterns lead the way to a grassy field next to the mt. for a light show, drones, and fireworks! However, I could not stay for the light show because I had to drive back to the campground before they locked their gates at 10pm. The dragons were cool to watch and the egg rolls were delicious.
Driving around Atlanta was an exercise in patience and safe driving. Large construction zones reduced the number of highway lanes down to one and there were always a lot of cars on the road. I learned to plan an additional 30-60 minutes driving time on top of what the gps indicated. Surprisingly, the best time to drive on the highway around Atlanta was at 5pm. Day time construction crews were gone and night crews not yet arrived so most of the highway was open and traffic could flow steadily.
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Top of Stone Mt.
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Top of Panola Mt.
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Panola Mt. is a monadnock like Stone Mt. but visually very different. There is a lot less plant life on Stone Mt. Panola is a conservatory park, meaning visitors are only allowed on the mt. during ranger lead hikes. Signing up for the three hour hike is worth it (restrooms were available twice during the hike). Signing up for their tree climbing class would also have been awesome, but they are only held one weekend a month and it did not work out. During the ranger led hike, I learned about the history of the mt. and who occupied the land; starting with the Native Americans being forced off, next through a government land lottery it became a cotton plantation, at some point was used to make and store boot leg whiskey, later sold during the Great Depression to a wealthy car salesman, and lastly sold by the salesman's daughters to Georgia to become a conservatory park. I also learned how the massive granite landscape will one day be a forest. Moss and lichen grow on the rock and slowly break it down. Little by little, soil is built up, larger plants take root, birds and rabbits build their homes, and eventually nature builds a pine forest. This process is also happening on Stone Mt, but since visitors are allowed to walk wherever they want to, the process is much slower. It was neat to compare the two mountains and see the differences.
Georgia was nice to visit, but I don't like driving around Atlanta.
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Campfire pizza
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Mountain plants
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| Two dragons |
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Looks like shale
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