Stone Mountain

Sounds pretty intimidating, right? Our last day in Atlanta was spent at Stone Mountain, which is a state park outside of Atlanta. Stone Mountain, apparently a big deal in Georgia, is a lot like Mount Rushmore, except not as well known. I mean, I had never heard of it before. The actual mountain has a carving of three Civl War generals with their horses. The first thing on our agenda was to climb the mountain! Sounds like quite a feat, but in reality, it's only a 1.2 mile hike. Of course, once you add in the absurdly steep slope, you're pretty wiped out by the time you get to the top. There were some parts of the mountain that I was walking parallel with the ground in an effort not to fall. All in all, a good experience. The view at the top was extravagant.

After the hike, we cooled off before grabbing some lunch, which I hardly remember eating we were so hungry. We watched a few shows before hitting the SkyHike; yes, that's as frightening as it sounds. They strap you in like they would when you rock climb and you're lead to level one, two, or three. We went to level two, because I decided that level one was for whimps, and well, level three is for the brave. Big mistake. You get up there, and it's 24 feet, mind you, and you totally freeze. At least, I did. When you're that high up, trying to walk a tightrope, it's hard to remember that it's impossible to fall. They strapped you in goood! But that doesn't take away the fear. I can't even explain it, but I will never, ever do it again.

After the unpleasant situation of feeling like we were falling to our deaths, we visited a plantation house. Safe. Unless of course you were a slave. Good thing that ended over 100 years ago. This was the third(?) plantation house I've seen, each one more majestic than the last. Built between 1792 to 1875, this Antebellum Plantation was moved and restored at Stono in 1961. It's surrounded by two slave cabins, a doctors cabin, two other houses, and several farm buildings. The doctors cabin was the most interesting house as it served as a field hospital to Confederate soldiers during the Battle of Atlanta. Call me morbid, but I thought it was cool to think that Civil War soldiers bled in the building we were standing in.

The last adventure of the day was watching a light show over the Stone Mountain carving. I don't know about you, but I had never seen a light show before. In all it's grandeur, I found it to be a little boring. That and I had been walking around for ten hours. All I wanted was to sleep. My favorite part was the country music they played, such as "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Georgia On My Mind." I'll have those songs stuck in my head for weeks!

Currently, I'm sitting in a condo right off of Panama City Beach. It was raining when we arrived, but it seemed to have cleared off now. I hope that we get to walk the beach tonight. I've never met anyone who didn't completely adore the ocean.