Florida Trip - Part 1

And so began our adventure....some sleeping, some watching out the window....

some showing some pre-adolescent attitude toward their mother.

The first stop was Atlanta, Georgia to visit a rock.

This wasn't just any ol' rock......

it was HUGE

Ginormous, to borrow a younger generation's word.

 

There was a mile and a quarter trail you could climb up one side of the rock.

We took a sky lift ride to the top instead

and here is the view of Atlanta down below.

Stone Mountain is the name of it.  It is located just east of Atlanta.  It literally is a big rock dropped in the middle of nowhere. 

It is composed of granite that has been used in some pretty famous places.  The granite cut here was the material of choice to build the steps of the capitol building in DC ( I think that was the right building) (ask John, he'll remember). 

Anyway, they don't operate a quarry there anymore.  The ginormous rock  is  now just a tourist attraction.

This is a nice little sculpture carved into the side of Stone Mountain.  This reaches roughly 1/3 of the way up the side of the rock.

Here is a picture of my kids standing in front of a scale model of the horse's nose seen in the picture above.  That ought to give you an idea of the scale of the whole thing.

After admiring rocks, it was on to tour a civil war museum.  This worked great since the kids just finished studying the civil war in school.

After we expanded our knowledge of history, it was on to stretch our legs on the ropes courses.  The kids absolutely loved doing this.  In fact we went back for a second round after lunch.

They had a zip line that all of them tried and loved.

Here is emily zipping her way down the hill.

Grant did great.  He hung on for dear life.

John tackled and conquered the rock climbing wall. He scampered clear to the top so easily.  It confirmed to me that he is a little squirrelly!

Here goes grant for another round on the ropes course, dragging dad with him.

Emily and Grace on a different part of the course.

By this time everyone was hot and tired so we went to see the ducks.

These aren't the feathery kind of duck.  They are military vehicles used during the wars that have been converted for tourist use.  They were very interesting.

 Yep, that's a life vest.  We went for a duck ride.

Yep, THOSE would be duck bills.

The kind people who work at Stone Mountain passed a pair out to EVERYONE who rode the duck.

YEP, they would be just as annoying as you would imagine them to be.

 Yep the kids on the duck blew on the kazoo/duck bills the ENTIRE TRIP.

Advil, anyone?

This would be Grace driving the duck.

Grant too.

I am not sure how they get by letting kids drive these things, but the kids had a blast doing it, so who really cares?

John drove too, but Emily politely declined.  Scaredy cat!!

Come back later to see Part 2 of vacation.  I've got to go help mom sort pictures.....

right after I figure out how to get these goggles off......

Bye!!