Stuck

We had a long holiday weekend and so we decided to take the family to Stone Mountain. We go there a few times a year since it is only about 45 minutes from our house. We typically purchase an annual park pass so that we can do the attractions as well as just enjoy the nature aspect of the park.

The park offers a tram ride to the top of Stone Mountain. (You can see the cable towers in the photo above). The tram car carries up to 82 people per car and runs every 15 minutes or so. We've been to the top many times, but it never gets old, so away we went - it was about 5pm. The top of the mountain is a large area with a fence around the steep sides and then on one side the mountain slopes off so there is a trail you can walk down. The trail down the mountain is about a mile, but it is pretty steep and it is not smooth walking. There are boulders to step off and around and just general mountainy stuff. It is recommended that you wear proper hiking shoes for the trail.

When we were done enjoying the view from above, we noticed that the top of the mountain was basically deserted and we were alone. GREAT! There would be no line for the tram ride down. WRONG! We went in to the mountain top lobby to find that they had closed the tram ride down to the bottom due to a storm looming on the horizon. They had the weather channel on and we could see that there was indeed a very large storm coming in from Alabama. The park ranger suggested that once it hits, we could be waiting for a few hours for it to pass over. Basically, we were stuck on the top of the mountain - at the mercy of mother nature. Knowing that I was not dressed for hiking, nor were my kids, nor was Hunk, we thought we should wait it out. By now it was 6pm and we were ready for dinner. We decided to go to the mountain top snack shop and bite the bullet to purchase overpriced, low quality food. The alternative was to start walking, or wait it out and get really hungry. The problem with waiting it out was that 1) my kids get really irritating when they are overly hungry. 2) Hunk puts on an ASSHAT quicker than a bee to honey when he is not fed on a regular schedule. I was not in any mood to deal with either of these so $8 hotdogs was fine with me!!

PROBLEM! When they close the tram ride, they close THE ENTIRE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN!? So the snack shop became CLOSED for our wait. Now, I'm no marketing genius, but to me this is the.worst.idea.ever. We were captive and hungry, I was willing to pay out the ass for crap - this should be a retailers dream. With this, we decided that the waiting idea was out.

The storm was not yet on us, no rain, only clouds on the horizon. We decided to start walking despite our attire. It wasn't really all that bad, but it makes me wonder what the protocol is if we had brought Grandma along. Seeing as how the tram was to close for the night at 8:30, what is the deal if this big storm comes in and last for hours!!?? At what point, and how, do they finally get folks to the bottom of the mountain? It took us about 40 minutes to walk down, we were going pretty slow due to fact that two of us were wearing shoes that slide rather easily. It did make my knees scream (still are hurting), but it was fun and we saw lots of carvings on the way down. The mountain has been visited by people for many years and there were carvings dated back to 1814 - probably some were even older, but that is what we saw. Pretty amazing that they are still there!!

So, we survived the trek and we promptly went out to dinner. Did you know? Stone Mountain is an un-erupted volcano?? That is your history for the day, my friend.

SNOW Day!?

In Atlanta we don't get snow very often. If we are lucky, we will get ice once or twice a year. So when Stone Mountain Park decided to become SNOW Mountain Park we were definately in.

They took the gigantic sloping lawn (typically used for Laser Show viewings) and have turned it into a snow tubing slope with 8 lanes, snow blowers and the works. THey added a snow playing area and provide everything you need to build snowmen, igloos, sled, etc. We just purchased a lift ticket and show up - no equipment or toys needed.

We got to the park at 3pm today and I brought all of our snow clothing - bibs, boots, heavy coats, gloves, hats, scarves - you name it, I had it. We got out of the car and proceeded to put the stuff on before walking over to the entrance. I started to feel really silly because it was actually really warm out today - 62 degrees at the time we were doing this. People in the parking lot were in short sleeves, no coats, and thought perhaps we were over-dressing for this. I got the kids all suited up, but I carried my own snowpants. I needed to see if they were actually necessary before I was going to put them on. Turns out, lots of people were wearing snow gear, so we didn't look ridiculous once we got to the tube hill.

See what's wrong with this picture? This is the line for the tubing hill, all these people you see are going SNOW TUBING. Do you see the guy in khaki shorts and a Tommy Bahama shirt??? SNOW tubing, people.

The first area we went was the snow playing area where the snowmen/igloo building was. It was very soft "snow", but it was super slippery. It was the consistency of an ICEE drink. The snow blower then came on and the "snow" was coming out in giant chunks. It was funny to watch this pipe toss out hunks of ice/snow mix. It was not at all like snow blowing at ski resorts - likely due to the temperature. My kids still thought it was awesome. You can't tell from the picture, but they are standing in the falling snow chunks here. They put on their coats so they would not get it in their hair, but they both spent most of the day with their coats off. It was warm!!

The tubing line was long, on the first run we waited for 30 minutes. The sessions are only 2 hours, so I thought that a 30 minute wait was a bit obnoxious. It turned out in the end that we were able to go down the hill 4 times in 2 hours. We may have been able to get in one more run, but the kids slowed us down a bit. The tube ride was fun - the "snow" had melted quite a bit with the bright, warm day we were having. Everything was pretty drippy, but there was a nice thick base so the slopes were fine. By sundown, the melty was beginning to get packed and hard so the slopes got a lot FASTER. They kept blowing the icee mix the whole time, and I am still amazed that they are able to keep SNOW in this weather. It is crazy!!

I am VERY glad we wore all the snow gear because if you can imagine playing, rolling and tubing in an ICEE you can imagine that we got very wet. The snow clothing came in handy for keeping us dry, though we were all a bit hot in the thickness.

I don't have a lot of good pics, we had the camera, but Hunk ended up leaving it at the school function we stopped at along the way. We needed to go help the Drama dept. get ready for a play my oldest is in. They were playing with the makeup and we took a few pictures, the camera was put down and then forgotten. I did end up purchasing a toss away camera, but I won't see those pics for a few days. It is hard to use film after being so accustomed to digital. I ran out of shots quickly because I'm so used to taking a bazillion pics and just deleting the bad ones. Hopefully I don't have a film roll full of bad pics!! I guess in this respect that film will never die. There will always be the disposable camera, I don't think they will be able to create a disposable digital camera - or maybe there is such a thing and I live under a rock.? What I have today is from my iPhone....so yeah, they suck.

We had a lot of fun - I hope I got some good pictures on the disposable camera, because this was just something to see - in Atlanta - a snow slope. Who would've thought?? We are actually expecting some REAL SNOW according to the weather man - possibly on Monday evening. Can everyone please just put all your karma, postive thoughts, prayers or whatever you choose that we will get a frickin' BLIZZARD? I could use a day off this week - my calendar is packed!!