Atlanta & Stone Mountain, Georgia

Visited Nov. 23-29, 2020

By Janell

Note:  This is an "after the fact" post as we work our way backwards to catch you up on our previous destinations.

So, you want to go to Atlanta, and you want to sleep in your motorhome?

The only decent RV park that I could find anywhere near Atlanta was Stone Mountain Campground in Stone Mountain Park. It’s a very large park and a very popular place for families to hang out. I called three months in advance and got the very last spot (that would fit the Beast), but that spot didn't have "full hook-ups". "I'll take it", I said. But I continued to call back every couple of weeks to see if they'd had any cancellations. 

Full hook-ups (FHU) means water, sewer and electric. This particular site did not have a sewer connection. We were staying here for a week, so to stay without a sewer connection meant that we would need to pack up and go to the dump station (within the park) a couple of times during that week. (Showers, laundry, dishes, etc.) We could do it, but if we didn't have to . . .

Finally one week before we were due to arrive, I got lucky! They had one cancellation, and I got it! Yahoo! 

 

Stone Mountain - you can see why they call it that - it's just one big rock

We hiked the appropriately named "Walk Up Trail" one mile to the top of Stone Mountain

You can see downtown Atlanta from the top

Oh sure, now you tell me there's an easier way

One of the things we had wanted to do while in Atlanta was to visit Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. Unlike most national parks this one is in an urban setting and includes several buildings.

 Unfortunately, due to Covid, not a bit of it was open. We still walked around to see what we could see.

 

MLK took inspiration from Gandhi. He wrote that "India's Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change".

MLK's birth home

We enjoyed the Ponce City Market in Atlanta. It's housed in an old Sears building -- it used to be retail, warehouse and a regional office for Sears.

 

Ponce City Market has shops and eateries inside and outside

 

 

  Ever on the look out for good breweries, we found one we really liked.

Their artwork and decor were very cool also!

 We were in the Stone Mountain Campground for Thanksgiving week (could have something to do with why they were so booked up). We have an oven in the Beast, but it's not a very big one or a very good one, so there was no way I was going to cook a turkey in it! Nonetheless we enjoyed our Thanksgiving meal.

Acorn squash stuffed with a medley of sausage, vegetables and rice then topped with mozzarella

We bicycled two different trails while in the Atlanta area.

We pedaled 20 miles on the Arabia Mountain Path (aka the AMP), just east of Atlanta.

 It had lots of ups and downs and gave us a good workout!

We also pedaled a few miles on the BeltLine Trail and around Piedmont Park in Atlanta. These are all sights along the trail.

What a clever paint job!

On our last day in the Atlanta area we spent a few hours at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. It was well worth our time! 

One of the exhibits they have there is very unique: a simulated lunch counter. You're given disposable ear buds and told to have a seat at the lunch counter and to close your eyes. Via the ear buds you experience a simulation of what the 1960's sit-in participants would have experienced. You will flinch. You may shudder. You may have tears in your eyes by the time you're done; I did. and this was just a simulated experience, so we could only imagine the real life sit-ins and how those students must have felt.

(Due to Covid only one family group may sit at the lunch counter at a time, and they sanitized everything in between groups.)

You can see a bit of the museum's unique exterior on the left side of this photo. Notice that Atlanta's high-rises are lost in the fog.

Outside the National Center for Civil and Human Rights