Day 39 – July 27, 2019

We promised Ashley she could sleep in.

And she slept.

And she slept.

And she slept.

Finally, at 10:30, we had enough and we woke her up. Her reaction? “10:30 is early.” Then she rolled over and went back to sleep.

At long last, Ashley got up, got fed, and got cleaned up.

We were on the road by noon. Thankfully, our stop was only a few minutes away.

We parked at the trailhead for the hike to the top of Stone Mountain.

Ashley wanted none of it. She protested that there is a perfectly fine aerial tram we could take to the top.

But her mood improved when the first thing we saw was a baby dear and its mother grazing in a thicket.

Around the next corner we found a collection of Confederate flags.

After all, the purpose of this park is to celebrate the Confederacy.

We continued our hour-long hike. Even though the entire mountain is made of stone, there are many trees providing shade which made the hike more comfortable.

Eventually, we got above the tree-line. And the trail got quite steep as we neared the top.

We finally made it. We were standing directly above the giant sculpture of the Confederate leaders.

We also found the tram station and a snack bar.

Ashley celebrated her successful climb with a helping of Dippin’ Dots.

Ashley said that Cowles Mountain could really use a snack bar like this one.

After our descent, we visited the highly touristy retail mall at the base of the mountain.

We got an up close look at the sculpture.

Around the permiter of the park are monuments for the 13 Confederate states.

The tone of the write ups made us laugh. As you might have guessed, they were very pro Confederates and anti Union.

The Civil War was merely a war of independence. The Confederates were brave soldiers, while the Union troops were called raiders.

We celebrated mass at a nearby church and return to our site for the evening activities. A hot dog roast.

We got the firewood at the camp store. There were plenty of fallen twigs all around our tent for kindling. Ashley was happy to donate lined paper that she was supposed to be doing school work on to get the fire started. Within minutes, we had a raging fire.

I’m not sure what kind of wood they sold us, but they should build homes with it because that stuff would not burn. No matter, we kept things going with the twigs and stuff.

After eating plenty of roasted dogs, we moved on to making s’mores.

Cooked to perfection.

Another awesome day was in the books. Tomorrow, we start heading west for the long drive home.