Glorious Friday

We finished school early today and drove over to Stone Mountain for a picnic lunch and a hike.

On the drive in to the park K. spotted a wild turkey with her babies, and we also saw a lot of deer. We found a great picnic spot beside a stream, and shared our extra bits of bread, pepperoni, and brownies with the trout. I had planned on a 1.5 mile hike called Wolf Rock Trail, but when we got to the trail map and that trail was marked "strenuous," I tried to talk the kids out of it. They wouldn't hear of it, though, so Ed drove on up to the old homestead and I told him that he should give us an hour or so before he alerted the park rangers. T. insisted on being the gentleman and carrying the water bottle. K. was her usual wayward, silly self, darting off in all directions after butterflies, interesting sticks, and flowers. Our progress was slow, but the kids were pretty good. I had expected Wolf Rock to be a rock that looked like a wolf, but instead it is an enormous stretch of rock from which you can see out over a glorious range of mountains. It was far more spectacular than anything I had expected, and, of course, my pictures don't begin to show what it really looked like.

After Wolf Rock, I was a little iffy on how to get from where we were to where we wanted to be (the homestead), but I made a couple good guesses, and my little trail buddies were very good at finding the trail markers, and we ended up exactly where I had hoped -- at the big field beside the homestead. It was very satisfying! I was a little taken aback by the many signs posted near the end of the trail ( for people travelling it backwards from our route) with warnings like, "Dangerous Cliffs," "Steep Cliffs with Serious Danger of Fatal Falls," etc. If those had been posted at the end where we'd started, we wouldn't have started. It was fabulous, though, and I think T. will be willing to hike it with me again.

We made our now traditional stop for ice cream cones afterwards.