Day 5, Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain Park was more of an afterthought. In the current plan, I decided to make it a destination. All that I had learned, in my initial research, was that it was the site of a civil war memorial, on an order of Mount Rushmore. There is the Stone Mountain Railroad, a scenic railroad, encircling the park. It was the remains of the quarry railroad, when there was stone being extracted from the hills. To make things more interesting is the skyride up the mountain and the high view, with a view of Atlanta, in the distance. OK, it is worth a try. I have a emotional problems with civil war memorials. I use to be very interested in the Civil War. I had be been to Appomattox a number of times. In fact I had an ancestor who had land four miles from the surrender site. In my childhood, I was a proud Southerner. My problem is as an liberal white man, I have a guilt associated with the South's defense of slavery. I have the problem in that it is a grave injustice perpetrated by my ancestors. I have several where it is documented, who owned slaves. I can't just say to myself that it was not me. But they were family. The other problem is that it is history, get over it. Hardly!!!! The question is how to deal with it.

I arrived early, before the attractions opened. I had a chance to walk around before crowds got heavy. That made it nice as far as picture taking. Yes! I did get a picture of the memorial, but not the Memorial Hall.

I made my way to Crossroads area. I was the second car there. I walked around and perused the gift store and got my mug and patch. It was here that the train would leave. Not a very good place to picture the train.

I videoed the first train out and found a good crossing. One problem, the visitors at that point were hiking to the summit or returning. Some were circling the lake. They had no respect for the train watcher, I was. Here are my views of the train:

OK! Finally then skyride. I did not take to the summit but did get these views: