Day 18

We decided to rotate the tent yesterday in hopes we would all sleep better. I would venture to say it would have been better had it not been raining most of the night. We were all trying to keep away from the sides of the tent so they didn't buldge out and invite rain into the tent. Once it stopped we were all in a clump just trying to eek out a little more sleep before the sun.

Once we were all relatively clean and fed we decided to go to the visitor's center and a short trail nearby. We'd heard there was a movie about the building of the parkway so that was first on our agenda. We've seen tons of movies at visitor's centers so we were thinking it would be like those but it was a full-length documentary of the project. We watched until the big political twist and headed to the tiny gift shop.

After getting some hiking advice for the next day we walked to Wild Cat Rocks Overlook for a peek at the view.  On our way we passed by the lodge and a restaurant that were closed. We'd heard with the troubles passing the budget there were many things that were closed and short-staffed. Apparently there was also a concessionaire that pulled out of the parkway business a few years ago that causes many building to be closed. We are definitely not used to this on our trips to bigger parks!

I forgot my camera in the car so just trust me that it was another beautiful view of those blue mountains!  We spotted the roof of the cabin we were looking for down at the base of the mountain. This cabin is the last remaining building in it's original location after a landslide the demolished the community in the 30s. We continue to learn about how tough the lives were of the people who lived in these mountains 75 years ago.

With a beautiful afternoon ahead of us we decided to venture off the parkway to Stone Mountain State Park. These curvy mountain roads make slow going so I forget it takes quite a while longer to travel 10 or 15 miles than 10 or 15 minutes! The kids spotted a country store with ice cream so of course we had to stop. The selection was better than the last few places we'd been but we still haven't found our amazing spot yet.

Once we were at the park, Evey was excited to walk up to the top and two of mine were excited about going to see the waterfalls. We opted to see the mountain first but found out at the trail head it would be a 8.5 mile strenuous walk. Evey was immediately out! We ended up walking the trail to a spot where we could view the mountain and the homestead of a family that lived there.































Evey is absolutely the expert at finding tiny wildlife. This day she found a salamander on the trail that we hadn't seen yet. He was very jumpy but she managed to hold him for a picture or two. I've never seen salamanders so small!

Once we were back off the trail to the parking lot the kids were wiped out. While Evey made a phone call - on an actual pay phone! - to her dad Ryan found a beautiful, huge painted rock and decided to keep it (for now says me). We grabbed some ice and headed back to the campsite for the night.

It was cool enough for a fire again this night so after dinner Emily and I relaxed by the fire while the kids played and read. Evey broke out the popcorn after awhile and we had fun trying to make it with the kids without burning it. The first batch received some punctures that it couldn't recover from so Emily tossed it in the fire and the adults handled the second one. After what seemed like 95 minutes, we had popcorn and the kids were thrilled.

Once it was dark enough we put out the fire and headed to the meadow for flashlight tag. There weren't more than about 10 places to hide so once those were exhausted a few times we switched to flashlight freeze tag for awhile. There were a few motorcycle guys staying in our loop so after 10 minutes or so of that we retired so we wouldn't bug them too much. Our kids our loud! Hoping the sleeping situation would be better this night, we slipped into our sleeping bags and were all asleep within a couple minutes.